Doing good, feeling good: Values and the self 's moral center

Abstract

Rarely do social psychological treatments of the self highlight its moral dimension. We expect people with prosocial values to feel better about themselves when enacting such values. Social identities situate individuals within social groups and wider social structures; successfully enacting important identities increases feelings of self-esteem. This paper looks at individual differences and demonstrates that enacting a social identity (volunteering) contributes more to feelings of self-esteem for those individuals whose values align with that identity. Volunteering may increase self-esteem in general; but for those who claim the identity and hold especially prosocial values, volunteering becomes an important route toward positive self-evaluation.

Keywords:

• Values
• self
• morality
• self-esteem

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Shelley Correll, John Delamater, Viktor Gecas, and Jane Piliavin for suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

Notes

1. Group membership is most often linked with social identity theory (Turner, 1987). For comparisons of identity theory and social identity theory, see Hogg, Terry, and White, 1995; but especially Stets and Burke, 2000. See also the Special Issue of Social Psychology Quarterly (Vol. 66, No. 2) on bridging the two theories.

2. Burke (2004) suggests that confirming one's group identities leads to feelings of self-worth, while confirming a role-identity leads to a sense of competence.

3. In a separate identity theory approach, Ervin and Stryker (2001) posit specific self-esteems (as opposed to global) to be a result of identity verification. They suggest global self-esteem is a measure of overall psychological health. In contrast with Cast and Burke, Ervin and Stryker conceptualize identity measures (salience and importance) as a result of specific self-esteems. Global self-esteem directly influences psychological health and social participation, while specific self-esteems influence specific identity salience and importance.

4. Self-esteem is often viewed as an unmitigated good, and is related to positive outcomes. Individuals with high self-esteem have more clearly defined self-concepts (Campbell, 1990); react to rejection with more resilience (Sommer & Baumeister, 2002); take longer to have it lowered (Baumeister, Dori, & Hastings, 1998). But, self-esteem is not necessarily benign. Baumeister, Smart and Boden (1996) discuss its “dark side”; violence often occurs when somebody with very positive views of self feels a threat to her ego. Popular and academic concerns with self-esteem are products of our culture's extreme (and unhealthy) focus on the self Hewitt, (1998).

5. Of course, these processes are reciprocal over time, and identities that are “chosen” will, over time, shape our values and potentially shift our personal identity. However, there is evidence for stability in values over time (Alwin et al., 1991; Konty & Dunham, 1997), suggesting that personal identities develop a consistency that influences our adoption of role and group identities.

6. Cast and Burke (2002) hold that it would be surprising to find that any one identity has significant effects on a global measure of self-esteem. They focus on the spouse identity; this paper focuses on a less central identity.

7. Self-esteem can be conceived as a concept with two dimensions (e.g., Gecas, 1989; Owens, 1993; Owens & King, 2001). Authors disagree, however, as to the exact constitution of those two dimensions. Owens (1993) labels the two dimensions as “self-confidence” and “self-deprecation.”