Self-Esteem, Reflected Appraisals, and Self-Views: Examining Criminal and Worker Identities

This research extends prior work by integrating self-esteem into the identity theory model. I focus on understanding the processes by which self-esteem acts as a moderator of feedback from others about the self. Differences in the moderating effect of self-esteem due to the relationship of the individual to the person who is the source of feedback about the self are also considered. The criminal identity and the worker identity are studied using data collected from an incarcerated population. Results confirm that the relationship between feedback from others about the self and self-views is moderated by self-esteem. Analyses reveal that participants with high self-esteem report self-views that correspond more with feedback from others than participants with low self-esteem. The moderating properties of self-esteem operate differently for different sources of feedback about the self and for different identities, and this finding has implications for identity theory.