Explicit self-esteem and contingencies of self-worth: The moderating role of implicit self-esteem

• ISE moderates the relations between ESE and CSW.
• ESE is positively associated with family support CSW only if the ISE is high.
• Information from domains of CSW is processed differently, depending on the ISE.
• The interaction between ISE and ESE should be considered in research and practice.

Among the contemporary approaches of self-esteem, the dual-process model and the contingencies of self-worth model have been linked to similar phenomena like narcissism, perfectionism or negative emotions. The present studies aimed to investigate the way in which implicit self-esteem can moderate the relations between explicit self-esteem and particular contingencies of self-worth. In Study 1, we found that implicit self-esteem moderates the relation of explicit self-esteem with academic competencies and family support. In Study 2, the data supported the same moderating role of implicit self-esteem in the relation between explicit self-esteem and family support, while showing that implicit self-esteem also moderates the relation between explicit self-esteem and virtue. Since we used two different ways to assess self-esteem, the converging results from the two studies can be considered to be particularly robust.