Self-Esteem and Group Performance as Determinants of Egocentric Perceptions in Cooperative Groups

Forty-eight male subjects who had previously completed Berger's selfacceptance (self-esteem) scale worked on problem-solving tasks in four person groups. After completion of the tasks, bogus feedback was provided which indicated that the group as a whole had done very well, very poorly, or average. No feedback was provided about the quality of individual performances. As predicted, perceptions of personal responsibility for the group's performance were found to be directly related to the quality of the bogus feedback; subjects in the success conditions felt more responsible than did subjects in the failure conditions, with the average feedback conditions falling intermediate. Contrary to predictions, self-esteem was not related to perceptions of personal or environmental responsibility for the group's performance. However, an interaction was obtained between selfesteem and group performance feedback on how much subjects felt that their prior behaviors were influenced by the other group members. High self-esteem subjects felt that their solutions to the problems were not influenced by the other group members under success conditions, but that their solutions were influenced by the other group members under failure conditions. Thus, high self-esteem subjects managed to shift relative credit for a group success to themselves and relative blame for failure away from themselves. Low self-esteem subjects felt equally influenced in all conditions. The results extend the phenomenon of egocentric perception to face-to-face group situations, and several differences between the present results and results obtained in noninteracting group situations were noted.