Perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth among college students.

Full Abstract

Self-esteem scales tend to represent conditional perceptions of self-esteem. The Worth Index has been previously validated as an effective measure for identifying both conditional and unconditional perceptions of worth. We administered the Worth Index to 1,161 college-aged students at Brigham Young University to assess their current perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth. Both men and women agreed more strongly with items involving unconditional worth than conditional worth. A negative correlation was found between ratings of unconditional and conditional worth. Women had lower unconditional worth scores than men, which was related to being more likely to wish they were someone else, desire to have a better body, and to being concerned about weight. Agreement with two overview measures of self-esteem involving a "good" sense of self and stability of self-esteem was positively associated with agreement on statements about unconditional worth. This research shows the importance of incorporating unconditional worth into self-esteem measures.

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Author information

Author/s: Lockhart, Barbara Day (BD); Merrill, Ray M (RM); Bird, Justin S (JS);

Affiliation: Department of Physical Education, College of Health and Human Performance, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA. Barbara_Lockhart(-atsign-)byu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Perceptual and motor skills (Percept Mot Skills), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 94 (issue 2) : pp 489-98

Dates: Created 2002/05/24; Completed 2002/12/04; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12027344, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Personal Autonomy
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Psychometrics
Reproducibility of Results
Self Concept
Students - psychology

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