Close Encounters of the Initial Kind: Implicit Self-Esteem, Name-Letter Similarity, and Social Distance

Abstract

This study examined the impact of implicit egotism on social distance. Sixty-one participants with high or low implicit self-esteem were assigned to conditions where they believed they would be working with someone with the same initials as their own or someone with different initials. Participants with high implicit self-esteem sat closer to a partner who shared their initials and further from a partner with different initials. Participants with low implicit self-esteem did the opposite. No differences were observed for explicit evaluations. These results extend previous studies that have shown that implicit self-esteem influences evaluations of similar and dissimilar others.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The second author substantially revised the paper while on sabbatical supported by the University of Western Sydney. This research constitutes part of the first author's Honours dissertation and was partially supported by funding provided by the UWS School of Psychology. The authors wish to thank Vance Locke, Amanda Genetti, Janette Perz, Robert Arkin, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.