High implicit self-esteem is not necessarily advantageous: discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-esteem and their relationship with anger expression and psychological health

Abstract

Two studies investigated how discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem are related to mental and physical health. We found that, compared to congruent self-esteem, discrepant self-esteem was related to more anger suppression, a more depressive attributional style, more nervousness, and more days of impaired health. The result applies not only to fragile (high explicit, low implicit) self-esteem, but also to damaged (low explicit, high implicit) self-esteem. These findings show that high implicit self-esteem is not necessarily advantageous. In individuals with low explicit self-esteem having high implicit self-esteem was related to more health problems than having low implicit self-esteem. Taken together the results suggest that discrepancies between implicit and explicit SE are detrimental to mental and physical health. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.