Takeshi Murooka, Osaka University

"Fragile Self-Esteem"

Abstract

We develop a model of fragile self-esteem — self-esteem that is vulnerable to objectively unjustified swings — and study its implications for choices that depend on, or are aimed at protecting, one’s self-view. In our framework, a person’s self-esteem is determined by sampling his memories of ego-relevant outcomes in a fashion that in turn depends on how he feels about himself, potentially creating multiple fragile “self-esteem personal equilibria.” Self-esteem is especially likely to be fragile, as well as unrealistic in either the positive or the negative direction, if being successful is important to the agent. A person with a low self-view might exert less effort when incentives are higher. An individual with a high self-view, in contrast, might distort his choices to prevent a collapse in self-esteem, and do so especially if his true ability is low. We discuss the implications of our results for education, job search, workaholism, and aggression.

(Joint with Botond Köszegi, Central European University and George Loewenstein, Carnegie Mellon University)

Read the full paper "Fragile Self-Esteem"

Contact person: Alexander Sebald