Self-esteem and the cognitive accessibility of strengths and weaknesses after failure

People with high self-esteem (HSEs) respond less negatively to failure than people with low self-esteem (LSEs). This difference may occur because HSEs overcome the natural tendency to focus on negative thoughts after failure, and instead focus on their strengths. In 2 experiments, participants with high and low self-esteem received failure, success, or no feedback. Accessibility of strengths and weaknesses was measured by response latency on an unrelated task. Results confirmed that although strengths were typically more accessible than weaknesses for both groups, the discrepancy was larger for HSEs after failure feedback than after no feedback. This heightened discrepancy appears to result from HSEs recruiting their strengths and suppressing their weaknesses. In contrast, LSEs' weaknesses appeared to become especially accessible after failure. These results have implications for the mood-congruent cognition and self-esteem literatures.