Unfortunately, "collective" self-esteem is a misleading concept to
the general public. It is not measured the same way as self-esteem,
which consists of questions asking you what you believe, feel, and
evaluate about your~self~. On the other hand, collective self-esteem
measures ask people how they feel about themselves in relation to
~groups~ they are associated with (e.g., religion, race, gender). The
article does not hold to this distinction between "self" and
"collective" esteem consistently, so bear this in mind when reading
it.

Walter

--- In nathaniel_branden@y..., "moodychimp" <moodychimp@y...> wrote:
> A snip from google search....perhaps of value.....
>
>
>
> CURRENT RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
>
>
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> -----------
>
> Volume 7, Number 14
> Submitted: June 11, 2002
> Resubmitted: June 26, 2002
> Accepted: June 26, 2002
> Publication date: June 27, 2002
>
> THE IMPACT OF COLLECTIVE SELF- ESTEEM ON INTERGROUP EVALUATION:
SELF-
> PROTECTION AND SELF-ENHANCEMENT
> Alexia Andreopoulou
> Department of Psychology, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
>
> Diane M. Houston
> Department of Psychology, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
>
> ABSTRACT
>
> The present study examines the impact of personal success or failure
> feedback on collective self-esteem and bias. The second corollary of
> the self-esteem hypothesis - that low or threatened self-esteem will
> motivate intergroup discrimination and Crocker and Luhtanen's
> (1990)
> self-enhancement hypothesis were examined. Collective self-esteem
> was affected by status, and, contrary to the second corollary of the
> self-esteem hypothesis, participants with high collective self-
> esteem were found to show more ingroup bias (c.f. Abrams and Hogg
> 1988). However, status and self-esteem had interactive effects on
> evaluations of the ingroup and outgroup. High self-esteem was
> associated with more positive ingroup evaluations only when the
> ingroup had high status, whereas low self-esteem was associated with
> more positive outgroup evaluations only when the ingroup had low
> status. Results are discussed in terms of Crocker and Luhtanen's
> (1990) self-enhancement hypothesis.
>
> [243]
> ---------------
> [244]
>
> INTRODUCTION
>
> According to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1986), one
> important reason why people display ingroup bias is that this
> enhances social identity, thereby elevating the self-esteem of group
> members. This prediction of social identity theory has become known
> as the self-esteem hypothesis. Abrams and Hogg (1988) identified two
> corollaries of the self-esteem hypothesis. The first is that
> successful intergroup discrimination enhances social identity and
> thus elevates self-esteem, self-esteem is a dependent variable, a
> product of specific forms of intergroup behavior. The second
> corollary suggests that, because of a motivational need for positive
> self-esteem, low or threatened self-esteem will motivate intergroup
> discrimination, self-esteem is an independent variable, a motivating
> force for specific forms of intergroup behavior.
>
> Tajfel (1981, p. 255) defined social identity as "the
> individuals'
> knowledge that they belong to certain social groups together with
> some emotional and value significance to them of their group
> membership." According to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner
> 1979) the self-concept can be divided into aspects of personal and
> social identity. Personal identity is concerned with one's
> individual characteristics, whereas social identity concerns the
> characteristics of the groups to which one belongs. The
> characteristics of one' s groups may or may not also be
> characteristics of the individual. Deaux (1992) has argued that
> social identity is not necessarily claimed by all those who fall
> into a defined category and that the meaning associated with a
> particular identity category may be subjectively defined. However,
> it remains the case that some category memberships are more fluid
> than others are. Certain categories are fixed throughout the
> lifespan, it is virtually impossible to change age, disability, race
> or gender. Other categories are defined by one' s performance or
> status and are only changeable by a combination of luck and effort
> such as socio-economic status, performance in school, or on the
> sports field. Finally, some categories are chosen and could be
> changed at will such as the sports team one supports, or the
> political party one votes for.
>
> Studies of the relationship between self-esteem and ingroup bias
> have considered widely varying types of group and identity, from
> those employing a minimal group paradigm (e.g. Lemyre and Smith
> 1985; Wagner, Lampen and Syllwasschy 1986), to those employing fixed
> categories such as gender and ethnicity (e.g. Hunter, Stringer and
> Coleman 1993; Ruttenberg, Zea and Singleman 1996). Similarly some
> studies have manipulated status of groups by feedback at an
> individual level (Hogg and Sunderland 1991); others have used group-
> level feedback (Crocker and Luhtanen 1990).
>
> [244]
> ---------------
> [245]
>
> Crocker and her colleagues have investigated the impact of self-
> esteem on reactions to success and failure at both a personal and
> group level. Crocker, Thompson, McGraw and Ingerman (1987) found
> that people who are high in personal self-esteem who received
> success feedback, rated other successful individuals much more
> positively than those who had failed; those who received failure
> feedback rated successful individuals no more positively than those
> who had failed. By contrast, low self-esteem participants
> consistently rated success individuals higher than failure
> individuals regardless of their own personal score. Crocker et al.,
> (1987) argued that the high self-esteem participants were enhancing
> the implications of their success and minimizing the implications of
> their failure. Crocker and Luhtanen, (1990) extended this work at a
> group level in a study in which they divided participants into two
> groups in a manner consistent with the minimal group paradigm.