New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

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New Ideas in Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/
newideapsych

Sources of self-esteem: From theory to measurement

and back again
Robert L. Campbell*, Sarah Eisner, Nicole Riggs
Department of Psychology, Brackett Hall 410A, Clemson University, Clemson SC 29634-1355, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:
According to some conceptions, self-esteem possesses a moral
Available online 21 October 2009
dimension; according to others, it does not. According to some, the
realism of the self-evaluation matters; according to others, it does
not. For some investigators, narcissism is just high self-esteem; for
others, narcissism involves internal conflicts within one’s self-
evaluation, which is strongly dependent on admiration extracted
from other people. The best known procedure for measuring self-
esteem has been a 10 question survey introduced by Rosenberg in
1965. Along with other insensitivities and biases, the Rosenberg
scale fails to respond to the different high-level values or ‘‘sources’’
that are constitutive of self-esteem for different individuals. A
person’s self-esteem can be contingent on internal sources (such as
independent thinking, productive projects, and moral commit-
ments), or on external sources (such as fame, wealth, physical
appearance, or the approval of peers). A study reported here
investigated the relationships among global explicit self-esteem
(as assessed with the Rosenberg scale), reliance on internal sources
of self-esteem (measured with the Self-Esteem Sentence Comple-
tion Instrument), reliance on several external sources (via the
External Sources of Self-Esteem scale), and narcissistic tendencies
(as per the Narcissistic Personality Inventory). The participants
were 97 undergraduate college students enrolled in psychology
courses. Rosenberg and NPI scores displayed different patterns of
correlation with various subscales of the ESOSES, raising the
prospect that profiles of various external sources will enable us to
differentiate between self-esteem and narcissism. Meanwhile,
scores on the SESCI were not significantly related to any other

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: campber@clemson.edu (R.L. Campbell).
URL: http://www.robertlcampbell.com

0732-118X/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.09.008
 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349 339

variable, except for a mild negative correlation with the success

recognition subscale of the ESOSESdan outcome that raises both
theoretical and measurement questions about internal sources.
Contrary to frequent assumptions of direct rivalry, reliance on
internal sources of self-esteem may be largely independent of
reliance on external sources. At the same time, however, more
work obviously needs to be done on measuring internal sources of
self-esteem, both explicit and implicit.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Self-esteem has become a central concept for many schools of thought in clinical psychology. It
is now one of the most often studied topics in academic personality and social psychology.
Extremely sparse before 1960, the academic research literature on self-esteem has grown well past
20,000 journal articles; these days, self-esteem gets at least a mention in more than 1000 new
publications each year (Emler, 2001; Foddis & Campbell, 2005). Yet fundamental disagreements
persist about its nature and importance, and despite the sheer accumulation of literature, remarks
that self-esteem is poorly understood are still common (e.g., Bednar & Peterson, 1995; Mruk,
2006).

1. Three dimensions of disagreement

The present article is not intended as a critical survey of present-day conceptions of self-esteem;
only a book-length treatment could hope to address them all. But several of the tendencies and
oppositions in the field can be typified in two definitions. First, a practicing clinician’s definition:
Branden states that ‘‘self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope
with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness’’ (1994, p. 168). Second, from an
academic social psychologist: Baumeister has defined self-esteem as ‘‘a favorable global interpretation
of oneself’’ (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996, p. 5).
For some, self-esteem possesses a moral dimension; for others, it does not1. Branden’s definition
refers explicitly to worthiness to be happy; his theory includes responsibility, integrity, and produc-
tiveness among the six ‘‘pillars’’ or high-level values2 that he believes are components of mature high
self-esteem. Baumeister’s definition requires no moral component to self-esteem; as is made clear by
Baumeister et al. (1996), the favorable global opinion may be based on success at a criminal enterprise,
or raw power exercised over other human beings.
According to some conceptions, the realism of the self-evaluation matters; according to others, it
does not. For Branden, the central pillar of self-esteem is living consciously; self-acceptance and taking
responsibility are two of the other five. Branden is emphatic that a self-evaluation not cognizant of the
person’s actual virtues and capabilities is ‘‘defensive’’ and vulnerable to breakdown when challenged.
For Baumeister et al. (1996), some high self-esteem may be stable and some may be unstable, but
realism need play no role in any of it.
In line with their differences on the first two issues, investigators disagree widely about narcissism.
According to Morf and Rhodewalt’s cutting-edge account, narcissists are widely understood as
‘‘exhibiting pervasive patterns of grandiosity and self-importance, and as invested in demonstrating
their superiority. Yet, despite the grandiosity, these individuals are also described as craving attention
and admiration and as particularly concerned with how well they are doing and how favorably others

1
Roland and Foxx (2003) differentiate between self-respect and self-esteem where theorists who attribute a moral
dimension to self-esteem would regard them as virtually identical. Meanwhile, theorists who treat self-esteem purely as
a favorable self-evaluation would not necessarily expect it to be connected with self-respect.
2
In the interactivist theory of the development of the self and values (Bickhard, 2004; R. L. Campbell, 2002; R. L. Campbell &
Bickhard, 1986; R. L. Campbell et al., 2002) such pillars are classified as self-referential metavalues: values about the kinds of
values one ought to have, with particular reference to the kind of person that one is.
340 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

regard them’’ (2001, p. 179). From Baumeister et al.’s (1996) standpoint, narcissists think unusually
highly of themselves, so narcissism is just very high self-esteem. For Branden, narcissism is a variety of
‘‘pseudo’’ or defensive self-esteem; it involves internal conflicts within one’s self-evaluation, which,
instead of strongly incorporating such internal high-level values as responsibility and productiveness,
relies heavily on externally directed high-level values such as obtaining admiration from other people,
including those whom the narcissist dislikes or even despises.
Procedures for measuring the various aspects of self-esteem are, to a significant degree, theory-
dependent. The roles of internal and external high-level values in self-esteem, the interplay between
judgments of one’s own competence and one’s worthiness, and the difference (if any) between
narcissism and high self-esteem are all theoretical issues. In turn, the investigator’s understanding of
these theoretical matters gives him or her a basis for judging the effectiveness of measurement
procedures for these various aspects of self-esteem. Theoretically-motivated improvements in
measurement will, in turn, affect the results of future empirical studies of the phenomena in
question, leading in their turn to corrections or improvements in theory. As Bickhard and Campbell
have noted:
When any science, natural or social, is functioning well, thought and criticism move up and
down among levels in dialectical fashiondfrom metaphysics to theory, from theory to data, and
back again. Even activities that look like routine aspects of data gatheringdprocedures such as
measuring this person’s propensity to develop an eating disorder, or that person’s working
memory capacitydrequire ongoing participation in the dialectic. Researchers need to keep
asking such questions as: ‘‘How good a measurement of working memory capacity is this?’’;
‘‘Would that other one be better?’’; ‘‘Is working memory capacity the right thing for us to be
trying to measure?’’ (2005, p. 3).

2. Measuring self-esteem

Let us follow one trajectory through this dialectic. We will travel from the previously mentioned
differences among theories of self-esteem; on down to judgments about the effectiveness and validity
of measurement procedures; thence to the level of data; and, finally, back toward measurement and
theory.
Our starting point in evaluating measurement procedures is the self-esteem scale in widest use
among academic researchers over the past 40 years. Thousands of studies have now employed the 10
question survey introduced by Morris Rosenberg in 1965; Emler (2001) has dubbed it the ‘‘gold
standard’’ (p. 5). Straightforward and to the point, the survey (see Table 1) appears to measure a single
dimension of overall self-esteem, or two positively correlated dimensions of self-efficacy and self-
worth (Tafarodi & Ho, 2006).
The Rosenberg scale, however, is vulnerable to distorted reporting of explicit self-evaluations. Self-
presentation is a rich source of distortions. Rosenberg Scale scores are vulnerable to self-deceptive
enhancementdmost often, to making oneself appear to have higher self-esteem than one really
doesdas well as impression managementdmaking it appear to other people that one has higher self-
esteem than one really does (Bosson, 2006; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Paulhus, 1986).
Cultural biases are also at issue. It would be difficult for most Americans or Western Europeans who
are filling out the Rosenberg scale not to know that high self-esteem is more highly valued in their
culture, and consequently that one set of answers is more culturally desirable. Self-esteem became
a major research issue in psychology, a major topic in popular discourse, during the 1960s; is it
a coincidence that the Rosenberg scores of American college students rose about 2/3’s of a standard
deviation between the late 1960s and the mid-1990s (Twenge, 2006; Twenge & W. K. Campbell, 2001)?
By contrast, participants in Japan or Taiwan would know that, in many social contexts, certain
expressions of high self-esteem are not highly valued in their culture. Consequently they would view
a different set of answers as culturally desirable (Kitayama, 2006).
What’s more, the Rosenberg scale, as normally administered on a single occasion, is obviously
incapable of tracking variations in self-esteem over time. This is not a disability peculiar to the
Rosenberg; any survey given just once will be of limited accuracy in this regard, even if it ranges beyond
 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349 341

Table 1
The Rosenberg self-esteem scale.

1. On the whole I am satisfied with myself.

2. At times I think I am no good at all.
3. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I certainly feel useless at times.
7. I feel that I am person of worth, at least the equal of others.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. All in all, I am inclined to believe that I am a failure.
10. I take a positive attitude toward myself.

the content of the Rosenberg to include items about variability or stability of self-esteem3. Some
researchers have indeed presented the Rosenberg on multiple occasions to track stability of self-
esteem (e.g., Kernis, Grannemann, & Barclay, 1989; Kernis, Grannemann, & Mathis, 1991).
A questionnaire like the Rosenberg measures only global self-esteem; it cannot account for
variation in self-esteem across domains of living (Harter, 1999). A person who evaluates his efficacy in
computer programming highly, but would give his efficacy in social relationships outside the
workplace a low rating, will be unable to reveal any of this variation on an instrument like the
Rosenberg.
The Rosenberg is entirely about conscious feelings or evaluations; it cannot pick up any subcon-
scious aspects of a person’s self-evaluation. Although the notion of subconscious self-esteem is
controversialdsome researchers (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1996; Tafarodi & Ho, 2006) do not believe that
there can be such a thingdwe contend that subconscious or implied self-evaluations are humanly
unavoidable.
First, everyone engages in subconscious processes all the time. People make judgments about
other people (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; Wilson, 2002) without consciously knowing how they made
them; human beings arrive at many of their decisions without knowing how they arrived at them
(Klein, 1998). Second and more specifically, the adult human self is the result of a long develop-
mental process that has worked up through many levels of knowing. Adults have knowledge and
goals at each of these multiple levels, yet only their highest-level functioning involves reflective,
conscious knowing (R. L. Campbell, Christopher, & Bickhard, 2002). Some of the goals and values
against which human beings judge themselves are bound to be operating at levels below their
current conscious functioning. Indeed, some self-evaluations are merely implied (Bickhard, 1999,
2004; Campbell, 2002; Campbell et al., 2002) by various aspects of our overall functioning, be it
conscious or unconscious.
Finally, the Rosenberg Scale fails to respond to the different high-level values (‘‘sources’’) that are
constitutive of self-esteem for different individuals. A person’s self-esteem can be dependent on
internal sources (such as independent thinking, productive projects, and moral commitments); it can
be contingent on external sources (such as fame, wealth, physical appearance, or the approval of
peers); or it can be reliant on a combination of both kinds of sources. There is nothing new about this
distinction; Greek philosophers argued over the extent to which living a flourishing or fullfilled life
depends on ‘‘internal’’ or ‘‘external’’ goods (Annas, 1993; Fowers, 2005). If the realism of a person’s self-
assessment, or its moral dimension, depends on which of these sources are paramount, then the
Rosenberg scale’s inability to assess sources becomes a crucial limitation. And perhaps its insensitivity
to sources helps to explain the worrisome degree of association between scores on the Rosenberg and
scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (a meta-analysis reported by Foster, W. K. Campbell, &
Twenge, 2003, yielded an average correlation of .29).

3
The Mood subscale of the External Sources of Self-Esteem Scale (see below) is intended to assess stability of self-esteem,
insofar as participants are consciously aware that their self-esteem depends on their moods. But of course it does not track
changes in self-esteem in real time, and there is no guarantee that people will always be conscious of the degree of instability in
their self-evaluations.
342 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

3. Narcissism and internal vs. external sources of self-esteem

As we have seen, different aspects of self-esteem escape the reach of measurement procedures like
the Rosenberg Scale. It is not possible to address all of them at oncednor is it necessary to attempt that,
as each is presently being targeted by multiple investigators. In our current work, we have focused on
internal and external sources, and how these might shed light on the relationship between self-esteem
and narcissism.
For our assessment of external sources, we have chosen the External Sources of Self-Esteem Scale
developed by Foddis, Wood, and Moore (2004). The ESOSES presents self-report items about seven
different indicators of external high-level values being incorporated into the participant’s self-esteem.
Five of these indicators pertain to external goods that would been recognized as such in ancient times:
approval by friends, getting one’s successes recognized by others, competitive social comparison,
physical appearance, and approval by family. The other two pertain to stability: dependence of one’s
self-esteem on external events, and dependence on one’s moods.
For our assessment of internal sources, we have used the Self-Esteem Sentence Completion
Instrument (Foddis, Vander Veen, Silverthorne, & Reddon, 2002; Foddis et al., 2004). Though relatively
new to academic research on the subject, the instrument adapts a technique widely used in clinical
settings (e.g., Branden, 1994). The instrument reveals both external and internal sources, but higher
scores go to completions that point unambiguously to internal sources.
Other procedures for assessing the degree of incorporation of external and internal high-level
values into a person’s self-esteem include the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale (Crocker, Luhtanen,
Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003) and Ben-Shachar’s (2004) Scale of Self-Esteem Dependency. These use self-
report to address specific internal and external sources, in Crocker’s case, and more generalized
reliance on internal and external sources, in Ben-Shachar’s case.
Apart from the potential interest of adapting a clinical exercise to assess the high-level values
encompassed in a person’s explicit self-esteem, we were guided in our choice of the Sentence
Completion Instrument by a concern that social desirability might lead some participants to indicate
more reliance on some internal sources of self-esteem than is actually the case.
Our concern with narcissism is motivated in part by the search for ways to discriminate between it
and high self-esteem. If genuine high self-esteem is realistic and incorporates internal sources like
those mentioned previously, it should be distinct from narcissism, because narcissism is grandiose
(therefore, unrealistic) and disproportionately dependent on some external sources of self-esteem
(especially, admiration from other people, or signs that the narcissist is superior to them). Yet the
correlations between Rosenberg scores and scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin &
Hall, 1979) have averaged .29, as noted above.
The study reported here investigates the relationships among global explicit self-esteem (as
assessed with the Rosenberg scale), reliance on internal sources of self-esteem (measured with the
Self-Esteem Sentence Completion Instrument), reliance on several external sources (via the External
Sources of Self-Esteem Scale), and narcissistic tendencies (as per the Narcissistic Personality Inven-
tory). We hypothesized that while Rosenberg scores would be moderately positively correlated with
NPI scores, SESCI scores would, if anything, be negatively correlated with NPI scores and weakly
correlated with Rosenberg scores. Meanwhile, scores on some subscales of the ESOSES would be
positively correlated with NPI scores, and ESOSES scores would, in general, be negatively correlated
with SESCI scores but not necessarily with Rosenberg scores.

4. Method

4.1. Participants

Our participants were 98 students at a medium-sized public university in the Southeastern United
States. They earned credit in their undergraduate psychology courses, most often Introduction to
Psychology, for participating in the study. Data from one participant had to be excluded because of
failure to complete more than one survey. The final sample consisted of 64 females and 32 males, plus 1
participant who gave no information about sex or age. The mean age was 18.9 with a standard deviation
 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349 343

of 1.7 years; the minimum age among our participants was 18 and the maximum was 32, but only 5 were
older than 20.

4.2. Procedure

Students signed up to participate in this study on a departmental website. At the appointed time,
they came to a laboratory or a meeting room, where they filled out four questionnaires: the Rosen-
berg, the NPI, the ESOSES, and the SESCI. None of the questionnaires was identified by name: three of
the surveys were merely labeled with their initials, while the NPI was retitled ‘‘Survey of Self-
Concept.’’ The order of the surveys was randomized for each participant. The surveys took around
25 min to fill out.

4.3. Measures

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was used to measure general explicit self-
esteem. This scale consists of 10 statements, each rated on a scale of 1–9, where 1 indicated that ‘‘this
statement doesn’t describe me in the slightest’’ and 9 indicated that ‘‘this statement describes me
perfectly.’’ There are 5 positively worded items (e.g., ‘‘On the whole I am satisfied with myself’’) and 5
negatively worded items (e.g., ‘‘I certainly feel useless at times’’). The negatively worded items were
reverse scored and the scores were then added together. High scores on this survey (minimum 10,
maximum 90) therefore indicate high levels of self-esteem.
The Self-Esteem Sentence Completion Inventory (SESCI; this was a modified version of the survey
employed by Foddis et al., 2004) presents participants with 6 incomplete sentences. They are asked to
give 5 grammatically correct endings for these sentences, each of 2 words of more, as quickly as they
can without repeating any endings for the same incomplete sentence. The incomplete sentences are all
derived from clinical exercises and are clearly about self-esteem issues; for instance, ‘‘I trust myself
whend’’ and ‘‘One thing my self-approval depends on isd’’.
Each sentence completion is scored on a 1–5 scale using a Scoring Decision Tree (Foddis, 2006).
Sentence completions that are tautological, ambiguous, or unrelated to self-esteem are not scored.
Phrases that refer neither to self-directed thought, or to a source over which the person claims
ownership, or to an outcome for which no process is mentioned (e.g., ‘‘what my friends think of me’’)
are given a score of 1. A score of 2 goes to phrases that may be process-related or may not (e.g., ‘‘my
intelligence’’). Those that are process-related and outcome-based, but do not refer to any of the major
internal sources, are given a 3 (e.g., ‘‘how much I’ve accomplished’’). Scores of 4 apply to answers that
refer to self-directed processes, but do not clearly point to one of the main sources or ‘‘pillars’’ of self-
esteem (e.g., ‘‘Doing something worthwhile’’). Scores of 5 are reserved to completions that point to one
of the main internal sources of self-esteem as identified by Branden (1994), Bednar and Peterson
(1995), or Mruk (2006); for instance, ‘‘when I study hard’’ (purposefulness) or ‘‘living up to my stan-
dards’’ (personal integrity).
An average score was obtained for each sentence stem, excluding completions left blank or scored
as tautological or ambiguous. So long as the participant provided endings that scored 1 or higher for at
least 70% of the cases (at least 21 out of 30), the average scores for each of the six stems were summed
to yield an overall SESCI score. Higher scores on the SESCI indicate a greater reliance on internal sources
of self-esteem. The theoretical maximum for the SESCI is 30 and the theoretical minimum is 6; the
effective ceiling on scores is somewhat lower than 30 because even a person with extremely strong and
explicit internal self-esteem sources is unlikely to produce 5-point completions every time. Because of
one questionnaire left incomplete, we had usable SESCI data for 96 participants.
The present-day version of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is a 37 item survey (Morf &
Rhodewalt, 1993; Raskin & Hall, 1979). Typical items are ‘‘People always seem to recognize my
authority,’’ ‘‘I like to display my body,’’ ‘‘I know that I am good because people keep telling me so,’’
‘‘Superiority is something you are born with,’’ and ‘‘I can make anybody believe anything.’’ The NPI
employs a 7-point scale with 1 as ‘‘Strongly disagree’’, 4 as ‘‘Neutral’’, and 7 as ‘‘Strongly agree’’. None of
the items are reverse scored; a total score is obtained for the survey by adding all of the responses for
344 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

each question. Higher scores on the NPI (the minimum possible score is 37 and the maximum is 259)
point to a more narcissistic personality.
The External Sources of Self-Esteem Scale (Foddis et al., 2004) consists of 42 items. It measures
external or dependent aspects of self-esteem on 7 subscales: approval by friends (‘‘I approve more of
myself when friends compliment me’’); external locus of control for self-esteem (‘‘Generally, I feel I can
control how I feel about myself’’); success recognized by others (‘‘When others know the good things
I’ve done, my self-esteem rises’’); dependence of self-esteem on mood (‘‘If I am feeling down, my
feelings of self-esteem drop’’); competitive social comparison (‘‘I gain confidence when I can do things
more easily than others’’); physical appearance (‘‘When I don’t feel attractive, I don’t approve of myself
as much’’); and approval by family (‘‘I don’t approve of myself as much if my family doesn’t support
me’’). Each item is scored on a 1–7 scale where 1 indicates ‘‘Strongly disagree’’, 4 indicates ‘‘Neutral’’,
and 7 indicates ‘‘Strongly agree’’. After certain items are reverse scored, the 6-item scores on each
subscale are added together to yield the subscale scores. On each subscale, the maximum possible
score is 42 and the minimum is 6; higher scores indicate greater reported reliance on that external
source of self-esteem. Because of the rather distinctive behavior of each ESOSES subscale, we have not
reported an overall score for the entire scale.

5. Results

In our sample, the Cronbach a for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was .83; the mean Rosenberg
score for our sample was 70.5 out of a maximum of 90 (SD ¼ 10.8). This very high mean for reported
global self-esteem is typical for empirical studies of American college students conducted during the
last two decades (Twenge, 2006).
The Narcissistic Personality Inventory is another questionnaire whose psychometric properties
are well documented. The Cronbach a for our sample was .92. The mean NPI score was 160.5
(SD ¼ 28.8).
Because individual completions could be left out of the scoringdoccasionally because a partic-
ipant left one blank, more often because of a tautological or ambiguous answerdeach incomplete
sentence on the Self-Esteem Sentence Completion Instrument was treated as an item. The Cronbach
a for the SESCI as scored in this fashion was .77. The mean score on the Self-Esteem Sentence
Completion Instrument was 13.3; the scores ranged from 7.6 to 24.8, and the standard deviation
was 3.3.
On the External Sources of Self-Esteem Scale, Cronbach a’s for the subscales were: .72 for friend
approval; .87 for external locus of control; .62 for success recognition; .86 for mood; .79 for competitive
social comparison; .80 for physical appearance; and .80 for family approval. Apart from the .62 for
success recognition, all of these are acceptable. We cannot offer a single diagnosis for the internal
inconsistency of the success recognition subscale, but deleting the last item (‘‘If others do not recognize
my achievements, my self-confidence stays the same’’) would have raised the Cronbach a for the
remaining 5 items to .68. The means and standard deviations for the ESOSES subscales were: friend
approval (30.1, SD ¼ 5.1); external locus of control (18.2, SD ¼ 6.7); success recognition (27.0, SD ¼ 4.6);
mood (27.9, SD ¼ 6.6); social comparison (30.1, SD ¼ 5.4); physical appearance (26.8, SD ¼ 6.9); and
family approval (31.5, SD ¼ 5.8).
Correlations among the self-esteem scores can be seen in Table 2. Age was also included as
a variable.
We further examined the relationships among our measures of global self-esteem, narcissism,
internal sources of self-esteem, and various external sources using multiple linear regression. We chose
a stepwise procedure to give priority to interaction effects: first an interaction effect was entered into
the equation (either Rosenberg  SESCI or Rosenberg  NPI), then the main effect of the Rosenberg
score, and finally the main effect of either the SESCI or the NPI score. NPI or SESCI scores were treated as
the outcomes to be predicted, as were scores on the subscales of the ESOSES.
The first set of multiple regressions entered the interaction of Rosenberg and NPI, then the main
effect of the Rosenberg score, and finally the main effect of the NPI score. Neither Rosenberg nor NPI
scores nor the Rosenberg  NPI interaction contributed significantly to predicting scores on the SESCI, F
(1, 92) < 1 in all cases.
 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349 345

Table 2
Correlations among age and the self-esteem variables.

Age Rosen SESCI NPI Friend appr ELOC Succ rec Mood Comp comp Phys appea Fam appr
Age d
Rosen .08 d
SESCI .16 .11 d
NPI .17 .35*** .03 d
Friend Appr .18 .19 .01 .06 d
ELOC .00 .60*** .02 .07 .14 d
Succ Rec .03 .23* .22* .10 .46*** .31** d
Mood .12 .22* .03 .14 .36*** .45*** .46*** d
Comp Comp .09 .01 .15 .21* .36*** .06 .58*** .35*** d
Phys Appea .21* .25* .08 .24* .34*** .48*** .43*** .46*** .36*** d
Fam Appr .18 .07 .02 .13 .50*** .02 .21 .25** .26** .02 d

Note: *indicates p < .05; **indicates p < .01; and ***indicates p < .001.

In this set of analyses, variability in Rosenberg scores significantly predicted variability on four ESOSES
subscale scores: external locus of control, F(1, 93) ¼ 46.85, p < .0001; success recognition, F(1, 93) ¼ 7.88,
p ¼ .006; mood, F(1, 93) ¼ 8.72, p ¼ .004; and physical appearance, F(1, 93) ¼ 13.64, p ¼ .0004.
NPI scores significantly predicted scores for the ESOSES subcategories of mood, F (1, 93) ¼ 4.95, p ¼ .03;
competitive social comparison, F (1, 93) ¼ 4.14, p ¼ .045; and physical appearance, F(1, 93) ¼ 14.17,
p ¼ .0003. Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores also made a marginally significant contribution to
predicting ESOSES success recognition scores, F(1, 93) ¼ 3.78, p ¼ .055, and family approval scores,
F(1, 93) ¼ 3.12, p ¼ .08.
There were no significant findings from any of these stepwise regressions for the ESOSES subcat-
egory of approval by friends. And the Rosenberg  NPI interaction effects did not significantly predict
scores on any subscale of the ESOSES.
In the second set of stepwise regressions, the Rosenberg  SESCI interaction was entered into the
equation first, then the Rosenberg main effect, and finally the SESCI main effect.
In the second set of analyses, scores on the Rosenberg significantly predicted the NPI scores,
F(1, 92) ¼ 12.92, p ¼ .0005, but neither scores on the SESCI nor the Rosenberg  SESCI interaction were
significantly related to NPI scores, F(1, 92) < 1.
There was a significant main effect of Rosenberg score in predicting scores on four subcategories of
the ESOSES: external locus of control, F(1, 92) ¼ 55.73, p < .0001; success recognition, F(1, 92) ¼ 6.75,
p ¼ .01; mood, F(1, 92) ¼ 5.32, p ¼ .02, and physical appearance, F(1, 92) ¼ 6.66, p ¼ .011. The main effect
of Rosenberg scores on ESOSES scores for approval by friends was marginally significant,
F(1, 92) ¼ 3.43, p ¼ .067.
There was significant main effect of Self-Esteem Sentence Completion Inventory scores on ESOSES
success recognition scores, F(1, 92) ¼ 6.17, p ¼ .015. None of the other main effects of SESCI scores were
significant, and neither were any of the Rosenberg  SESCI interaction effects. As with the first set of
stepwise regressions, there were no significant main effects or interaction effects involving the
Rosenberg and SESCI scores when it came to predicting scores on the Family Approval subscale of the
ESOSES.
Although they may be of some interest, our findings about sex differences should be taken with
a grain of salt because our sample included 65 women and 31 men (on the SESCI scores, we
obtained complete data from 64 women and 31 men). Men showed a significantly higher mean
(73.7, SD ¼ 10.3) than women on the Rosenberg Scale (69.0, SD ¼ 10.9), t(94) ¼ 2.03, p ¼ .045. Men’s
average SESCI scores (M ¼ 12.4, SD ¼ 3.3) were lower than women’s (M ¼ 13.7, SD ¼ 3.3); the
difference was marginally significant, t(93) ¼ 1.77, p ¼ .08. Men’s NPI scores (M ¼ 168.5, SD ¼ 22.0)
were marginally significantly higher than women’s in our sample (M ¼ 156.4, SD ¼ 31.0),
t(94) ¼ 1.95, p ¼ .054. On none of the subscales of the ESOSES did sex differences in average score
even approach significance. The slight differences between men and women on the Rosenberg and
the NPI are in line with the results of much past research; sex differences on the SESCI may deserve
some attention in the future.
346 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

6. Discussion

6.1. Global self-esteem and narcissism

The relationship between scores on the Rosenberg scale and scores on the NPI was significant; our
correlation of .35 is in the same range as those found by Foddis et al. (2004) and by many other
investigators in the past (Foster et al., 2003; Suls, 2006). To what extent do our measures of internal and
external sources of self-esteem help to differentiate high narcissism from high global self-esteem?
A model of narcissism along the lines of Morf and Rhodewalt’s (2001) is supported by the significant
positive relationships between NPI scores and the mood, social comparison, and personal appearance
subscales of the ESOSES in our stepwise regressions. The marginally significant positive relationship
between NPI scores and success recognition scores is also consistent with their hypothesis that
narcissism is a form of fragile high self-esteem, which tends to be reactive to certain kinds of external
events.

6.2. External sources of self-esteem are different for global self-esteem and narcissism

We had further expected that a measure of internal sources of self-esteem like the SESCI would
enable us to distinguish between global self-esteem and narcissism. But the SESCI’s correlations with
the Rosenberg (.11) and the NPI (.03) were nonsignificant. Assuming a direct conflict between
incorporating internal high-level values into one’s self-esteem and incorporating external values, we
hypothesized negative correlations between SESCI scores and scores on the various subscales of the
ESOSES. With the exception of approval by friends, scores on all of the ESOSES subscales were nega-
tively correlated with SESCI scores, but only the correlation with success recognition scores was
statistically significant. Nor did any Rosenberg  SESCI interaction effects come out significant. In this
respect, we did not replicate the findings of Foddis et al. (2004).
We did, however, find a distinctive profile of relationships between scores on subscales of the
ESOSES and on the Rosenberg scale. Global explicit self-esteem scores were significantly negatively
correlated with scores on the external locus of control, success recognition, mood, and physical
appearance subscales of the ESOSES. Even though we found no significant interaction effects of explicit
self-esteem and narcissism or explicit self-esteem and internal sources of self-esteem on external
sources of self-esteem, Table 2 displays a different pattern of relationships between the Rosenberg and
the ESOSES than obtains between the NPI and various external source subscales.
Specifically, external locus of control for self-esteem was correlated .60 with Rosenberg scores, but
uncorrelated (.07) with NPI scores. Success recognition was correlated .23 with the Rosenberg,
but uncorrelated (.10) with the NPI. Dependency on mood was correlated .22 with global explicit
self-esteem, but .14 with narcissism. Competitive social comparison was uncorrelated (.01) with global
self-esteem but correlated .21 with narcissism. And reliance on physical appearance was correlated
.25 with Rosenberg scores and .24 with NPI scores. Any assessment of external sources that serves to
differentiate global self-esteem and narcissism, particularly with correlations of opposite sign, defi-
nitely merits further investigation.

6.3. Family approval, adult development, and sex differences

The behavior of the family approval subscale on the ESOSES (correlated .07 with Rosenberg scores
and .13 with NPI scores, neither of which is significant) also deserves further attention. Foddis et al.
(2004) and Sanchez and Crocker (2005) have already found that family approval acts differently from
the other external sources of self-esteem that they were assessing (Sanchez and Crocker included
academic success among their external sources, whereas Foddis et al. did not). Like these other
investigators, we also recruited a sample of undergraduate students. Family approval may have
a different meaning at different points during adult development. Along with the hints in Table 2 that
some external sources of self-esteem may decline in importance with age, such findings remind us
that the self-esteem of college undergraduates is not a finished article and that, despite the sheer
 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349 347

volume of self-esteem studies a lifespan developmental perspective has hardly ever been taken on the
topic.
And of course our finding of gender differences on the NPI, the Rosenberg, and possibly also the
SESCI, though not on the subscales of the ESOSES, shows how looking more closely at the relative
importance of different sources for men and women may provide a more nuanced account of self-
esteem dynamics, and perhaps also of sex roles in contemporary society.

6.4. Understanding and measuring internal sources of self-esteem

A salient implication of the current study is the need for more work on measuring internal sources
of self-esteem. We chose the SESCI in part because it requires participants to generate answers rapidly,
in a relatively unguarded or un-self-monitored way. Consequently, we were less concerned about
socially desirable responding than would have been the case if our participants had been asked to
affirm or deny statements about their responsibility, their integrity, or their willingness to face up to
the truth of their internal functioning. Despite its features that discourage self-monitoring, the SESCI is
clearly about explicit self-esteem, and the self-understandings that it elicits may not always be correct
or realistic. Perhaps the more typical methods employed by the moral values subscale of the Contin-
gencies of Self-Worth Scale (Crocker et al., 2003) or by the ‘‘independent’’ items on Ben-Shachar’s
(2004) Survey of Self-Esteem Dependency would work better.
Then, again, the fault may lie more in our theoretical assumptions about internal sources of self-
esteem rather than in the somewhat unusual procedures of the SESCI. In some of the self-esteem
literature, it is taken for granted that internal and external sources are locked in a zero-sum rivalry;
more weight or priority given to integrity or responsibility leaves less for wealth or approval by friends,
and vice versa. Certainly the clinical literature (e.g., Bednar & Peterson, 1995; Branden, 1994) tends to
portray internal and external sources as at war with one another. But as Ben-Shachar (2004) points out,
this is not a plausible assumption overall. Integrity is not always at odds with worldly success, or
responsibility with approval by friends, or self-acceptance with acceptance by one’s family. Interview
data about college students’ past courageous actions show that sometimes internal and external
sources of self-esteem are in direct conflict, and sometimes they are in harmony (R. L. Campbell & Pury,
2005). An action requiring physical courage, like saving a drowning child, normally brings approval
from family, friends, and community; an action requiring moral courage, like standing up for another
child who is being bullied or subjected to arbitrary discrimination, runs the distinct risk of disapproval
or condemnation by peers. In the first case, internal and external sources of self-esteem are in align-
ment; only in the second are they in conflict.
If it is our assumptions about rivalry between kinds of sources that are at fault, we may be better off
concentrating in the future on outcomes, such as responses to criticism, that we expect will be
differentially affected by reliance on various internal or external sources of self-esteem (e.g., Crocker
et al., 2003; Foddis et al., 2002, 2004).
Better assessments of internal sources of self-esteem, then, will require further activity at multiple
levels in the dialectic: sharpening theory, trying multiple measurement procedures, and interpreting
the ensuing datadand all of these over multiple iterations.

6.5. Implicitness of external and internal sources

Which brings us to a final thought: all of the measurement procedures that we used in this study
pertain to conscious, explicit self-esteem. This is obviously the case with the Rosenberg Scale and the
Narcissistic Personality Inventory. But the External Sources of Self-Esteem Scale calls on the partic-
ipant’s conscious awareness of dependence on external sources, and the Self-Esteem Sentence
Completion Instrument, although it puts some obstacles in front of self-monitoring, is still drawing on
conscious knowledge of internal and external sources.
Insofar as the high-level values that one incorporates into one’s self-esteem grow out of goals and
values of which one may not be conscious, as well as to other kinds of unconscious knowledge,
and even to judgments that are merely implied (Bickhard, 2004; R. L. Campbell & Bickhard, 1986;
Christopher & R. L. Campbell, 2008), a full treatment of internal and external sources will perforce
348 R.L. Campbell et al. / New Ideas in Psychology 28 (2010) 338–349

range into the unconscious or implied dimensions of self-esteem. But at both the theory and the
measurement level, this will have to be a topic for future research.

Acknowledgments

The data reported here were collected at Clemson University during the spring, summer, and fall of
2005. We thank several past and present members of the undergraduate Self-Esteem Research
TeamdDemetria Brown, Antwaun Dennis, Remy Denton, Laura Girling, Emily Kosa, Maureen Mahan,
Jessica McCain, Stephanie McElroy, Sarah Upton, Karen von Seggern, and Leslie Winklerdfor their help
in collecting and analyzing the data. We are grateful to Walter Foddis for his advice on questionnaire
scoring and data analysis. Previous versions were presented in May 2007 at the 4th Interactivist
Summer Institute, American University, Paris, and in the Department of Psychology, Université Cath-
olique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

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