Marina FORTES – BOURBOUSSON
Camille HUMEAU
Marion JALOUX
Over the last 30 years, theoretical conceptualizations of self-esteem have changed markedly. Self-esteem was initially conceived as a unidimensional and global construct (Coopersmith, 1967; Marx & Winne, 1978; Piers, 1969; Rosenberg, 1986), namely the individual’s overall sense of worth as a person. More recently, multidimensional models were developed on the basis of evaluative statements, with self-esteem seen as the combination of distinct self-assessments relative to specific domains of competence (Harter, 1982; Harter, 1985). These models were then enriched by the introduction of hierarchical conceptions (Fox & Corbin, 1989; Marsh & Redmayne, 1994; Marsh & Shavelson, 1985) that allowed a direct focus on the mechanisms of change in the self-system. Several domains of competence seem to be implicated in self-esteem enhancement (Deci & Ryan, 1980), particularly the physical domain (Fox, 1997; Marsh & Redmayne, 1994; Sonstroem & Morgan, 1989). According to these hierarchical conceptions, global self-esteem is at the apex of the structure and is then linked to first-order facets (e.g., academic self-concept, physical self-concept), themselves composed of second-order facets (e.g., math competence or sport competence). For example, Fox and Corbin (1989) proposed a hierarchical model for the physical domain of competence that has been empirically supported by studies throughout the Western world (e.g., Ninot, Fortes, & Delignières, 2001; Page, Fox, Ashford, & Biddle, 1993; Sonstroem, Speliotis, & Fava, 1992). The median level of the physical self is occupied by physical self-worth, which can be seen as a general feeling of happiness, satisfaction, pride, respect, and confidence in the physical self. The most specific level is composed of four sub-domains: physical condition, sport competence, physical strength, and attractive body. Physical condition represents the perception of one’s physical condition, fitness and stamina, one’s ability to maintain exercise, and one’s confidence in the exercise and fitness settings. Sport competence corresponds to the perception of sport and athletic ability, ability to learn sport skills, and confidence in the sport environment. Physical strength is related to perceived strength, muscle development, and confidence in situations requiring strength. Finally, attractive body corresponds to the perceived attractiveness of the body, the ability to maintain an attractive body and confidence in one’s appearance.
The conception of self as a hierarchical structure led researchers to question the mechanisms of change across the self-system. Based on individual-environment interactionism and situation-specific constructs, hierarchical self-concept was thought by some to generalize from situation-specific experiences (Shavelson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976). This perspective emphasizes the role of cognitive processes, with self-esteem seen as the result of judgments about one’s qualities in various domains (Harter, 1990). Thus, hierarchical models are assumed to be crossed by pathways whereby life experiences first affect specific levels of the hierarchy and then modify more global elements. The lowest and most specific levels are assumed to be the most sensitive to environmental influences and thus the least stable. The highest and most general level, on the other hand, is the most stable and least sensitive to specific experiences. In contrast, other psychologists suggested that self-esteem mainly derives from affective processes (Brown, 1993; Brown, Dutton, & Cook, 2001). This approach is consistent with the evidence that many attitudes are affectively based. According to Brown (1993), “specific beliefs about one’s competencies and attributes are considered as consequences rather than antecedents of global self-esteem and are used to buttress and sustain feelings of self-worth” (p. 32). Thus, the apex of the self structure would be the most sensitive to mood variations and the most stable level. Although self-concept as a hierarchically organized construct is now well established, the processes that would explain the changes in self-esteem still need to be identified.
These opposite theoretical conceptualizations of self-concept (i.e., cognitive vs. affective) led to several hypotheses about the causal influences among the elements of the hierarchical structure. Based on the assumption of predominantly cognitive functioning, the bottom-up hypothesis suggests that influences diffuse from the lowest elements at the base of the self structure to higher-level dimensions (Byrne & Gavin, 1996; Fox, 1990; Harter, 1982; Shavelson et al., 1976; Sonstroem, Harlow, & Joseph, 1994; Sonstroem & Morgan, 1989). For example, high satisfaction with a given physical strength task reinforces the feeling of competence in the corresponding sub-domain, then enhances physical self-worth and finally global self-esteem. According to self-enhancement theory (Sonstroem et al., 1994; Sonstroem & Morgan, 1989), physical self-efficacy is the primary cognitive link between physical measures and higher-order psychological constructs. This suggests that behavioral outcomes influence self-efficacy beliefs, which in turn contribute to determine more global constructs of competence and self-esteem. The bottom-up hypothesis has been widely tested empirically and currently seems to be the most agreed upon. Conversely, the top-down hypothesis, which assumes the predominance of affective functioning, suggests that causal flow is directed from the apex of the structure to the lower-level dimensions (Brown, 1993, 1998). In other words, global self-esteem is massively submitted to emotions and mood change (Greenier et al., 1999) and a sudden depreciation due to negative emotions, for example, would irradiate to subjacent domains, such as the physical domain, and then modify the corresponding sub-domains. However, this perspective is fairly speculative and lacks empirical support and refinement.
Bottom-up and top-down hypotheses are not utterly opposed in that they both acknowledge that global self-esteem and self-evaluations in specific domains are related, with only the direction of causal flow being inverted. Some authors have considered the possibility of simultaneous cognitive and affective routes of causal flow and suggested a third hypothesis, the reciprocal (Marsh & Yeung, 1998) or bi-directional (Feist, Bodner, Jacobs, Miles, & Tan, 1995) model. According to this hypothesis, diffusion processes follow both directions. Finally, Marsh and Yeung (1998) and Kowalski and his colleagues (Kowalski, Crocker, Kowalski, Chad, & Humbert, 2003) used structural equation modeling to test the direction of causal flow in the physical self structure based on two assessment moments separated by a period of one year. They used respectively the Physical Self Description Questionnaire (PSDQ, Marsh, Richards, Johnson, Roche & Tremayne, 1994) and the Physical Self Perception Profile (PSPP, Fox & Corbin, 1989) and concluded in favor of a fourth hypothesis of causal flow: the horizontal effects model. This model emphasizes the stability of each component over time and suggests that the current value for a perceived dimension depends mainly on its previous value. This perspective offers weak support to the hierarchical conception of the self-structure because it assumes the independent functioning of the structural elements.
Despite the interesting work of Marsh and Yeung (1998) and Kowalski et al. (2003), little has been established regarding the direction of causal flow in the physical domain. Heuristic speculations about the bottom-up hypothesis introduced by Fox (1990) or the reciprocal influences suggested by Byrne and Gavin (1996) remain to be empirically supported. Two main objections may be addressed to these studies. First, two assessment moments are not sufficient to capture changes between dimensions. Although researchers have generally insisted on the need for longitudinal data collection to test causal flow hypotheses (Amorose, 2001; Byrne & Gavin, 1996; Marsh & Yeung, 1998), few attempts have been made to fully analyze the time-evolutionary properties of the hierarchical structure. Instead, most studies have focused on the contextual determinants of self-esteem fluctuations and have borrowed static rather than dynamic methodological approaches. The second objection to previous attempts to demonstrate causal influence is that the approaches have been nomothetic rather than idiographic.
Intra-individual studies need to be highly pertinent to provide a formal framework for identifying causal flow in the physical self structure. The hierarchical model of physical self and global self-esteem developed by Fox and Corbin (1989) can be considered as such a framework: a complex system subjected to several constraints over time that produces the same causal flow (Harter, 1996; Ninot et al., 2001; Nowak, Vallacher, Tesser, & Borkowski, 2000; Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001). For example, the bottom-up hypothesis would be supported if, for each individual, a systematic change in the physical strength sub-domain altered the physical self-worth level after a time delay, and if this change was in turn followed by a delayed change in global self-esteem.
In conclusion, future studies would be realized to verify whether bottom-up and top-down causal flows underlie the functioning of the physical self system over time and in an ecological context. In such studies, adults’ causal flow in would be examined over a period of several months and the causal flow direction would correspond to specific patterns in the results emerging from time series analyses (Ninot et al., 2001):
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