Self-Esteem and Evaluative Reactions: Letting People Speak for Themselves ASTRID SCHU ¨ TZ University of Virginia and University of Bamberg, Germany AND BELLA M. DEPAULO University of Virginia Art students reacted to criticism and praise of their own work and other artists’ work in face-to-face conversations with partners who were not confederates. The consistency vs self-enhancement debate led us to look for ways in which artists differing in self-esteem would be differentially positive about their own work relative to other artists’ work. Instead, we found that the artists who were especially positive about their own work during the conversations (those low in self-esteem, LSEs) were also especially positive about the other artists’ work. Self-enhancement seemed less important to the LSEs than the goals of seeming pleasant and likable. Because we let the artists speak for themselves rather than limiting their responses to rating scales we had designed, we were also able to learn about their conversational ways of dealing with criticism and praise. We found, for example, that when their partners offered positive evaluations, LSEs were especially likely to express agreement. When LSEs did say something negative during the discus- sions, they stated the criticism as just their opinion, rather than a fact. High self-esteem artists, who seemed to be trying to appear competent by being critical, did just the opposite. © 1996 Academic Press, Inc. How do people with different levels of chronic self-esteem react to criticism and praise? And how do they evaluate their own work and that of others? These questions have been of great interest to scholars in the areas of self-esteem, self-concept, and self-presentation. The questions are especially intriguing be- This research was made possible by a Feodor Lynen Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to the first author and an NIMH Research Scientist Development Award to the second author. We thank Naomi Driesen, Jennifer Epstein, Deborah Reichert, and all of the art students and instructors for their help with this research. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Astrid Schütz, Department of Psychology, University of Bamberg, Postfach 1549 D-96045, Bamberg, Germany, E-mail: astrid.schuetz@ppp.uni-bamberg.de. JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY 30, 137–156 (1996) ARTICLE NO. 0010 137 0092-6566/96 $18.00 Copyright © 1996 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.