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The Lability of Psychological Ratings: The Chameleon Effect in Global Self-Esteem

University of Western Sydney, Macarthur

Alexander Seeshing Yeung

University of Western Sydney, Macarthur

The chameleon effect hypothesizes that the interpretation of esteem items and the nature of the measurement of the construct are altered by the content of other items in a survey. In each of three studies, responses to esteem items embedded among items focusing on a specific self-concept domain (academic, artistic, or physical) were more highly correlated to that specific domain than were esteem items from a broadly based multidimensional self-concept instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis models demonstrated that the same esteem items embedded in different instruments measured distinctfactors. Unlike typical contextual effects showing mean shifts along the same underlying continuum, these results suggest changes in the nature of the construct that is being measured so that mean shifts are of dubious relevance. The results have theoretical implications for how individuals form esteem judgments and practical limitations for the interpretation of esteem responses in correlational and experimental studies.

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