Relational Schemas, Self-Esteem, and the Processing of Social Stimuli

People mentally represent complex information in the form of schemas and often interpret ambiguous information in a schema-consistent manner. The present study examined the role of relational schemas in interpretations of ambiguous social stimuli. In a lexical decision task, 97 high-and low-self-esteem participants were primed with one of four types of words-acceptance, rejection, ambiguous, or nonsocial-and were then presented with four types of target words-acceptance, rejection, neutral, or nonwords. Results indicated that participants with low self-esteem responded more quickly to rejection targets when primed with rejection or ambiguous words than with acceptance words; the reactions of high-self-esteem participants were not affected by the primes. The results suggest that ambiguous social cues prime rejection-related thoughts for low-self-esteem individuals but not for high-self-esteem individuals.