Through a Glass, Less Darkly?

Abstract

Self-esteem has been traditionally assessed via self-report (explicit self-esteem: ESE). However, the limitations of self-report have prompted efforts to assess self-esteem indirectly (implicit self-esteem: ISE). It has been theorized that ISE and ESE reflect the operation of largely distinct mental systems. However, although low correlations between measures of ISE and ESE empirically support their discriminant validity, similarly low correlations between different measures of ISE do not support their convergent validity. We explored whether such patterns would reemerge if more recently developed, specific, and reliable ISE measures were used. They did, although some convergent validity among ISE measures emerged once confounds resulting from conceptual mismatch, individual differences, and random variability were minimized. Nonetheless, low correlations among ISE measures are not primarily caused by the usual psychometric suspects, and may be the result of other factors including subtle differences between structural features of such measures.