The effects of self-esteem on suggestibility: Perception changes in the afterimage of an ambiguous blue-green color.

Introduction:

It has been demonstrated that some people may experience an altered sense of perception due to non-physiological causes. The research of Moscovici and Personnaz (1980), Martin (1995), and Martin (1998) revealed that the simple suggestion of a confederate caused a conversion in the perception of the afterimage of an ambiguous blue-green color. In these studies, participants were given a suggestion that the colored stimulus was green rather than blue. The results showed this suggestion did have an influence on the afterimage color participants reported.

There is also significant research suggesting a person's level of self-esteem may affect how easily influenced they are. Zellner's (1970) research implicated that a suggestion yielded maximum influenceability when directed at a subject with low self esteem. Later research by Rhodes and Wood (1992) showed that subjects with moderate self-esteem were more susceptible to suggestion than subjects with very high or very low self-esteem. The reason they think subjects with very low self-esteem weren't more easliy influenced was that these participants may have experienced difficulty in receiving the suggestion.

This new experiment is an investigation of the effects of self-esteem on the influenceability of subjects' perception of a color afterimage. It was predicted that subjects with lower self-esteem would be more likely to see an afterimage complimentary to the suggested color, while subjects with high self-esteem would experience an afterimage closer to the true compliment of the stimulus.

Methods:

Participants: Participants were all Alma College students ranging in age from 18-22. Participation was voluntary, and those who participated were informed as to the nature of the experiment beforehand. A total of 24 volunteers participated, 9 of which were male, 15 were female. Twelve of these volunteers were members of the control group and 12 were members of the experimental group.

Apparatus: The Rosenberg Personality Inventory was used to assess self-esteem in test subjects. The Eye-Lines software program created by Dr. W. Beagley was used to present the self-esteem questionnaire as well as the visual stimulus. Self-Esteem questions were presented on the Eye-lines program to be answered on a continuum ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The 10 questions from the Rosenberg Personality Inventory were combined with 10 random questions relating to personality and mental health. Only responses from the 10 questions out of the Rosenberg Personality Inventory were counted in this study. Aldus Superpaint 3.5 was used to create the ambiguous blue-green stimulus and this stimulus was presented on Eye-lines. The Stimulus is shown below.

Procedure: First, participants were split into a control and an experimental group randomly. Eye Lines was then used to present all subjects with the Rosenberg Personality Inventory. To answer the questions, subjects were asked to reply to twenty statements indicating whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the statement. After completing the twenty questions, subjects were presented with instructions about the upcoming stimulus and scale. Those in the control group were told that they would be seeing a colored stimulus for a period of 90 seconds whereas those in the experimental group were told they would be seeing a blue colored stimulus for a period of 90 seconds. After being presented with the stimulus for 90 seconds, subjects were presented with a blank white screen. Subjects could stare at the screen and concentrate on the afterimage for as long as they felt necessary. Once ready to move on, subjects were presented with the afterimage scale (see apparatus). Subjects indicated their response on a scale from one to ten. Their scores for self-esteem were then tabulated against their responses to the color scale.

Results:

There was no main effect found for the control group versus the experimental group -- the suggestion of color did not elicit an effect on the subjects' responses to the afterimage scale. Subsequently, subjects with low self-esteem were not more susceptible to the suggestion than subjects with high self-esteem. A fairly strong correlation was found for the effect of self-esteem on perceived afterimage color (2.511). This correlation, however, did not meet the standard for statistical significance. An anova table displaying the above results is pictured in Table 1.

The hypothesis that the suggestion used in this experiment would have an effect on the perception of afterimage color was not demonstrated in this experiment. The within groups effect of self-esteem on susceptibility to the suggestion was not demonstrated either. This is not enough to say that suggestion cannot have an effect on perceived afterimage. The only difference between control and experimental groups in this experiment was the use of one word, blue in the instructions to the experimental group. The presentation of the suggestion may have been too subtle; it may have been easy to look over. Attention was not drawn to the suggestion; thus many subjects may have not taken notice of the suggestion. The fact that this suggestion had no significant effect meant that self-esteem could not affect the susceptibility of subjects to the suggestion.

An interesting effect was found however for self-esteem. The data illustrated that self-esteem was directly correlated to scores for perceived afterimage of the stimulus. Those with low self-esteem scored the afterimage color more in the direction of the compliment of blue in both the control and experimental group. The same direct relationship was found in the high self-esteem group in the direction of the compliment of green. The change in scores was slightly greater in the experimental group than in the control group. The correlation, although fairly strong in both groups was not quite statistically significant (P=.1288). The relationship between afterimage color and self-esteem found in this study may very well have been spurious. This experiment is not nearly enough to demonstrate that self-esteem has an effect on afterimage perception, much more research would need to be done to clearly demonstrate a link between the two, if there is one. This link between personality and psychophysiology may be worth another look as it is hard to speculate what would cause it. It may be that those with low self-esteem are simply less decisive. The greatly increased variability in scores in the low self-esteem group gives some evidence for this. It may be that those with low self-esteem are more likely to see an afterimage of blue because they are less happy, or blue. Whatever the cause, more research would need to be done to establish a clear link between self-esteem, or any aspect of personality, and color afterimage; the present study is not nearly enough to demonstrate this relationship.

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