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The Sociometer, Self-Esteem, and the Regulation of Interpersonal Behavior…

- - - - Connection to self-esteem
      - It's function go far beyond simply affecting how people feel about themselves.
      - Their effect on well-being are mediated by the responses of other people.
      - 3 systems
        
        Detecting Threats to Relational Value
        
        A person's relational value in the eyes of other people / the degree to which other people regard their relationships with the individual as valuable or important: rejection and acceptance are the end point of a continuum of relational value.
        
        People think a good deal about other people's perceptions and evaluations of them and try to anticipate how others will react to them in future situations.
        
        People are exceptionally sensitive to events that have implications to their relational value and readily pick up on subtle cues related to their social standing.
        
        The Warning System
        
        Emotions alert us to events with potential implications for our well-being.
        
        The (So-Called) Self-Esteem Motive
- - - - When the Sociometer is set to low
        
        When it detects less relational value in the interpersonal environment than actually exists.
        
        Ex. Is comparable to a fuel gauge that indicates less gas in the tank than there really is than is warranted by the situation.
        
        Some people who have low trait self-esteem may be biaised to perceive less acceptance than actually exists.
        
        Having such an improperly calibrated Sociometer compromises the person's ability to self-regulate optimally. Ex. People overreact, both emotionnally and behaviorally.
        
        People with low self-esteem are also more likely to base their social decisions on the likelihood of being accepted by their peers.
      - When the Sociometer is set to high
        
        Such an optimistic miscalibration may seem beneficial because the person has high self-esteem and rarely experiences the aversive emotions associated with feeling devalued or rejected.
        
        Overestime their relational value and, thus, show inadequate concern for how others perceive and evaluate them.
        
        People who overestimate their relational value tend to influence, dominate, and exploit other people. They also tend to respond defensively and agressively to suggestions that they are not as wonderful as their Sociometers suggest.
        
        The extreme case of this miscalibration is narcissism
        
        On occasion, unable to discount negative feedback and rejection, a narcissist may realize that his or her relational value is not as high as assumed, resulting in a devastating crash in self-esteem.
        
        The person may feel temporarily good about circumstances but suffer negative consequences in the long run.
      - A well-placed concern for potential rejection helps to keep behavior within socially acceptable bounds.
      - When the Sociometer is excessively or insufficiently sensitive
        
        Hypersensitivity
        
        Unstable self-esteem, high variable self-esteem
        
        High dependance on other people makes their reactions particularly important, an impoverished self-concept fails to provide an anchor from which one can assess one's relational value independently of immediate feedback, and overreliance on social approval renders one's value in other people's eyes more important than it needs to be.
        
        Hyposensitivity
        
        Large changes in one's relational value to other people result in only slight movement in the sociometer and negligeable changes in state self-esteem.
        
        Leads the person to be ostracized by everyone because he or she fails to react intelligently to situations that ought to convey low or declining relational value.
        
        In extreme cases, the person is incapable of interpersonal self-regulation
        
        The person who rarely experiences anxiety, hurt feelings, or guilt in situations in which others dislike, detest, or ostracize him or her may have a broker Sociometer.
        
        Antisocial
        
        Sociopathe
        
        The selfish, manipulative, and hurtful behaviors of the person with antisocial personality disorder seem to stem from indifference to how his or her actions are perceived and evaluated by other people, and to the ostracism that often results.