Status, Dominance, Or Prestige?: Domains Of Self-Esteem As Moderators Of Reactions To An Embarrassing Situation

Nicole Buttermore
2004
Three studies reexamined the findings of Leary, Landel, and Patton (1996) , by investigating how various domains of self-esteem (SE) are related to the tendency to share the emotions with others following an embarrassing event. In Study 1, participants completed measures of dominance, status, prestige, mate value, and global SE, and also performed an embarrassing singing task. Following the singing task, some participants were given the chance to communicate their embarrassment to the
more » ... , whereas others were not. It was found that dominant individuals experienced significantly less embarrassment after conveying their embarrassment to the researcher than if their feelings remained private. In contrast, low-dominance individuals' levels of self-reported embarrassment did not differ whether or not they had the opportunity to express their feelings to others. Study 2, which involved a large exploratory factor analysis, improved upon the existing measures of dominance, status, and prestige. Study 3 was an attempt to replicate Study 1, using the improved measures of dominance, status, and prestige. However, the study failed to duplicate the finding that the motivated expression of embarrassment was related to dominance. Instead, it was found that self-reported embarrassment was related to status and global SE. The relative merit of Study 1 and Study 3 for understanding individual differences in reactions to embarrassment are discussed.
doi:10.21220/s2-4cqw-nb92 fatcat:q7xdpxlar5dlncexmqhozx6b34