After a success, people with low self-esteem felt more uneasy than others

The paper uses a broad meaning of success. It means meeting a standard that matters, or being judged well.

It is widely assumed that people enjoy success about the same. Three studies tested the opposite idea.

Self-esteem is how you judge your own worth. The studies compared people with high and low self-esteem.

In two studies, university students had a success set up in a lab. In the third, they pictured very good things happening later.

After a success, people with low self-esteem felt more uneasy than people with high self-esteem.

Success helped people with high self-esteem think better of themselves. It did not do that for people with low self-esteem.

People with low self-esteem also paid more attention to the downsides of the success.

There were three studies, and all used university students. Two set up a success in a lab, and one used imagined events.

The abstract does not give the number of people. A correction to this paper was published, and this note is written from the abstract alone.

Success Sabotage is the pattern of undoing things just as they start to work. You may feel uneasy right when the good news lands.

This paper suggests success itself can bring some unease for people with low self-esteem.

Catch comes first. Catch means you feel the body signal and name the pattern before it becomes the behavior.

The body signal is what you feel in your body as the pattern starts. After good news, it might be a tight chest or a restless urge.

Then Intercept, the second move: interrupt the usual response and choose a different action before the old pattern completes. Let the good news sit for a day before you change anything.

This study did not test The Archivist Method. It studied reactions to a success set up in a lab, and to imagined ones.

It does not say self-esteem is fixed. It found that people did not all react to success the same way.