The second part of this Master-post focuses on the history of self-esteem as a psychological and sociological construct and the patterns and trends it follows in societies.
Sociologists and psychologists have been discussing the concept of self-esteem for decades. In these disciplines, self-esteem is a reflection of a person's subjective evaluation of their life – it is a judgement of oneself, as well as an attitude towards oneself. The concept consists of beliefs – for example, "I am worthy", coupled with emotional states, such as "pride". Social psychologists, Smith and Mackie defined it: "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluation of the self, as in how we feel about ourselves."
Self-esteem is seen as an important social psychological construct because researchers have termed it as an influential predictor of certain outcomes, such as academic achievements, relationship satisfactions or criminal convictions. The concept can be dimensional – e.g. "I think I am a good writer and I feel happy about that" or global – "I believe I am a bad person and this makes me feel bad about myself in all contexts."
Many early theorists, such as Maslow, suggested that self-esteem is a basic human need. He described two different forms of esteem: the need for self-respect in the form of self-love and the need for respect from others in the form of admiration and recognition. Receiving respect from others was believed to be weaker and easily lost than inner self-esteem. Maslow said that without the fulfillment of these needs, we would be driven to seek it and unable to grow until they were achieved. He also stated that the healthiest form of self-esteem was the one we thought we deserved from others.
Modern theories of self-esteem focus on the reasons as to why we, as humans, are motivated to maintain ourselves with high regard. The Sociometer theory states that self-esteem evolved to check one's level of status and acceptance in ones' social group. According to Terror Management Theory, self-esteem serves as an evolutionary, protective function and reduces anxiety about life and death.
Carl Rogers said that the origin of most people's problem is that they consider themselves unworthy and incapable of being loved. This is why Rogers thought it was important to give his clients unconditional acceptance and positive regard no matter what.
Life experiences play a key part in how self-esteem develops. In the early stages of life, parents are considered highly significant in the child's development and will be the main source of positive or negative experiences he/she will have. Children develop a sense of self from unconditional love given by parents and these feelings transition into later life. Students who have high self-esteem often have authoritative parents who are caring and supportive, set clear standards for their child and allow them to voice their opinion in decision making. Childhood experiences that contribute to healthy self-esteem include being listened to, being spoken to respectfully, receiving appropriate attention and affection, having accomplishments recognized and mistakes or failures acknowledged and accepted. Experiences that contribute to low self-esteem include being harshly criticized, being physically, sexually or emotionally abused, being ignored, ridiculed, teased or being expected to be "perfect" at all times.
Academic achievement is a significant contributor to the development of self-esteem. Both consistently achieving success and consistently failing will have a strong effect on self-esteem. Social experiences also factor in – as children go through school, they begin to understand and recognize differences between them and their classmates and they use social comparisons to internally assess whether they are doing better or worse than their classmates – and this will heavily influence any positive or negative feelings they may harbor about themselves.
At adolescence, peer influence becomes much more important. Successful relationships amongst friends are very important to the development of high self-esteem. Rejection from peers and loneliness brings about low self-esteem.
Adolescence tends to show an increase in self-esteem which carries on into middle ages. A decrease is seen from the middle age to the old age with contradictory findings on whether or not it is a large decrease. Reasons for the contradiction could be: differences in health, cognitive abilities and socioeconomic status during old age. No differences have been found between males and females in terms of the development of self-esteem. Cohort studies have shown that there is no difference in the onset of self-esteem between generations due to social changes, such as the presence of social media.
High self-esteem may be predicted by better health, high levels of success and low risk-taking. Emotionally stable, extroverted individuals are more likely to experience high self-esteem. Such predictors have shown that self-esteem has trait-like qualities by remaining stable over time, like personality or intelligence – although this does not mean that it can't be changed.
Research shows that Hispanic adolescents have a slightly lower self-esteem than their black and white peers, but then slightly higher levels by age 30. African Americans have a sharper increase in self-esteem in adolescence and young adulthood compared to white people. However, during old age, they experience a more rapid decline.
The concept of self-esteem can be summed up by this sentence:
"Every human being, with no exception, for the mere fact to be it, is worthy of unconditional respect of everybody else; he deserves to esteem himself and to be esteemed."
Thank you for reading.
YOU ARE READING
What is #ProjectSelfEsteem
RandomThis is a book that gives you a little bit of info about who and what Project Self Esteem is. #ProjectSelfEsteem #PSE
