Core Self-Evaluations

Structure and Measurement of Core Self-Evaluations

Core self-evaluation is a broad personality trait that includes shared elements of some of the most frequently studied personality traits, including self-esteem, locus of control, and neuroticism. Although researchers have spent decades studying these individual traits (e.g., self-esteem, neuroticism), only recently have researchers begun to recognize the commonalities among them. Recent research indicates that four core traits—neuroticism (reverse scored), locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and self-esteem—are highly related to one another. Individuals who score high in one of these traits tend to score high on all of them, leading researchers to believe that individual traits may all be linked to a common source or core, labeled core self-evaluations.

Although it is clear that strong associations between these traits exist, research to date is not clear about the nature of this association. It may be that core self-evaluations are the underlying cause of traits such as self-esteem and neuroticism. If this is the case, individuals vary in the extent to which their broad, fundamental evaluations of themselves are positive or negative, and these evaluations, in turn, influence their feelings of worth and value (self-esteem), control (locus of control), confidence (self-efficacy), and general emotional stability (neuroticism). According to this approach, each of the individual traits serves as an indicator of individuals' core evaluations of themselves, which are not directly observable.

It is also possible, however, that the four core traits are linked to each other in a hierarchical manner. For example, it maybe that self-esteem is the cause of the other traits: Individuals who have a low sense of self-worth (self-esteem) may tend to experience more sadness and anxiety (neuroticism) and have less confidence that they are capable of handling the challenges they face (self-efficacy) because they doubt their value.

The nature of the associations among the four core traits and the broader core self-evaluations concept, [Page 111]especially their causal associations, remains unresolved. Researchers have attempted to sort out the causal associations between evaluative self-reported traits such as self-esteem and neuroticism using factor analyses; however, such approaches are open to multiple interpretations and preclude definitive conclusions. In the future, our understanding of these traits may be aided by the biological, brain, and genetic research that is currently under way in the field of neuroscience.

There are two approaches to the measurement of core self-evaluations. One is to use existing measures of the four traits. In this approach, core self-evaluations can be assessed by either (a) averaging the scores of the four traits, which assumes that the specific elements of each trait represent the underlying core self-evaluation, or (b) using factor analysis to extract the commonalities between the traits, which assumes that only the commonalities between the four core traits represent core self-evaluations. A second approach is to measure individuals' fundamental assessments of themselves and their capabilities directly. To this end, a short, comprehensive measure of core self-evaluations has been developed.

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