wk8

Trait Self-Esteem Moderates the Effect of Initiator

Status on Emotional and Cognitive Responses to

Romantic Relationship Dissolution

Katherine L. Waller and Tara K. MacDonald

Queen’s University

ABSTRACT We hypothesized that the effect of initiator status on post breakup distress would vary as a function of trait self-esteem, such that individuals with low self-esteem would experience more distress after being rejected by their partners, whereas, among individuals with high self-esteem, initiator status would not predict distress. We used a pro- spective design in which university students (N5 66) were assessed for emotional responses following the dissolution of their real-life romantic relationships, as well as a laboratory design in which students (N5 190) imagined breaking up with their partners. As predicted, participants with lower trait self-esteem exhibited greater distress after experiencing or imagining a romantic rejection than after ending or imagining themselves ending their relationships. Conversely, distress experienced by those with high trait self-esteem did not differ as a function of who ended the rela- tionship. Implications for understanding self-esteem processes and the effects of romantic rejection are discussed.

Why do some individuals ‘‘bounce back’’ relatively quickly after the dissolution of a relationship, whereas others experience a greater

This research is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted by Katherine Waller, and

we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of committee members Lee Fabrigar and

Uzma Rehman.

This project was supported by a Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR)

operating grant and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

(SSHRC) Standard Research Grant awarded to Tara K. MacDonald, as well as an

Ontario Graduate Studies and an SSHRC doctoral fellowship awarded to Katherine

Waller.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tara K. MacDon-

ald, Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L

3N6. Email: [email protected].

Journal of Personality 78:4, August 2010 r 2010, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation r 2010, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00650.x

amount, and more prolonged duration, of psychological distress?

Although perceptions and behavior in romantic relationships is one of the most widely researched areas in social psychology, compar-

atively little research has investigated the effect of the end of ro- mantic relationships on the well-being of the members of the couple.

It is known that divorce and marital separation are associated with an increased prevalence of negative outcomes, such as psychiatric

illness, automobile accidents, addictions, homicide, and suicide (for reviews, see Bloom, Asher, & White, 1978; Kitson & Morgan, 1990).

Most of these data are nonexperimental, raising the possibility that the negative outcomes observed in divorced individuals are not caused by, but rather co-occur with, the dissolution of the marital

relationship. However, more recent investigations of adolescents and young adults have shown that romantic breakups predicted the onset

of major depressive disorder (Monroe, Rohde, Seeley, & Lewinsohn, 1999) and major depressive episodes (Overbeek, Vollebergh, Engels,

& Meeus, 2003), suggesting that romantic breakups can contribute to the development of psychiatric illness, at least for young people.

The severity of these negative outcomes makes research into factors that contribute to post-breakup distress and maladjustment an im- portant endeavor.

Interestingly, while the empirical literature supports the notion that the dissolution of a romantic relationship almost always in-

volves some degree of distress, the magnitude and nature of the dis- tress vary. Indeed, a handful of investigations has shown that the end

of a romantic relationship can sometimes lead to perceptions of personal growth and positive life change, even when the breakup has

occurred recently (Buehler, 1987; Helgeson, 1994; Tashiro & Frazier, 2003). Clearly, the characteristics of the relationship, the breakup,

and the individual must influence the emotional consequences of the termination of a romantic relationship.

Pertinent to the present research, one factor that has received

some attention in the research literature on the termination of ro- mantic relationships is initiator status, or whose decision it was to

end the relationship. Findings related to the effect of initiator status on distress and adjustment are mixed and difficult to interpret.

Among divorcées, there is some evidence that female (but not male) noninitiators are initially more distressed after a divorce than are

female initiators (Goode, 1956; Pettit & Bloom, 1984). How- ever, other investigations have found no postdivorce/separation

1272 Waller & MacDonald

differences between initiators and noninitiators in terms of emotional

distress, depressive symptoms, or self-esteem for men or for women (Kincaid & Caldwell, 1991; Newman & Langer, 1981). Moreover,

another investigation showed that initiators actually experienced more emotional distress than did noninitiators (Buehler, 1987).

Investigations with dating populations are similarly inconsistent. In four different samples, both men and women reported more emo-

tional and/or physical distress when they did not make the decision to end their relationship than when they did (Davis, Shaver, & Ver-

non, 2003; Hill, Rubin, & Peplau, 1976; Sprecher, 1994; Sprecher, Felmlee, Metts, Fehr, & Vanni, 1998), although initiators reported more guilt and self-blame. In contrast, other researchers have found

no differences in emotional distress and/or perception of personal growth as a function of initiator status (Sbarra, 2006; Simpson, 1990;

Tashiro & Frazier, 2003). Yet another investigation suggested that noninitiating men exhibited poorer emotional adjustment than did

initiating men, whereas there was no relationship between initiator status and adjustment for women (Helgeson, 1994).

These mixed findings are perplexing, especially given that the con- flicting studies do not differ systematically in terms of the types of dependent measures used, the amount of time elapsed since the

breakup, or whether the participants came from a divorced/sepa- rated population or from a dating population. In addition, the find-

ing that initiator status does not always predict intensity of emotional distress after a breakup is somewhat counterintuitive. A large body of

research indicates that interpersonal rejection, romantic or otherwise, is a distressing experience, resulting in a wide variety of negative

emotional responses (see Leary, Koch, & Hechenbleikner, 2001, for a review). Baumeister, Wotman, and Stillwell (1993) showed that being

rejected by the object of one’s affection in situations of unrequited love results in intense distress and a loss of self-esteem. Furthermore, in laboratory settings, people are quite sensitive even to mild inter-

personal rejection manipulations (e.g., imagining rejection, being re- jected by a stranger), responding with sadness, hurt feelings, anxiety,

anger, loneliness, shame, and decreased state self-esteem (e.g., Bour- geois & Leary, 2001; Buckley, Winkel, & Leary, 2004; Leary, Cottrell,

& Phillips, 2001; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, & Chokel, 1998), although other studies have found that rejection does not consistently have an

effect on mood (e.g., Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005; Twenge, Catenese, & Baumeister, 2002).

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1273

That people are exquisitely sensitive to social exclusion makes

sense when considered in the context of sociometer theory (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995), which posits that interpersonal

relationships are an especially important source of how one feels about oneself. People tend to keep track of the opinions that they

perceive others to hold of them, maintaining a running tally of their degree of social acceptance or rejection. When one is rejected or

socially excluded, that person should experience a corresponding dip in state self-esteem, accompanied by aversive feelings. These

feelings may serve the adaptive function of teaching the individ- ual which behaviors tend to elicit acceptance or rejection. In addition to providing an adaptive advantage, however, this type of

system may also have potential costs. Specifically, the distress arising from a particularly meaningful rejection, such as having a romantic

partner end a relationship, might sometimes prove to be overwhelm- ing to an individual’s emotional system, resulting in the negative

consequences that have been documented in people who have di- vorced or broken up, such as psychiatric illness, suicide, and sub-

stance abuse. On the other hand, rejecting another person is not without its

emotional consequences, resulting in feelings of guilt and a need to

justify the morality of one’s behavior in dealing with the rejected party (Baumeister et al., 1993). It is possible that the preoccupations

and emotions associated with rejecting another individual can be as distressing as the concerns and feelings of those who are rejected,

which could explain why initiator status has not consistently pre- dicted the severity of distress reactions to relationship dissolution.

An additional possibility is that individual differences play a role in determining the impact that initiator status has on post-breakup

distress. For example, specific types of people may find being rejected especially troubling, whereas others may find it more aversive to re- ject another person. In this way, individual differences might interact

with initiator status to predict distress. By ignoring these potential sources of variance in distress after a breakup, prior research designs

may have washed out the impact of initiator status on adjustment to the dissolution of a romantic relationship.

An intuitive candidate for a variable that might be expected to interact with initiator status to predict distress after a romantic

breakup is trait self-esteem, which refers to the degree to which an individual chronically evaluates him- or herself positively

1274 Waller & MacDonald

(Rosenberg, 1965). Given that romantic rejection is an experience

that can decrease self-esteem (Baumeister et al., 1993), it seems likely that individuals who are low in trait self-esteem to begin with would

be particularly ill-equipped to cope with having a romantic partner end a relationship.

This contention is partially supported by the limited research that has investigated the relationship between trait self-esteem and ro-

mantic breakups. To date, three studies have found an association between trait self-esteem and distress reactions at the end of a ro-

mantic relationship. Barron (1987) assessed women who had either divorced or were in the process of divorcing their spouses. She found that women who scored lower on trait self-esteem experienced more

emotional distress than did those high in trait self-esteem. Similarly, investigations of male and female undergraduates have demon-

strated that, relative to their high self-esteem counterparts, those who were low in trait self-esteem reported higher general distress and

poorer current adjustment (Frazier & Cook, 1993) as well as greater traumatic distress (Chung et al., 2002) following the dissolution of a

romantic relationship. These studies suggest that people with low trait self-esteem might find it especially distressing to be rejected by a romantic partner. However, the possibility of an interaction between

trait self-esteem and initiator status was not assessed, leaving it un- clear whether the association between self-esteem and distress was

moderated by who ended the relationship. Furthermore, these stud- ies were not prospective; self-esteem level was assessed after the

breakup and at the same time as the distress measures, so it could be that participants who were simply more distressed reported lower

trait self-esteem. More direct evidence for the causal effect of low trait self-esteem

on distress following rejection comes from the experimental litera- ture. Nezlek, Kowalski, Leary, Blevins, and Holgate (1997) showed that undergraduate women who were low in trait self-esteem re-

sponded to exclusion from a group performing a task in the labo- ratory with negative self-evaluation, whereas those who were high in

trait self-esteem were not affected by the manipulation. Similarly, Sommer and Baumeister (2002) found that after undergraduate men

and women were primed with words related to rejection, those with low trait self-esteem evaluated themselves more negatively than they

did after being primed with words related to acceptance or other aversive events. In contrast, after being primed with rejection, those

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1275

with high trait self-esteem evaluated themselves more positively than

after they were primed with acceptance or other aversive events.

Overview of Current Research

We assessed whether trait self-esteem moderates the association be- tween initiator status and distress following the termination of a ro-

mantic relationship. We employed both a prospective, naturalistic design and an experimental design to investigate the relationships

among trait self-esteem, initiator status, and distress following the end of a romantic relationship. Because prior investigations on ro-

mantic relationship dissolution assessed both self-esteem and distress after the breakup, the relationship between trait self-esteem and dis- tress that was demonstrated in these investigations could be an ar-

tifact created by the especially distressed participants reporting lower self-esteem. A longitudinal and an experimental design wherein we

measured trait self-esteem before the occurrence of a breakup allowed us to rule out this alternative explanation.

Furthermore, we aimed to replicate the interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection that has been obtained in experimental

manipulations (Nezlek et al., 1997; Sommer & Baumeister, 2002) within a new interpersonal context (romantic relationships), as well as in a real-world setting to establish external validity. Moreover, in

contrast with prior research on this topic, which compared a rejec- tion condition with a neutral or acceptance condition (Baldwin,

Granzberg, Pippus, & Pritchard, 2003; Leary et al., 1998; Nezlek et al., 1997) or a noninterpersonal condition (Sommer & Baumeister,

2002), our research compared individuals’ responses to two distress- ing interpersonal situations: having one’s partner end the relation-

ship versus breaking up with one’s partner. Thus, our design allowed us to establish whether the interaction between trait self-esteem and

rejection that has been obtained experimentally reflects the effect of rejection per se, as opposed to a nonspecific distressing interpersonal event. Based on the literature reviewed above, we hypothesized that

there would be a main effect for initiator status such that partici- pants who held less responsibility for the decision to end the rela-

tionship would experience greater distress and more negative mood than would those who held more responsibility. Furthermore, we

expected a main effect for trait self-esteem such that participants with lower trait self-esteem would experience greater distress and

1276 Waller & MacDonald

more negative mood than would those with higher trait self-esteem.

Importantly, we also expected that trait self-esteem and initiator status would interact to predict distress and mood such that in-

dividuals who were lower in trait self-esteem would report greater breakup-specific distress and more negative mood when they did not

initiate the breakup than when they were responsible for the decision to end the relationship. Conversely, individuals with high trait self-

esteem were not expected to differ in breakup-specific distress or mood as a function of initiator status.

STUDY 1

Method

Participants

Two-hundred sixty-six introductory psychology students (42 men, 224 women; mean age5 18.78 years, SD5 1.17) were recruited based on their responses to a prescreening questionnaire administered at the beginning of the academic year. We selected participants who were between the ages of 18 and 22 and had been in a dating relationship for at least 1 month. None of them were married. Participants were compensated with course credit and $20.

Of the 266 original participants, 23 subsequently dropped out before the end of the school year (i.e., stopped responding to the weekly emails but did not report a breakup). Seventy-four participants reported a breakup sometime over the course of the study and completed the crite- rion measures used to assess their short-term reactions to the termination of their relationship. However, eight participants who completed post- breakup measures did so more than 25 days after the end of their rela- tionships. Because this time lapse was greater than one standard deviation above the mean time lapse for the sample, and because we were concerned that these participants would have difficulty remembering (and thus ac- curately reporting) their emotions and behaviors immediately following the breakup, they were excluded from all further analyses. Thus, our final sample consisted of 66 participants (mean age5 18.55, SD5 0.63; 11 men and 55 women).1

1. Binary logistic regression analyses demonstrated that those who had low trait

self-esteem were more likely to experience a breakup than were those who had

high trait self-esteem (Wald5 4.66, p5 .03). Participants who dropped out part-

way through the study did not differ from those who completed with respect to

trait self-esteem (t(263)5 .57, ns).

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1277

Materials and Procedure

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was used to assess participants’ global level of self-esteem at the outset of the study. It con- tains 10 items (e.g., ‘‘I feel that I have a number of good qualities’’). In- stead of using the original 4-point scale, we made a modification such that each item was rated on a scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 9 (very strongly agree). Five items are reverse-coded before calculating the mean response, which yields a total self-esteem score. The scale demonstrated high interitem reliability (Cronbach’s a5 .89).

Phase 1. The first data collection session took place in the laboratory, lasting approximately half an hour. Participants were assessed in groups of five to eight. The study was introduced as an investigation of person- ality and behavior in romantic relationships. Participants were informed that the study would last from October to March, that they might be asked to come back to the laboratory for another session at some time during the school year, and that they would receive $20 and course credit for completing the study. Next, participants completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale among a series of personality questionnaires in coun- terbalanced order.2 Finally, each participant was asked whether he or she would be willing to provide us with contact information for his or her partner so we could also recruit him or her for the study. For participants who consented, partners were sent the information about the study and the personality questionnaires by mail and were asked to return the con- sent form and measures by mail if they were interested in participating. Eighteen partners agreed to participate and went through the same pro- cedures as the original participants for Phases 2 and 3. To maintain as- sumptions of independence, partners’ data were not included in any analyses presented in this article other than the estimate of agreement for initiator status (see below).

Phase 2. The second phase of the study consisted of weekly emails de- signed to assess relationship status. From mid-October to mid-April, participants were sent a relationship assessment questionnaire each week and were asked to fill it out and return it as soon as possible. Participants were asked whether they were still in the romantic relationship in which

2. Although space constraints preclude us from presenting each of these analyses,

we did collect information from each participant on a number of other potential

personality covariates, none of which emerged as more important predictors than

trait self-esteem. For more information on these analyses, please write to the

authors.

1278 Waller & MacDonald

they had been at the beginning of the study and, if not, when the rela- tionship had ended. Participants who continued to indicate that they were together with their partners up until the end of the school year did not proceed to the third phase.

Phase 3. Participants who indicated in a weekly email response that their romantic relationship had been terminated were asked to complete another set of measures, which were completed either in the laboratory (Year 1) or over email (Year 2). The mean time elapsed between breakup and completion of these measures was 11.5 days (SD5 4.4). The mea- sures consisted of a general mood assessment questionnaire, a breakup- specific distress questionnaire, and an initiator status report. The mood assessment questionnaire consisted of 12 items rated on a 10-point scale, with endpoints representing one of a pair of opposite mood/feeling descriptors (e.g., sad–happy). Five of the items were reverse-coded such that a low score reflected a negative mood and a high score reflected a positive mood. These items were highly correlated (Cronbach’s a5 .91) and were combined into one mood score by calculating the mean item response.

The breakup distress questionnaire was derived from a questionnaire created by Thompson and Spanier (1983) for their investigation into the acceptance of marital termination. Nine items were taken from this ques- tionnaire and 18 new items were created. Participants rated each state- ment on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Our aim was to create a questionnaire assessing a wide range of potential distress reactions following the termination of a romantic relationship, including emotional, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms. Eight items were reverse- coded such that a high score indicated greater distress. The overall scale had high interitem reliability (Cronbach’s a5 .87). No distinct factors emerged from confirmatory or exploratory factor analyses (i.e., a single- factor model was the best fit). Thus, the mean of all 27 items of the scale was used in our analyses as a measure of general distress.

The initiator status report assessed the extent to which participants perceived themselves, relative to their partners, as having been responsi- ble for the decision to end the relationship. They were asked to estimate both their responsibility and their partner’s responsibility as a percentage of total responsibility for the decision, to add up to a total of 100% (e.g., me: 30%, partner: 70%). Participants’ percent estimate of their own re- sponsibility was used to measure the degree to which they were respon- sible for ending the relationship. For the subset of participants whose partners also completed the post-breakup measures (n5 18), there was good agreement in reports of the degree to which the original participant (vs. the partner) was responsible for deciding to end the relationship

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1279

(r(16)5 � .84). This finding is consistent with other studies, which have found moderate to good agreement between partners who were asked to identify who had left the relationship (Hill et al., 1976; Sprecher, 1994). Thus, we can consider our measure of initiator status to be a reasonably valid measure of actual responsibility for the decision to end the rela- tionship.

Results

Recall that our final sample consisted of 66 participants who had experienced a breakup during the duration of the study, and that this

sample did not include both members of any couples. (Please see Table 1 for descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among mea- sured variables.) Data were analyzed using a simultaneous multiple

regression with trait self-esteem and initiator status (i.e., percent re- sponsibility for the decision) entered as predictor variables and dis-

tress entered as the criterion variable. Trait self-esteem and initiator status were centered prior to the regression analyses (see Aiken &

West, 1991), and the cross-product of these predictors was entered as an interaction term. This analysis was then repeated, with mood

acting as the criterion variable. Although both analyses originally included gender (� 15men, 15women) as a predictor variable, it did not emerge as a significant predictor of either criterion variable,

nor did it interact with the other predictor variables. Thus, for sim- plicity of presentation, the results presented below do not include

gender as a variable.

Table 1 Descriptives and Pearson Correlations Between Measured Variables

in Study 1 (N 5 74)

RSE(S) BUD Mood PR

RSE(S)

BUD � .38n

Mood .35n � .52n

PR .04 � .45n .37n

M .72 3.27 5.80 59.53

SD .18 .95 1.54 31.16

Note. RSE(S)5Rosenberg Self-Esteem (Scaled); BUD5Breakup Distress;

PR5Percent Responsibility. npo.01.

1280 Waller & MacDonald

Breakup Distress

As predicted, there was a negative relationship between initiator

status and distress (b5 � 0.01, B5 � 0.32; t(63)5 3.12, p5 .003). Participants who reported less responsibility for ending the relation- ship experienced greater distress than did those who reported greater

responsibility. Additionally, there was a negative relationship between trait self-esteem and distress (b5 � 2.08, B5 � 0.43;

t(63)5 4.11, po.001). Participants with lower trait self-esteem re- ported greater distress following a breakup than did those with

higher trait self-esteem. Finally, as predicted, there was an inter- action between trait self-esteem and initiator status (b5 � 0.04,

B5 0.24; t(63)5 2.25, p5 .028). The meaning of this interaction was assessed further by regressing

initiator status on distress at medium (mean self-esteem score of the

sample), low (mean self-esteem minus 1 SD), and high (mean self- esteem plus 1 SD) levels of self-esteem. Percent responsibility was

negatively related to level of distress for people who were low (b5 � .02, B5 � 0.58; t(62)5 3.98, po.001) or moderate

(b5 � .01, B5 � 0.36; t(62)5 3.51, po.001) in self-esteem. The re- lationship between initiator status and distress was not significant for

those who were high in trait self-esteem (b5 � .004, B5 � 0.14; t(62)5 1.05, p5 .30). This interaction suggests that perceiving that

one had less responsibility for ending a romantic relationship is re- lated to greater distress for people who are low to moderate in trait self-esteem. On the other hand, initiator status does not seem to

contribute to post-breakup distress for people who are high in trait self-esteem. See Figure 1 for a graphical representation of distress as

a function of trait self-esteem level and initiator status.

Mood

As predicted, percent responsibility for ending the relationship was positively related to mood (b5 0.02, B5 0.37; t(63)5 3.51, po.001).

Additionally, trait self-esteem was positively related to mood (b5 3.28, B5 0.40; t(63)5 3.81, po.001). However, there was no

interaction between trait self-esteem and initiator status for mood (b5 0.03, B5 � 0.13; t(63)5 1.20, p5 .24). Thus, people who had

recently ended their relationship were in a better mood than were those whose partners had recently ended their relationship.

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1281

Additionally, people who were high in trait self-esteem tended to be

in a better mood than did those who were low in trait self-esteem. This pattern did not vary, however, as a function of initiator status.

Study 1 Discussion

This study makes several novel contributions to the literature on the

emotional aftermath of the termination of romantic relationships. This investigation is the first prospective study to show that people

with low trait self-esteem are more distressed after romantic break- ups than are people with high trait self-esteem. Our findings repli-

cated the interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection that has been demonstrated in the laboratory (Nezlek et al., 1997; Sommer & Baumeister, 2002) using a real-life situation and a rejection of

marked interpersonal significance, the loss of a romantic partner. Nonetheless, there are a few limitations that warrant discussion.

First, because we had very few male participants who completed the study, we were unable to assess whether responses differed for men

and women. A more significant limitation of this study is a lack of experimental control. Although the naturalistic, prospective design

Trait Self-Esteem Level

Low Moderate

High

y = –0.02x + 3.68

y = –0.01x + 3.29 y = –0.004x + 2.914

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percent Responsibility

D is

tr es

s

Figure 1 Study 1: Relationship between breakup distress and responsibility for

decision to break up as a function of trait self-esteem level.

1282 Waller & MacDonald

that was used confers some important benefits, it also precludes us

from making causal claims about initiator status. Because partici- pants could not be randomly assigned to reject their partners or to be

rejected, results could be explained by any number of uncontrolled variables that are associated with initiator status and that also pre-

dict coping responses to romantic breakups and rejection. Further- more, there may be differences between people with low and high

trait self-esteem with respect to relationship-specific variables, such as the level of acrimony associated with the breakup, that interact

with initiator status to predict distress following the termination of a romantic relationship. In Study 2, we addressed this limitation by using an experimental design. We were also successful in recruiting a

greater number of male participants for Study 2, which allowed us to consider gender in our analyses.

STUDY 2

Method

Participants

Participants were 190 introductory psychology students (139 women and 51 men; mean age5 18.53 years, SD5 1.21). They completed a demo- graphic and relationship status questionnaire in a prescreening session. We recruited participants who were between the ages of 18 and 22 and who had been in a romantic relationship for at least 1 month. Exploratory analyses of a preliminary subsample revealed that the duration of par- ticipants’ relationships interacted with the other independent variables such that trait self-esteem interacted with rejection condition only for participants whose romantic relationships had been of shorter duration. A possible explanation is that participants who were in longer term rela- tionships found it more difficult to imagine themselves in the scenario pre- sented to them (i.e., had more knowledge of their partner and thus found the specific dialogue and behavior in the scenario to be less believable). Therefore, only participants who were in relationships of less than the me- dian length for the preliminary sample (16 months) were included in the analyses. Participants were compensated with course credit or $5.

Materials and Procedure

Prescreening. Participants completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) during a prescreening session at the beginning of the

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1283

term (i.e., a number of months before participating in the experiment) so we could obtain a baseline measure of their chronic self-esteem. Each item was rated on a scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree).2 The scale demonstrated high interitem reliability (Cronbach’s a5 .87).

Rejection manipulation. The experiment took place in the laboratory. Participants completed the experiment in groups of one to four at a time at individual computer stations. They were told that we were investigating the effect of emotion on task performance and were randomly assigned to receive one of two scenarios, which were presented in four blocks on the computer screen. They were asked to imagine themselves in one of the following situations: breaking up with their romantic partner (rejecter) or having their romantic partner break up with them (rejected). See Appen- dix A for the complete scenarios. The scenarios were tailored to each participant such that his or her partner’s actual name was inserted into the script (pronouns were changed so that gender was also reflected). Af- ter they finished reading the scenario, participants were prompted: ‘‘Please take some time to think about how you would feel if you were in the situation that was presented to you.’’ They were given a full minute to think about the situation before the next task, which consisted of either a lexical decision task (Sample 1) or a self-affirmation manipulation (Sample 2). These tasks were related to research questions that are beyond the scope of this article and are not considered further here.

The scenarios were pretested with 32 undergraduate students, each of whom was randomly assigned to read either the rejected or the rejecter version. They then answered some questions about the scenario and about their reactions to it using a series of 7-point scales. Participants indicated that the rejecter and the rejected conditions were equally real- istic (M5 4.50, SD5 1.76; M5 3.86, SD5 2.25; t(30)5 0.91, p5 .37) and equally engaging (M5 4.44, SD5 1.65; M5 5.21, SD5 1.48; t(30)5 1.37, p5 .18). Importantly, they also reported that they felt more rejected in the rejected (M5 5.00, SD5 2.18) than in the rejecter (M5 2.78, SD5 1.44) condition (t(30)5 3.47, po.005), but that their mood, as measured using the PANAS (a self-report mood questionnaire described below), was as negative in the rejecter (M5 3.20, SD5 0.80) as in the rejected (M5 3.61, SD5 1.06) condition (t(30)5 1.26, p5 .22).

Self-report questionnaires. Participants completed a self-evaluation questionnaire derived from Nezlek et al. (1997) on the computer. Partic- ipants rated themselves on 12 bipolar adjectives, such as good–bad and competent–incompetent, using a 7-point scale. Five items were reverse-

1284 Waller & MacDonald

coded and the mean response to all items was calculated such that a low score indicated a negative self-evaluation and a high score indicated a positive self-evaluation. The scale demonstrated high interitem reliability (Cronbach’s a5 .96). A 12th single item, a success–a failure, was also added so we could assess the effect of the experimental manipulation on failure perception specifically.

Next, participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), a questionnaire designed to assess mood state. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they were feeling 10 positive (e.g., excited) and 10 negative (e.g., sad) adjec- tives, using a 7-point scale. The negative items were reverse-coded and the mean response was calculated such that a higher score indicated a more positive mood. The scale demonstrated high interitem reliability (Cron- bach’s a5 .93).

The final measure administered was the State Self-Esteem Scale (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991), a 20-item self-report questionnaire that as- sesses how participants feel about themselves in the present moment. (e.g., ‘‘I feel confident about my abilities.’’) Items are rated on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). The mean response on all of the items is used as an index of state self-esteem. Interitem reliability was high (Cronbach’s a5 .94).

Results

Please see Table 2 for descriptive statistics and intercorrelations

among measured variables. Each of the self-report measures (self- evaluation, single failure item, mood, and state self-esteem) acted as

the criterion variable in a series of simultaneous multiple regression, with trait self-esteem, rejection condition (rejected or rejecter), and

sample (Sample 1 or Sample 2) entered as predictor variables (recall that participants consisted of two different samples, one of which

completed a lexical decision task and one of which completed a self- affirmation task during the experiment). The cross-products of trait

self-esteem and rejection condition, of trait self-esteem and sample, and of rejection condition and sample were also entered as interac- tion terms, along with the three-way cross-product of the predictor

variables. Effect coding was used for rejection condition (� 15 re- jecter, 115 rejected) and sample (� 15 Sample 1, 115Sample 2),

and trait self-esteem was centered prior to the regression analysis (see Aiken & West, 1991). For all criterion measures, sample did not in-

teract with the other predictor variables, which suggests that these tasks did not influence the current results.

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1285

The analyses just described were also run entering gender

(� 15men, 115women) and its interactions with the other pre- dictor variables. Despite the larger number of men in this study

(n5 51) than in Study 1, women still outnumbered men nearly three- fold. Perhaps as a result, the effect of gender and its interaction with

other variables was not statistically significant for most criterion variables. Thus, for simplicity of presentation, the regression ana-

lyses reported below do not include gender as a variable unless it emerged as a statistically significant predictor or interacted signifi- cantly with another predictor variable. See Table 3 for the regression

statistics.

Self-evaluation. Trait self-esteem was positively related to self-eval-

uation, indicating that people who were lower in trait self-esteem evaluated themselves more negatively following the imagined

breakup than did those with higher trait self-esteem. Rejection con- dition was not related to self-evaluation. Importantly, as predicted, there was an interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection

condition. The meaning of this interaction was assessed further by regressing

rejection condition on self-evaluation at medium (mean self-esteem score of the sample), low (mean self-esteem minus one standard de-

viation), and high (mean self-esteem plus one standard deviation) levels of trait self-esteem. As shown in Figure 2, being in the rejection

Table 2 Descriptives and Pearson Correlations Between Measured Variables

in Study 2 (N 5190)

RSE SE Failure Mood SSE

RSE

SE .54n

Failure � .55n � .64n

Mood .28n .40n � .22n

SSE .61n .56n � .41n .52n

M 5.57 5.54 2.41 4.24 3.55

SD 1.01 0.93 1.02 1.12 0.64

Note. RSE5Rosenberg Self-Esteem; SE5Self-Evaluation; SSE5State Self-

Esteem. npo.01.

1286 Waller & MacDonald

Table 3 Regression Statistics for Study 2 (N 5190)

b B t df p

Self-Evaluation

TSE 0.47 0.51 8.21 183 o.001

R � 0.01 � 0.02 0.25 183 .80

TSE � R 0.15 0.16 2.67 183 .008

R @ Low TSE � 0.17 � 0.18 2.04 182 .04

R @ Mod TSE � 0.02 � 0.03 0.42 182 .67

R @ High TSE 0.12 0.13 1.51 182 .13

Failure

TSE � 0.51 � 0.51 3.95 175 o.001

R � 0.11 � 0.10 0.78 175 .43

TSE � R � 0.03 � 0.03 0.21 175 .83

TSE � R � G � 0.26 � 0.25 1.97 175 .05

Failure (Men Only)

TSE 0.47 0.51 8.21 47 o.001

R � 0.01 � 0.02 0.25 47 .22

TSE � R 0.17 0.18 1.41 47 .16

Failure (Women Only)

TSE � 0.51 � 0.50 6.92 135 o.001

R � 0.03 � 0.03 0.46 135 .64

TSE � R � 0.23 � 0.22 3.06 135 o.005

R @ Low TSE 0.19 0.19 1.91 135 .06

R @ Mod TSE � 0.03 � 0.03 0.46 135 .64

R @ High TSE � 0.26 � 0.25 2.43 135 .02

Mood

TSE 0.28 0.25 3.48 182 o.001

R � 0.14 � 0.12 1.76 182 .08

TSE � R 0.13 0.11 1.58 182 .12

State Self-Esteem

TSE 0.36 0.57 9.62 183 o.001

R � 0.06 � 0.10 1.99 183 .10

TSE � R 0.09 0.15 2.49 183 .01

R @ Low TSE � 0.16 � 0.25 3.02 182 .003

R @ Mod TSE � 0.07 � 0.10 1.78 182 .08

R @ High TSE 0.03 0.05 0.58 182 .58

Note. TSE5Trait Self-Esteem; R5Rejection Condition; G5Gender.

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1287

condition was associated with more negative self-evaluation, relative to the rejecter condition, for people who were low in trait self-esteem.

Conversely, the relationship between rejection condition and self- evaluation was not significant for those who were moderate or high

in trait self-esteem. This interaction suggests that for people with low trait self-esteem, imagining a partner ending a romantic relationship

leads to a less positive self-evaluation than does imagining the self ending the relationship. On the other hand, romantic rejection does

not seem to influence post-breakup self-evaluation for people who are moderate to high in trait self-esteem.

Failure. Trait self-esteem was negatively related to self-reports of feeling like a failure, indicating that people who were lower in trait

self-esteem evaluated themselves as greater failures following the imagined breakup than did those with higher trait self-esteem. Re-

jection condition was not related to failure evaluation. Moreover, the interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection condition was

not statistically significant. However, there was a significant three- way interaction between trait self-esteem, rejection condition, and

Trait Self-Esteem Level Low

Moderate High

y = –0.024x + 5.56

y = 0.012x + 6.03

y = –0.17x + 5.09

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Rejecter Condition Rejected Condition

M ea

n Se

lf -E

va lu

at io

n

Figure 2 Study 2: Relationship between self-evaluation and rejection condi-

tion as a function of trait self-esteem level.

1288 Waller & MacDonald

gender. The meaning of this interaction was assessed further by run-

ning the analyses separately for men and women. For women, there was an interaction between trait self-esteem and

rejection condition. For men, however, the interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection condition was not statistically significant.

Thus, rejection condition was regressed on failure at medium (mean self-esteem score of the sample), low (mean self-esteem minus 1 SD),

and high (mean self-esteem plus 1 SD) levels of trait self-esteem for women only. As predicted, rejection condition was positively related

to failure rating for women who were low in trait self-esteem. On the other hand, for women who were high in trait self-esteem, rejection condition was negatively related to failure rating. For women who

were moderate in trait self-esteem, there was no relationship between rejection condition and failure rating. This interaction suggests that

for women with low trait self-esteem, imagining a partner ending a relationship leads to an increase in the perception of the self as

a failure. Conversely, women who were high in trait self-esteem showed the opposite effect: imagining a partner ending a romantic

relationship led to a decrease in their tendency to evaluate themselves as failures.

Mood. Trait self-esteem was positively related to mood. Thus, peo- ple who were lower in trait self-esteem reported more negative mood

following the imagined breakup than did those with higher trait self- esteem. Rejection condition was not significantly related to mood,

but there was a marginal trend toward lower mood after imagining the rejection scenario than after imagining the rejecter scenario.

Moreover, despite emerging in the predicted pattern, the interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection condition also was not sta-

tistically significant for mood.

State self-esteem. Trait self-esteem was positively related to state

self-esteem. People who were lower in trait self-esteem reported lower state self-esteem following the imagined breakup than did

those with higher trait self-esteem. Rejection condition was not sig- nificantly related to state self-esteem. However, as predicted, there

was an interaction between trait self-esteem and rejection condition. The meaning of this interaction was assessed further by regressing

rejection condition on state self-esteem at medium (mean self-esteem score of the sample), low (mean self-esteem minus 1 SD), and high

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1289

(mean self-esteem plus 1 SD) levels of trait self-esteem. As shown in Figure 3, rejection condition was negatively related to state self-es-

teem for people who were low in trait self-esteem and negatively but marginally related to state self-esteem for those who were moderate

in trait self-esteem. The relationship between rejection condition and state self-esteem was not significant for those who were high in trait

self-esteem. This interaction suggests that for people with low trait self-esteem, imagining a partner ending a romantic relationship leads

to lower state self-esteem than does imagining the self ending the relationship. On the other hand, romantic rejection does not seem to influence post-breakup state self-esteem for people who are moder-

ate to high in trait self-esteem.

Study 2 Discussion

As predicted, the effect of rejection condition differed as a function of trait self-esteem. Participants with low trait self-esteem evaluated

themselves more negatively and reported lower state self-esteem after imagining their partner ending their relationship than after

Trait Self-Esteem Level Low Moderate High

y = –0.07x + 3.58

y = 0.03x + 3.94

y = –0.16x + 3.21

0

1

2

3

4

5

Rejecter Condition Rejected Condition

M ea

n St

at e

Se lf

-E st

ee m

Figure 3 Study 2: Relationship between state self-esteem and rejection condi-

tion as a function of trait self-esteem level.

1290 Waller & MacDonald

imagining themselves ending it. For women with low trait self-

esteem, rejection condition also had an effect on failure perception; those who imagined being rejected evaluated themselves as greater

failures than did those who imagined themselves rejecting their part- ner. Participants with high trait self-esteem, on the other hand, did

not differ in broad self-evaluation or state self-esteem as a function of rejection condition. Interestingly, women with high trait self-es-

teem actually rated themselves as lower on failure after imagining their partners ending the relationship than after imaging themselves

initiating the breakup. These results support the notion that roman- tic rejection has a markedly negative effect on individuals with low trait self-esteem, whereas individuals with high trait self-esteem are

rather immune to these negative effects. In contrast with our predictions, the effect of rejection condition

on mood was not statistically significant in Study 2 (despite trending in the expected direction). This finding, although unexpected, is con-

sistent with some prior research that has found limited effects of re- jection manipulations on mood, despite clear evidence of negative

effects on a variety of cognitive processes and behaviors (e.g., Baumeister et al., 2005). It is possible that the effect of rejection on mood is less immediate than the other responses that were mea-

sured, making it less sensitive to detection in a laboratory setting.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest that initiator status and trait self-esteem are

important predictors of emotional distress, self-evaluation, and feel- ings of self-esteem in the aftermath of a romantic breakup among

university students, especially when considered simultaneously. Hav- ing one’s partner end the relationship may be somewhat more dis-

tressing overall than is ending the relationship oneself, as is suggested by the main effect of rejection on mood in Study 1 and the trend to- ward the same effect in Study 2. We propose that being the rejected

party indeed leads to marginally greater distress than does being the rejecter but that the difference in distress is actually quite small when

considered in the absence of moderator variables. Trait self-esteem is undoubtedly a moderator variable that should be considered in any

future research on the effects of rejection, romantic or otherwise, on well-being. Our results show that people with low trait self-esteem are

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1291

especially vulnerable to emotional distress, self-denigration, and de-

creased state self-esteem after being rejected by a partner. One limitation to these findings relates to external validity. All of

our participants were unmarried undergraduates, and in Study 2 we also restricted our sample to those who had been in shorter rela-

tionships of 16 months or fewer. Thus, our findings may not gen- eralize to different populations or to longer-term relationships.

Other limitations of this research were that we were unable to ma- nipulate trait self-esteem experimentally and that women outnum-

bered men significantly in both studies. Our findings are consistent with sociometer theory (Leary et al.,

1995), which provides a broad theoretical framework for under-

standing self-esteem effects. Sociometer theory would predict that because people with low trait self-esteem have a preexisting history

of rejection and exclusion, the decrement in relational value implied by a romantic rejection would produce an internal alarm response in

the form of distress in these individuals. This alarm response is hy- pothesized to serve a useful function, in that it alerts the rejected

individual to his or her decrement in relational value, which could theoretically motivate corrective action. People with high trait self- esteem, on the other hand, are generally believed to have had a

wealth of experiences that imply high social value. As a result, the decrement in relational value implied by one romantic rejection

might not be sufficient to provoke an alarm response in these indi- viduals (see Leary & MacDonald, 2003, for a comprehensive dis-

cussion of trait self-esteem and sociometer theory). There are also a number of specific cognitive processes that are

related to trait self-esteem and could be systematically assessed in future research. First, people with low (but not high) trait self-esteem

seem to have cognitive networks that include contingencies of inter- personal acceptance, associating the concepts of failure and rejection (Baldwin et al., 2003; Baldwin & Sinclair, 1996). As a result, it is

possible that experiencing a romantic rejection triggers a sense of personal failure in these individuals. In the current research, women

with low trait self-esteem indeed rated themselves higher on failure in the rejected condition than in the rejecter condition. Furthermore,

people with low trait self-esteem have a chronic tendency to respond to personal failures with internal, global attributions (i.e., blaming

themselves for the event and evaluating themselves negatively in a global sense; e.g., Brown & Smart, 1991; Kernis, Brockner, &

1292 Waller & MacDonald

Frankel, 1989; Tennen & Herzberger, 1987). The current research

provides indirect support for this process, in that individuals with low trait self-esteem evaluated themselves more negatively in a broad

sense after imagining the rejected scenario than after imagining the rejecter scenario.

In contrast, people with high trait self-esteem respond to personal failure with external attributions and disbelief of negative self-

relevant information, tending instead to blame situational factors and to deny negative implications for their personal worth (e.g.,

Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton, 1989; Kuiper, 1978). They also make use of self-affirmation strategies when faced with clear evidence of failure, focusing on other valued aspects of the self to maintain a

sense of competency and self-worth (Dodgson & Wood, 1998; Hol- land, Meertens, & Van Vugt, 2002; Nail, Misak, & Davis, 2003;

Steele, Spencer, & Lynch, 1993). Given these tendencies, it is not surprising that in the current research, individuals with high trait

self-esteem did not evaluate themselves more negatively in a broad sense or rate themselves higher in failure after imagining being re-

jected by their romantic partners than after imagining being the rejecter. In future research, it may be worthwhile to assess whether individuals with low trait self-esteem could be trained to employ

some of the strategies used by those high in trait self-esteem to cope better with romantic rejection. For example, if people with low trait

self-esteem could be trained to employ different cognitive strategies following rejection (i.e., adjust their attribution style to be less self-

blaming or engage in self-affirmation), they might be able to respond to rejection with less self-denigration.

In addition to attribution style and self-affirmation, there are other promising strategies for restoring self-worth that might benefit

individuals with low trait self-esteem. Dandeneau and Baldwin (2004) developed tasks aimed to increase self-worth (e.g., scanning images of multiple frowning faces to find the single smiling face).

Using an experimental design, they showed that individuals with low trait self-esteem exhibited less sensitivity to rejection-related words

after engaging in this task. Regular training in this task was also successful in inhibiting stress, especially among those with low trait

self-esteem (Dandeneau, Baldwin, Baccus, Sakellaropoulo, & Pruessner, 2007). It is possible that such strategies might be helpful

in either preventing or attenuating the self-denigration and distress of individuals with low trait self-esteem after a romantic rejection.

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1293

Summary

In a naturalistic study and an experiment, we have demonstrated that the effects of initiator status vary as a function of trait self-

esteem. For people with low trait self-esteem, distress is greater when they are rejected by their partners than when they end their rela-

tionships. They also evaluate themselves more negatively, consider themselves to be greater failures, and experience lower feelings of state self-esteem after imagining themselves being rejected by their

partners than after imagining rejecting their partners. In contrast, people with high trait self-esteem experience an equivalent amount

of distress after experiencing a romantic rejection as after initiating a romantic rejection. Their self-evaluation, failure perception, and

state self-esteem are not affected by imagining being rejected by their partners as compared to imagining ending the relationship

themselves.

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APPENDIX A: BREAKUP SCENARIOS

Please read through the following passage slowly, allowing each sentence to ‘‘sink in.’’ You will be imagining yourself and your cur-

rent romantic partner, NAME. Right now, please try to get an image of NAME in your mind. Now, take a few minutes to think about

your relationship and what it means to you.

Rejected Scenario

Imagine that it is a Tuesday evening and that you are in your room

doing some reading for a course. You pause for a minute as you think about the last time you saw NAME. Although things aren’t

always perfect between the two of you, your relationship is impor- tant to you and you care about NAME very much.

The telephone rings, interrupting your train of thought. It’s NAME. He/she sounds serious and says that he/she has something

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1297

important to discuss with you—can he/she come over? You—feeling

curious and somewhat anxious—ask what it is about. He/she says that he/she would rather talk about it in person. You agree, and

NAME says he/she will be over soon. As you wait, you find it difficult to concentrate on your reading or

anything else. Your mind is racing with thoughts about what NAME could be wanting to talk about. After what seems like ages, you hear

a knock on your door. You open the door and find NAME standing there, looking very serious and a bit agitated. You greet each other

somewhat awkwardly and decide to go sit down somewhere you can have some privacy. His/her expression tells you that something is definitely wrong and you start to feel sick to your stomach. NAME

takes your hand gently and, before you know what is happening, he/ she starts telling you that he/she cares about you and thinks you are

a great person. You notice that NAME’s eyes are moist and his/her voice cracks as he/she explains that he/she no longer wants to be in a

romantic relationship with you. It’s not that you did anything wrong, he/she says, this just isn’t the right relationship for him/her.

Rejecter Scenario

Imagine that it is a Tuesday evening and that you are at home/in your room doing some reading for a course. You pause for a minute

as you think about the last time you saw NAME. Something in your relationship has felt off to you for a while. Although you know that

you still care about NAME very much, you have recently realized he/she is not the right partner for you. You have been waiting for the

right time to break the news to NAME, but haven’t found it yet. You don’t think you can stand to keep this from him/her any longer, and

decide that tonight will be the night. You pick up the phone and dial NAME’s number. He/she an-

swers, sounding cheerful. You say that you have something impor- tant to discuss with him/her—can you go over to his/her place? He/she—sounding curious and somewhat anxious—asks what it is

about. Feeling nervous, you say that you would rather talk about it in person. He/she agrees, and you say you will be over soon.

On your way over, your mind is racing with thoughts about how you are going to tell NAME that you want to break up. What is the

right way to say it? You feel awful about knowing that you will be hurting someone who has been so important to you. After what

1298 Waller & MacDonald

seems like ages, you reach NAME’s place and knock on the door.

NAME opens the door and finds you standing there. He/she looks concerned and you are starting to feel very agitated. You greet each

other somewhat awkwardly and decide to go sit down somewhere you can have some privacy. You notice that you are feeling sick to

your stomach and are not sure what to do. You take NAME’s hand gently and tell him/her that you care about him/her and that you

think he/she is a great person. You notice that NAME’s eyes are moist and your voice cracks as you explain that you no longer want

to be in a romantic relationship with him/her. It’s not that you did anything wrong, you say, this just isn’t the right relationship for you.

Self-Esteem and Initiator Status 1299

1300

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