Five studies tested hypotheses derived from the sociometer model of self-esteem according to which the self-esteem system monitors others' reactions and alerts the individual to the possibility of social exclusion. Study 1 showed that the effects of events on participants' state self-esteem paralleled their assumptions about whether such events would lead others to accept or reject them. In Study 2, participants' ratings of how included they felt in a real social situation correlated highly with their self-esteem feelings. In Studies 3 and 4, social exclusion caused decreases in self-esteem when respondents were excluded from a group for personal reasons, but not when exclusion was random, but this effect was not mediated by self-presentation. Study 5 showed that trait self-esteem correlated highly with the degree to which respondents generally felt included versus excluded by other people. Overall, results provided converging evidence for the sociometer model.

The proposition that people have a fundamental need to maintain their self-esteem has provided the cornerstone for a great deal of work in personality, social, developmental, clinical, and counseling psychology. In the century since William James (1890) first referred to self-esteem as an “elementary endowment of human nature,” many classic theories of personality have addressed the importance of self-esteem needs, many emotional and behavioral problems have been attributed to unfulfilled needs for self-esteem, and many psychotherapeutic approaches have focused in one way or another on the client's feelings about himself or herself (Adler, 1930; Allport, 1937; Bednar, Wells, & Peterson, 1989; Horney, 1937; Maslow,...