Self-esteem is your self-perception
I have had an interest in self-esteem for a long time and decided to challenge that knowledge and myself in 2019 (action or no action paradox). I sent a proposal for a presentation during the ‘Current Counselling Trends in Ireland and United States Conference’ in Dublin 2019. My proposal got accepted and I began to wish I had never done it!! Until the very moment I stood in front of over 100 people, I had wanted to run. I didn’t run. Somehow I delivered a talk about something I am very passionate about. Ohh... complicated human nature… Ironically to some degree it gives an idea about how self-esteem fluctuates. On one hand there is a passion and conviction: yes, I can do it!! On the other hand there are doubts: am I good enough to do it? What if my presentation is crap? I kept comparing myself to a PhD presenter who delivered 6 hour long workshop on self-esteem a few month prior…funny that I neither went to that workshop, neither new anybody who participated or gave a feedback…
The text
below comes from that presentation, however it was cut and adjusted in belief
that posting the presentation the way it was delivered in 2019 would not be
appropriate.
What is
self-esteem?
Self-esteem is one of the oldest concepts in psychology. William James, American philosopher and psychologist used the term ‘self-esteem’ for the first time in his seminar work ‘The Principles of Psychology’ in 1890. He suggested that self-esteem can be objectively measured through a simple ration of goals and aims to attainment (today we refer to it as an evidence based measure). Since 1890 when it was introduced for the first time, the notion of self-esteem has morphed into something entirely different than it was originally intended. Our modern interpretation is no longer an objective and measurable equation of ‘do good/feel good’. It has, in fact, come to mean something quite opposite. We had lost sight of the ‘do good’ piece and now apparently much to our detriment, focus solely on the ‘feel good’ piece. In generations past, you were a star because you showed athletic promise, unusual scholarship or were an asset to the community. These days you are star because someone tells you so (or you say it yourself). According to Formica, that is the crux of the problem. In the 1950s, 12% of American teens agreed with the statement: ‘I am important’. 80% of American teens agreed with the same statement in 1980’.
A big number
of researchers worked on the concept of self-esteem, however they didn’t arrive
to the same conclusion. I am bringing only three of them to picture different
ideas about self-esteem. A. Maslow believed that if the first three levels of
needs in the Hierarchy of Needs are met, then the need for esteem can become
dominant. He described self-esteem as achievement, mastery, independence,
status, self-respect and respect from others. If the need for self-esteem is
satisfied than an individual feels self-confident and valuable. If this need is
not satisfied, a person feels weak, frustrated, helpless and worthless. E.
Erikson believed that each of the psychological stages of development
influences self-esteem due to the fact that an individual lives in a society.
Society and its culture affect development, functioning, the sense of self and
self-esteem. M. Rosenberg explained self-esteem as a positive or negative
orientation towards oneself; an overall evaluation of one’s worth or value.
Self-esteem is only one component of self-concept, which is defined as the
‘totality of the individual’s thoughts and feelings with reference to himself
as an object’ (Rosenberg, 1965). Rosenberg created the Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)
which is a widely used instrument that has been tested for reliability and
validity in many settings. It has been used cross-culturally and translated
into 53 languages.
Self-esteem
begins to form in very early childhood. Upbringing has a detrimental impact on
personal self-esteem, so do the crucial relationships. These are ‘the looking
glass’ through which a child develops his or her self-esteem. From the moment
of birth – actions, facial expressions, gestures and verbal communications send
messages to the child about his or her worth, value and capability. Research
from around the world confirms this. Family and its background made of
cultural, social, economic, class, educational, ethic/racial and so on impacts self-esteem further. E.g. I am from a
poor neighbourhood, people from here never get good jobs. The beliefs inherited
through family and community beliefs can determinate ones perception of self
and disable their self-esteem. If a child’s parents (biological, foster, carers)
have self-esteem difficulties – even if not realized – a child will mirror it.
Teachers and other significant figures in children’s life have tremendous power
on how children feel about themselves. Encouragement and motivation will help
self-esteem to develop despite other odds. Criticism and repetition of
unhelpful beliefs will steel all inspiration to change things.
Irish
psychologist T. Humprey thinks that there are two central dimensions to
self-esteem: feeling of being lovable and feeling of being capable. According
to him - If a child engages in certain behaviours, from overly reserved, quiet,
attention seeking and clingy to aggressive and hostile – he or she doubts his
or her lovability. If a child is frightened, resistant to challenge, afraid of
failure, easily upset by mistakes, nervous about school work/tests,
perfectionistic, overly diligent/evasive – it signifies that they doubt their
capability. The child’s motivation to learn will be compromised and will show
as apathy, avoidance or compensation.
Environment
creates a bigger picture that helps to describe different dimensions of
self-esteem. Another self-esteem theory broadly explains it as an overall
appraisal or attitude of a person towards himself/herself. As one of the core
components of the self-esteem – it is widespread influence on individual
cognition, motivation, emotion and behaviour. It is also a major driving force
for personal social behaviour and an important indicator of individual social
adaptation – the higher the individual’s self-esteem, the better his or her
social adaptability. The pattern of interaction in society can be explained
using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory – which is an attempt to
describe the interaction between the individual and the environment and its
potential impact on self-esteem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
Five
ecological systems with which the individual interacts were conceptualized,
each nested within the following from inside to outside: the microsystem
mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. The microsystem refers to
the immediate environment in which individuals act and communicate, such as
their relationships with their family and peers (e.g. a child gets in trouble
often because they feel worthless and gives the impression they don’t care or
learn from their mistakes). The mesosystem encompasses interactions among the
individual’s microsystems that affects a child directly (e.g. “when my parents
drink, they shout and beat me and I am always scared”). The exosystem describes
the individual’s indirect link to their social setting in which he or she does
not play an active role in e.g. the law (e.g. “when they find out what happens
in my home they might take me to foster care”). The macrosystem describes the culture of the
individual’s surroundings such as socioeconomical status, religion, ethnicity,
culture and beliefs (e.g. “I can’t tell anyone about what is going on in the
house because in my neighbourhood they will call me ‘ a rat’”). Finally, the
chronosystem emphasizes the sociohistorical regularity of individuals’ lives,
like transitions occurring throughout a person’s life (e.g. “I can’t wait to
grow up and get out of here but before that happens I have to show that I fear
nobody).
The
scenario I made up to explain The Ecological Theory is very realistic however
it did not include biological or cognitive factors. There is a way out of that
circle. Self-esteem can be influenced by social support in the form of positive
regard from significant others (Cooley, 1902). Older children and adolescents
often seek support from a classmate, a peer group, a parent or a family member
if a positive role model in the immediate family doesn’t exist. The more social
support a young person can get the better the self-esteem can develop (Harter,
1993). Positive self-esteem increases the likelihood that adolescents in the
school environment will build positive relationships with peers and teachers,
while developing effective coping skills and resisting peer pressure (DuBois et
al., 2002; King et al., 2002). Walker and Greene (1986) found that peers
influenced self-esteem for females but not for males, suggesting that this may
be because females have a larger number of peers and confide in them more,
compared to males. This implies that support from peers has an influential
impact on levels of adolescent self-esteem (Warner and Budd, 2018).
There are
lots of different dynamics that happen in society. Often people who are not a
part of the mainstream are marginalized. Some groups in society are vulnerable because
of the very prejudice of that group and often labelled – members of those
groups as well as whole groups are vulnerable and prone to low self- esteem
e.g. single parents, people who are mentally unwell or physically impaired, people
who are unemployed, minority ethnic groups, or people in recovery from
addiction to name a few.
Self-esteem
has been explored in many cross cultural studies around the world. There are
many ways that self-esteem can be examined. One of them is social adaptation
- a huge study conducted in southwestern
China revealed that self-esteem is inside of the psychological core of each
individual and support coming from peers or significant adults can positively
impact the self-esteem. The lack of it would affect self-esteem in a negative
way. Therefore adolescent social adaptation could be promoted by directly
enhancing self-esteem, thus indirectly improving peer trust and perceived
social support (Xin, Y., Li, Q., &Liu, C., 2019).
Another
one is assertiveness - a study in India
proved that there is a positive relationship between assertiveness and
self-esteem. Adolescent boys have a higher self-esteem and are more assertive
than girls. The type of family an adolescent comes from play an important role
in how assertive young people are and how their self-esteem develops (Venkatesh
and Sabesan, 2019).
Another
study conducted among young adults in India proved that the better self-esteem
the more open, extraverted, agreeable and conscientious a person is. People who
are fearful, introverted, overly self-conscious and not very sociable have low
self-esteem. According to that study, self-esteem is developed from the family
(Kumar et al, 2019).
Low
self-esteem is often matched with mental health problems. There is lots of
research proving that low self-esteem does not mean you have mental health
problems, but if it is prolonged then it will inevitably lead to anxiety and
depressive disorders. People who suffer from mental health problems often
develop low self-esteem due to mental health stigma and many events that may happen
due to bad mental health (e.g. breakup of relationships, loss of employment,
social isolation and many more).
Mental
health of young people is a big and increasing concern due to many demands put
on them via social media. In order to ‘exist’ everyone has to have followers,
likes and many friends. This often leads to cyber bullying and further serious
problems. The demand for mental health services is great and research in
England and Ireland proves that the need doesn’t match resources. It has been
recognized by educational institutions and implemented that programs run in
schools that aim to help students how to deal with anxiety, low mood, low
self-esteem are helpful. Increase of emotional well-being will decrease
possibilities of developing low self-esteem, mental health problems and
antisocial behaviours such as bullying, self-harm etc (Warner and Budd, 2018).
The
impact of peer-to peer coaching on self-esteem, test anxiety and perceived
stress in adolescents tends to be reactive rather than proactive with resources
only being made available to students when students demonstrate difficulties
(Madden et al, 2011).
Levy
(2019) thinks that self-esteem is an enigma without one single description and
definition used by all researchers. Until 2019, over 25000 big studies across
the globe were conducted on self-esteem, its connections and implications on
different aspects of an individual’s personality and life. There are some
attempts of classifying self-esteem e.g. global (overall value/sense of worth
an individual places on themselves) and specific (reflection of the evaluation
and value of an individual’s competency in a particular domain). People with
negative self-image can be successful in different areas e.g. in a study
conducted between IT workers in India (Sathyapal and Palanthara, 2019).
Competence based self-esteem is competence or ability in a certain area that is
very important to an individual e.g. sport or gaming. Success or failure will
determinate how the individual will feel about themselves (Ingram and Cangemi,
2019). High, healthy or low self-esteem are also manifested by other
psychological components such as stability. Contingent self-esteem scale
measures stability of self-esteem (Kang, 2019).
In
therapy, self-esteem provides a specific type of lenses that could be used.
Relationships, life events, decisions and so on can be examined using
self-esteem lenses. Sometimes people are aware that the reasons of some of
their problems is their self-esteem. A narcissistic person might realize that
nobody really likes them because they are always ‘showing off’. Or a person
with a low self-esteem can blame it on not having a good job. Other times people
discover that many things happening in their life are linked with self-esteem.
It is
recognized in therapy that self-esteem is a complex and multifaceted aspect of
life. According to Plummer (2014) it is a primary component in the building and
maintenance of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. The term ‘high
self-esteem’ is often wrongly used as almost entirely based on feeling good
about oneself at other people’s expense. Healthy self- esteem is much more than
simply feeling good about oneself. It encompasses feelings of actual and
perceived competency and self-efficacy; feelings of being lovable or ‘approved
of’. This includes self-approval, self-compassion as well as warmth and
approval of others. People with low self-esteem find it hard to form close
attachments, have a distorted view of themselves and others, place little value
on their abilities and often deny their successes or find it difficult to set a
goal or solve a problem. There are well documented links between low
self-esteem and suicide, suicide ideation and depression. Adolescent use and
abuse of alcohol and drugs, adolescent pregnancy, unprotected sexual encounters
and other risky behaviour has also been linked with low self-esteem.
Self-
esteem has its roots in the development of our self-concept: the overall view
that we have of ourselves: what we think we are, what we think we can achieve,
what we think others think of us and what we would like to be – the internal
picture/image that we have of ourselves at any given time. Plummer (2014) thinks that we generally try
to act in a way that fits in with our self-concept; e.g. if a person is told
from day one that they are special they might carry that belief throughout
their life. If someone is told they are stupid and will never achieve anything
– it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy too.
Self-esteem
became a household word and somehow people got to believe the higher it is the
better it is. Teachers, parents, therapists and other have focused efforts on
boosting self-esteem, on the assumption that high self-esteem will cause many
positive outcomes and benefits. Nearly every product advertised on TV from a
bar of soap to a car is meant to make you feel great and after purchasing it
make a person automatically a member of a group of some very special people.
Not having it – makes you somehow feel bad about yourself and if people around
you are ‘the special people’ – you don’t fit in anymore.
Appraisal
of the effects of self-esteem is complicated by several factors. Because many
people with high self-esteem exaggerate their successes and good traits, we
emphasize objective measures of outcome. High self-esteem is also in the
heterogeneous category, encompassing people who frankly accept their good
qualities along with narcissistic, defensive and conceited individuals. Laboratory
studies have generally failed to find that self-esteem causes good task
performances, with the important exception that high self-esteem facilitates
persistence after failure. People with high self-esteem claim to be more
likable and attractive, to have better relationships, and to make better
impressions on others than people with low self-esteem, but objective measures disconfirm
most of these beliefs. Leadership does not stem directly from self-esteem, but
self-esteem may have indirect effects. Those with high self-esteem show
stronger in-group favours, which may increase prejudice and discrimination. In
studies and in reality, high self-esteem does not prevent children from
smoking, drinking, taking drugs or engaging in early sex. If anything, high
self-esteem fosters experimentation, which may increase early sexual activity
or drinking. Self-esteem has a strong relation to happiness. Although the
research has not clearly established causation, we are persuaded that high
self-esteem does lead to greater happiness and low self-esteem is more likely
to lead to depression under some circumstances.
Many
people are aware that their esteem causes them distress and perhaps some other
dangerous consequences need help in order to understand it, work on it and
improve it and get rid of negative consequences (e.g. they gamble cause they
want to win and show of but instead they are making debts). Plummer (2014)
compares self-esteem to an iceberg. There are parts of difficulty than can be
heard or seen, equivalent to the part of an iceberg that lies above the water.
When a person is coping with a difficulty there are usually many things going
on below the surface too. Both parts of the iceberg – above and beneath the
water should be looked at and ‘melted’ or ‘chipped away at’ in order to achieve
long-term goals. That process can be explored in therapy.
Some life
situations, events and circumstances can leave a long lasting and negative
impact on a person’s self-esteem. Interestingly people respond to stress and
adverse circumstances in different ways – some cope better than others and are
able to move on and start anew. Research links this with the fact that some
people are by nature more resilient than others, however resilience is
something that can be developed – paradoxically through difficult
circumstances. It applies to children, adolescents and adults equally. Key
events that can effect person’s self-esteem are: life transitions and stages,
abandonment, neglect, illness, separation, changes in family dynamics,
bereavement, financial difficulties, addition, moving houses, changing schools,
academic struggle, bad self-image, peer pressure, bullying at school or work,
all forms of abuse, high expectations and pressure, trauma, mental health
problems, criticism and more. I feel that being constantly or regularly criticized is one of the deadliest way of destroying someone’s self-esteem,
confidence and ability to make decisions.
Kang
(2019) believes that self-esteem is not constant or given. There is lots of
research to prove that a person’s self-esteem may fluctuate and that nearly
everybody encounters moments in life when they feel bad about themselves or
perceive themselves as incapable or unworthy for a period of time. Self-esteem
can be described by certain characteristics. Some characteristics of a healthy
self-esteem are: confidence, ability to make friends and keep friends,
readiness to try new things and adopt to change, acknowledgement of one’s
achievements, ability to solve problems and if not willingness to ask for
guidance or help, positive self-image (‘I am ok’), self-acceptance, self-
respect, a positive outlook. Some characteristic of low self-esteem are: lack
of confidence, inability to cope with failure (the end of the world scenario),
constant or often comparison to others in a negative way, regularly putting
oneself down, hesitant to try new things if at all, change found hard to
handle, struggling to make/keep friends, feeling of being victimized by others
or circumstances, feeling fearful, personal growth compromised.
Having a
healthy self-esteem can become an approach to wellbeing. There is so much that
can be done to build and maintain good self-esteem. There are lots of books including
self-help books for children, adolescents and adults out there, each offering
something worth trying. Therapy can be another important move, if books don’t
help (or if someone doesn’t like talking because they believe they are not
smart enough…). If someone holds a perception that their case of low
self-esteem is an extreme one, they should know that: yes – the process of
attaining a better self-esteem can be long and complicated but everyone, absolutely
every one of us does have a remarkable capacity for growth and change. Often
people who embarked onto that journey to improve their self-esteem and learn
what affected it/affects it and why, report that they improved emotional
well-being, gained self-respect and self-acceptance, discover self-love, found
self-compassion for their imperfections, developed and maintained positive self-image and
attitude and felt worthy and adequate most days. Virginia Satir (1991)
suggests: ‘Since the feeling of unworthiness has been learned, it can be
unlearned, and something new can be learned in its place. The possibility for
this lasts from birth to death, so it is never too late. At any point in a
person’s life they can begin to feel better about themselves’. The research on
neuroplasticity confirms that.
There are
some final thoughts explaining ‘Action or no action paradox’:
Action is
the means through which an adult’s self-esteem is changed, but you cannot learn
your value through what you do. This is a paradox, but so is a lot of human
behaviour.
If a
person believes that what they achieve, their professional or social status,
material possessions, or the family they come from make them important,
respected and acceptable, the person is highly dependent on other people
opinions and vulnerable in terms of self-esteem.
Self-worth
is a given – every person is unique and has a unique role and a part to play in
their life and their community or the world. Self-esteem develops in response
to how a person is treated, their environment and other factors.
According
to Humphreys self-esteem develops in six categories: a physical self, an
emotional self, an intellectual self, a behavioural self, a social self and a
creative self.
Every
effort is attainment but effort should not be confused with performance.
Success
and failure are relative terms and everyone has experienced both. Success and
failure describe behaviour not a person. Nobody in their actions is absolutely
successful or a total failure.
Conditioned
behaviour (e.g. I have to make lots of money in order to be respected) can be
very dangerous to self-esteem, so is comparing.
Below are links to two diverse and excellent talk on self-esteem, enjoy:
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