Margaret S. Clark, PhD
Professor of Psychology
Yale University
“Why Do People With Low Self-Esteem Struggle to Form and Maintain Close Relationships?”
Monday, February 4, 2013
4:30-6:00 pm
A53 Baker Hall/Steinberg Auditorium
Successful close relationships require people to non-contingently support their partners, to seek support from their partners, and to engage in mutually enjoyable activities. Whereas people low in self-esteem appear to desire such relationships as much as do others they experience considerable difficulty in initiating and maintaining close relationships. It will be suggested that most of their difficulties stem from chronic self-protective tendencies that, ironically, lead to a wide variety of (sometimes surprising) relationship-defeating cognitions and behaviors. Research documenting many of these relationship-defeating processes will be described.