ABSTRACT
There is an episode of The Simpsons in which a traumatized and desperate Ned Flanders asks Reverend Lovejoy if God is punishing him. Lovejoy promptly replies “Short answer: ‘Yes’ with an ‘If.’ long answer: ‘No’ with a ‘But’” (Young & Anderson, 1997). For some reason, when I read the first of the three questions posed here (“Is there a nonconscious component to self-esteem?”), I thought of Reverend Lovejoy’s words. I think it must be because whichever perspective (i.e., “Yes” vs. “No”) one adopts regarding nonconscious self-esteem, there are bound to be several important “ifs” and “buts.” So, I begin by discussing some of these qualifiers and explaining the roles they play in my thinking about nonconscious self-esteem. (Note that some of these qualifiers pertain to the second question regarding conceptualization and measurement, so my responses to the first two questions are inextricably linked.)
