University of Pennsylvania

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5-10-2011

Contempt and Self-Esteem: The Effect of the

Contempt Expression on Self-Enhancing Behaviors
Yixue Tiffany Zhou
University of Pennsylvania

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Contempt and Self-Esteem: The Effect of the Contempt Expression on
Self-Enhancing Behaviors
Keywords
self-esteem, behavior, contempt

Disciplines
Business | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

This working paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars/84

CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 1

Contempt and Self-Esteem:

The Effect of the Contempt Expression on Self-Enhancing Behaviors

Yixue Zhou

Advisor: Maurice Schweitzer

University of Pennsylvania

Wharton Research Scholars Program

May 10, 2011

CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 2

The characteristics, antecedents, and consequences of emotions have been studied

extensively in psychological research. It is widely established that there are a number of “basic”

emotions which are distinct in their expression, physiology, antecedent events, and subjective

experience (Ekman, 1999). While emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, and anger are

commonly acknowledged among the set of basic emotions, some researchers extend the set to

include emotions such as guilt, shame, and contempt.

Although emotions are most simply understood as internal experiences, they also play a

significant role in social interactions (Keltern & Kring, 1998). Furthermore, emotional states

have been shown to drive basic moral judgments against ourselves and other individuals (Rozin

et al., 1999). In this paper, we investigate the emotion of contempt and its effects on behavior.

In particular, we wish to examine how individuals in a controlled laboratory setting alter their

behavior after being exposed to a display of contempt.

Evolutionarily, the basis for contempt may have been to motivate an individual to feel

superior to an opponent prior to a confrontation (Izard, 1977). In modern contexts, contempt

continues to suggest an element of disapproval towards the object of contempt, often from a

social or moral standpoint. For the purposes of this study, we will define contempt as an

emotional reaction to a target individual or group who is perceived to be either morally or

socially inferior to oneself.

In social psychology, contempt has been described as an exclusion-emotion, the purpose

of which is to reject the contempt object from one’s social network (Fischer & Roseman, 2007).

Additionally, contempt has also been conceptualized as a response to moral violations of the

ethics of community, which include social virtues such as duty and hierarchy (Rozin et al.,

1999). Furthermore, according to the stereotype content model, we are contemptuous of those
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 3

whom we perceive to be low in competence and warmth (Fiske et al., 2002). The unifying theme

of these studies and other research on contempt is that the emotion acts to signal some distance

between the contemptuous individual and the target individual along dimensions of social and

moral evaluation.

Contempt is often studied in conjunction with the associated emotions of anger and

disgust; together, these are thought to constitute the “hostility triad” (Izard, 1977; Rozin, 1999).

While contempt, anger, and disgust all involve negative evaluations of another individual, they

differ in their emotional antecedents and social function. Anger, for example, is a vivid but

short-lived emotion, often experienced when we are dissatisfied with someone else’s behavior

and wish to influence it a certain way (Fischer & Roseman, 2007). In contrast, contempt is a less

intense but longer-lasting emotion resulting from a permanent negative evaluation of the target

individual. Finally, disgust differs from contempt in that it is typically triggered by viscerally

repulsive stimuli. As a result, the disgust response tends to be more physiologically intense than

the experience of contempt (Miller, 1997). Indeed, research has identified animal precursors to

both anger and disgust, whereas an animal precursor to contempt is not evident (Plutchik, 1980;

Rozin & Fallon, 1987). It has also been observed that contempt is a notably cooler and more

subtle emotion than either anger or disgust (Izard, 1977; Miller, 1997).

While the existing research on contempt has focused on its antecedents, emotional

content, and facial expression, the social effects of contempt are not as well understood. In this

paper, we will examine the implications of the contempt expression in an interpersonal context.

In particular, we will explore the following question: How does the expression of contempt alter

the behaviors and affective states of the target individual?

CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 4

In order to extend our understanding of contempt from the individual in whom the

emotion originates to the individual who is targeted by the emotion, we begin with Fischer and

Roseman’s conceptualization of contempt as a mechanism by which one socially excludes the

target individual. This manner of social exclusion may include rejecting the target individual to

an inferior outgroup, demoting him to an inferior position relative to oneself, or casting him as an

object of indifference, unworthy of notice or attention.

Social exclusion has been shown to have a variety of negative effects on humans,

including declines in cognitive performance, increase in self-defeating behaviors, and decreased

self-discipline (Twenge et al., 2003; Twenge et al., 2002; Baumeister et al., 2005). Thus, it is

likely that an individual initially targeted with contempt, upon perceiving that he or she has been

socially excluded, will experience many of the same negative effects of social exclusion.

However, psychological research has also shown that when faced with threats to self-

integrity, the human psyche may respond in one of three ways (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). One

type of response is to accommodate the threat, as was the case with the participants in Twenge

and Baumeister’s studies. After being told that they were likely to be alone later in life, these

participants accepted their fate of social exclusion and sought temporary, short-lived pleasures in

the absence of the potential for a socially fulfilling and meaningful life.

A second response to self-threat is to directly confront the threat, but often this is not easy

or even possible, as in the case of social exclusion. The third response, however, presents

interesting possibilities for our present study. According to self-affirmation theory, people can

restore their battered sense of self-worth by sidestepping the field in which their integrity was

threatened and affirming an alternative source of self-worth. Someone who has experienced a
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 5

threat in the social arena, for example, might self-affirm in the professional arena by performing

highly at his or her job.

The interplay of social exclusion theory and self-affirmation theory provide the premise

for our understanding of the effects of the contempt expression on the target individual.

Specifically, we will explore the premise that exposure to contempt creates the effect of social

exclusion, and that individuals who find themselves the target of contempt will engage in self-

affirming behaviors in order to counteract the threat posed by social exclusion.

Method

Participants

Participants were members of an American college community, including students and

university staff (n=203).

Overview

Participants completed a total of three tasks through an online survey. In the first task,

participants were shown a series of fourteen randomly ordered photos of people’s faces and

asked to identify whether the person in each photo was male or female. Following this task,

participants viewed a single photo of a person’s face and imagined meeting the person in the

photo for the first time. While viewing the photo, participants answered three open-response

questions about whether they imagined the experience would be pleasant or unpleasant, whether

they would like or dislike the person, and whether the person would like or dislike them.

In the final task, participants were presented with lists of academic terms (e.g. “nuclear

fusion”) and asked to indicate how familiar they were with each term (5-point scale, from “heard

of it” to “very familiar”). Terms were organized by topic into ten main blocks, including
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 6

historical figures and events, fine arts, and physical sciences. (A full list of blocks and terms are

included in the appendix.)

Independent Variable

Participants were assigned to one of two conditions: contempt and neutral. In the

experimental contempt condition, the photos presented in the gender identification and imagined

experience tasks contained faces displaying subtle expression of contempt. Participants in the

experimental condition thus spent approximately seven minutes viewing repeated expressions of

contempt, followed by another five minutes in which they imagined themselves interacting with

a person displaying a contemptuous expression. In the neutral control condition, the photos

presented in the gender identification and imagined experience acts contained faces displaying

no emotion.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable was calculated from participants’ performance on the final task.

In this task, participants were presented with the Over-Claiming Questionnaire, which tests for

self-enhancing behaviors (Paulhus, Harms, Bruce & Lysy, 2003). While the questionnaire is

ostensibly a simple survey of familiarity with different academic fields, some items presented in

the questionnaire were foils, or non-existent terms (e.g. “pseudo-verb”). The extent to which a

participant claimed familiarity with these non-existent terms, therefore, could be used as a proxy

for the tendency to self-enhance. Consistent with our hypothesis, we predicted that participants

in the contempt condition would show more self-enhancement on the OCQ.

Results

Data from the Over-Claiming Questionnaire were analyzed using several calculations.

Each participant’s performance on the OCQ was summarized using four statistics. For each
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 7

participant, we calculated hits, the number of real items the participant claimed to know, and

foils, the number of foil items the participant claimed to know. The participant’s accuracy was

calculated as the difference of hits and foils divided by the total number of items, and the

participant’s bias was calculated as the sum of hits and foils divided by the total number of

items.

The data included 102 participants in the experimental contempt group and 101

participants in the control group. Overall, performance on the OCQ was not significantly

different between groups. A very small effect was observed in the difference in foils. The mean

number of foils claimed by the contempt group was 11.32, compared to a mean of 10.56 foils

claimed by the neutral group. A summary of the data are presented below.

Table 1.
Performance on OCQ after gender identification and imagined experience tasks
Group Hits Foils Accuracy Bias
Contempt Mean 89.49 11.32 0.52 0.67
SE 1.53 0.72
Neutral Mean 89.64 10.56 0.53 0.67
SE 1.44 0.66
Significance 0.942 0.438

Discussion

The data from this study do not allow us to confirm our hypothesis. We expected that

participants in the contempt group would show greater self-enhancement in the Over-Claiming

Questionnaire than participants in the control group. Greater self-enhancement would have

resulted in a greater number of foils in the contempt group, leading to lower accuracy and higher

bias. However, our data show that foils were only marginally higher in the contempt group.

Furthermore, due to the small difference in foils, accuracy and bias were virtually the same for
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 8

both groups. As a result, we cannot conclude from this study that expressions of contempt lead

to increases in self-enhancing behavior.

Nevertheless, the difference in foils is directionally consistent with our hypothesis, and it

is possible that the effect size would increase with a greater sample size and adjustments to the

manipulation. There were several limitations to our contempt induction which may have reduced

its effect on participants. Our selection of contempt photos for the gender identification task was

quite conservative in both the duration and depth of emotion. We limited ourselves to subtle

expressions of contempt, which some participants may not have properly interpreted as

contempt. The gender identification task also included only fourteen photos, because we were

limited by the availability of photos of contempt. It is possible that including more photos in the

task would have more effectively “saturated” participants with contempt. A further limitation of

the gender identification task is that it did not involve a personal interaction between the

participant and the face exhibiting contempt. Participants may have been unaffected by the

contempt expression because they felt it was irrelevant to themselves.

We included the imagined experience task in order to compensate for the absence of a

personal interaction in the gender identification task. However, as the task was simply to

imagine oneself interacting with a person who appeared contemptuous, participants who were

not highly engaged or who did not exert their imaginations may not have been able to experience

the full effect of interacting with a contemptuous person. Taken together, both the gender

identification task and the imagined experience task were a fairly subtle induction of contempt.

Because our contempt induction was relatively subtle, participants may have expressed

individual differences in their reaction to the manipulation. In particular, participants with lower

sensitivity to emotions (e.g. lower EQ) may have been unaffected by the contempt manipulation
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 9

and thus behaved in the OCQ like participants in the control group, while participants with

greater sensitivity to emotion performed on the OCQ according to our predictions. One

observation from the data which supports this possibility is that standard errors for hits and foils

were higher in the contempt group than in the control group. This difference tentatively suggests

that while the average performance of the contempt group was close to that of the control group,

some members of the contempt group (the higher EQ participants) were indeed affected by the

manipulation.

Ideas for Further Research

We have identified several opportunities for further research into the effects of contempt

on self-esteem and related behaviors. These opportunities include ideas to strengthen the

intensity of the contempt induction as well as suggestions for other dependent variables which

we believe may be affected by an exposure to contempt.

Strengthening the contempt induction. A critical weakness of the contempt induction

used for the present study was that it did not give participants a true experience of being directly

exposed to contempt. In order for the expression of contempt to operate on a participant’s self-

esteem and thereby affect his need to self-enhance, he must perceive that someone is

contemptuous of him in particular as a result of some judgment that the contemptuous person

has made. Only then will the participant express a tendency to self-enhance as a reaction to the

contempt expression.

One solution to increase the relevance of the contempt induction to the participant is to

engage the participant in what feels like a genuine social interaction, such as a simulated

negotiation exercise or ultimatum game. The simulation need not be lengthy or complex.

Exposure to contempt can be manipulated by showing the participant pictures of the

CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 10

“opponent’s” face which are either contemptuous or neutral and by including lines of dialogue

which are either contemptuous or neutral. The critical element of this induction is that the

participant should feel as if he is engaged in a true interaction with a real opponent.

A second solution which eliminates the need to simulate a social interaction is to ask

participants to complete a test or questionnaire (e.g. personality test, cognitive abilities test, etc.),

and to then give participants “feedback” on their test results. The feedback will be delivered via

a recorded video of an “expert” offering an interpretation of the results. Although all participants

will hear the same scripted neutral feedback, the experimental group will watch someone

explaining the results in a contemptuous manner, while the control group will watch someone

explaining the results in a neutral manner. This contempt induction has two advantages. First,

participants will feel that the “expert” who is exhibiting contempt has a valid basis for making a

judgment of their personalities or self-worth. Second, the video interface will allow for a much

clearer and more realistic expression of contempt than is possible through photos or text.

Other effects of the contempt expression. If we accept the premise that expressions of

contempt damage self-esteem, there should be other interesting effects which we can observe by

exposing participants to contempt. For example, self-enhancement is not the only possible

response when one’s self-esteem has been threatened. According to the social exclusion

literature discussed earlier in this paper, another response is to accept the threat and engage in

self-defeating behaviors. Some self-defeating behaviors which would be interesting to study

include the tendency to cheat on a test, choosing between want-should choices (e.g. a fatty,

delicious snack or a healthy, less delicious snack), and risk-taking tendencies.

CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 11

Conclusion

Although we were unable to confirm our hypothesis through the data from the present

study, we suggest that our pattern of results may have resulted from weaknesses in our

manipulation rather than errors in our hypothesis. We have identified several limitations to our

method, including weak inductions of contempt and the absence of a manipulation check which

would allow us to confirm whether participants were affected by the manipulation. We have also

recommended several opportunities for further research into the effects of the contempt

expression. Exploring these opportunities will allow us to develop a better understanding of the

relationship between contempt and self-esteem and the behaviors that are affected by the

contempt expression.
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 12

References
Baumeister, R. F., C. N. DeWall, N. J. Ciarocco and J. M. Twenge (2005). Social exclusion
impairs self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 589-604.
Ekman, P. (1994). “Antecedent events and emotion metaphors.” The Nature of Emotion. Oxford
University Press.
Fischer, A. H. and I. J. Roseman (2007). Beat them or ban them: The characteristics and social
functions of anger and contempt. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 93, 103-
115.

Fiske, S. T., A. J. C. Cuddy, P. Glick, and J. Xu (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype
content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and
competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 878-902.
Keltner, D. and A. M. Kring (1998). Emotion, social function, and psychopathology. Review of
General Psychology, s, 320-342.
Paulhus, D.L., Harms, P. D., Bruce, M.N., & Lysy, D.C. (2003). The over-claiming technique:
Measuring self-enhancement independent of ability. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 84, 890-904.

Rozin, P., L. Lowery, S. Imada, and J. Haidt (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping
between three emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community,
autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 574-586.
Sherman, D. K. and G. L. Cohen (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation
theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 38, pp.
183-242). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Twenge, J. M., K. R. Catanese and R. F. Baumeister (2002). Social exclusion causes self-
defeating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 606-615.

Twenge, J. M., K. R. Catanese and R. F. Baumeister (2003). Social exclusion and the
deconstructed state: Time perception, meaninglessness, lethargy, lack of emotion, and
self-awareness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 409-423.
CONTEMPT AND SELF-ESTEEM 13

Appendix: Over-Claiming Questionnaire (foils are denoted in bold)

Historical names and events Fine arts Language Books and poems
Napoleon Mozart subjunctive Antigone
Robespierre a cappella hyperbole Murphy's Last Ride
El Puente Pullman paintings alliteration Catcher in the Rye
My Lai art deco sentence stigma The Bible
The Lusitania Paul Gauguin euphemism Hiawatha
Ronald Reagan Mona Lisa double entendre Trapnell Meets Katz
Prince Lorenzo La Neige Jaune blank verse Mein Kampf
The Luddites Mario Lanza pseudo-verb The Aeneid
Neville Chamberlain Verdi ampersand Faustus
Vichy Government Vermeer myth The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Queen Shattuck Jackson Howell aphorism Pygmalion
Bay of Pigs Grand Pooh Bah shunt-word Hickory Dickory Dock
Torquemada Botticelli simile The Divine Comedy
Wounded Knee harpsichord acronym Windermere Wild
Clara Barton dramatis personae synonym The Raven

Authors and characters Social science and law Physical sciences Life sciences
Adonis yellow journalism Manhattan Project mammal
Mephistopheles angst planets adrenal gland
Shylock nationalism nuclear fusion sciatica
Ancient Mariner megaphrenia cholarine insulin
Doctor Fehr acrophobia atomic number meta-toxins
Venus pulse tax hydroponics intestine
Romeo and Juliet pork-barreling alloy bio-sexual
Bulldog Graziano prejudice plate tectonics meiosis
Norman Mailer Christian Science photon ribonucleic acid
Horatio Alger ombudsman ultra-lipid electrocardiograph
Charlotte Bronte consumer apparatus centripetal force amniotic sac
Artemis superego plates of parallax hemoglobin
Lewis Carroll trust-busting nebula retroplex
Admiral Broughton behaviorism particle accelerator antigen
Mrs. Malaprop Oedipus complex satellite recessive trait

20th century culture names Philosophy

Gail Brennan logistic heresy
Jackie Robinson creationism
Houdini Goedel’s theorem
Ginger Rogers social constructionism
Greta Garbo Platonic sense
Dale Carnegie hermeneutics
Scott Joplin esoteric deduction
Rube Goldberg ghost in the machine
George Gershwin Hegel
Mae West Socrates
Jesse Owens categorical imperative
Oliver Marjorie free will
Louis Lapointe Ayn Rand
King Kong situational ethics
P.T. Barnum Principia Mathematica