Functional Differences in the Words the Japanese use for “I” in Relation to Self-Esteem: Key Factor for Establishing Level of Self-Esteem in Psychoanalysis

Abstract

The current study investigated the functional differences of “own name” depending on the level of self-esteem in the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) by observing the results of one-sample t-tests and ANOVAs of two higher and lower self-esteem groups. According to the suggestion, the lower the self-esteem, the weaker the trial-type 1 IRAP effect measured by the name IRAP by Zhang and Tani (2022). We assumed that the singletrial-type-dominance effect (STTDE) appears only in the group with high self-esteem and is not observed in the group with low self-esteem for IRAP. Participants were thirty-one native Japanese speakers, and for the IRAP, two labels (own name or others) and two targets (positive or negative words) were used. Each participant completed the Japanese version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES-J) and IRAP. We divided the participants into higher and lower self-esteem groups based on the results of the RSES-J.Results found a significant difference for the participant’s name-positive trial type (t = 6.14, df = 15, p < .01) for the higher self-esteem group. One-way repeated-measures ANOVAs yielded a significant main effect of trial-type on the IRAP for the higher selfesteem group (F (3, 15) = 10.35, p < .01, 𝜂𝜌2 = .41). Bonferroni post hoc tests indicated that the effects for the participant’s name-positive differed significantly from the three other trialtypes (p < .01); the remaining types did not differ significantly from each other (p > .05) for the higher self-esteem group. For the lower self-esteem group, ANOVAs confirmed no significant main effect (F (3, 14) = 1.30, p > .05). Bonferroni post hoc tests indicated that the effect for all trials did not differ significantly from each other (p > .05). The hypothesis was supported by the results that STTDE appears only in the group with high self-esteem and is not observed in the group with low self-esteem for IRAP. In the results of a differential arbitrarily applicable relational responding effects analysis of word functions, the function of “own name” differed between respondents with low versus high self-esteem. In conclusion, the study successfully identified the differences in that the higher the self-esteem the stronger was the appetitive evoking function, and the lower the self-esteem the stronger the aversive evoking function for “own name” in Name-IRAP.