Self-esteem Flashcards
What is self-esteem?
- An affective (emotional) component of the self
- Consisting of a person’s positive and negative self-evaluations
What characteristics of people with high self esteem?
- People with high SE hold very favourable views about themselves i.e. usually they consider themselves to be compotent, likable, attractive and morally good
- They tend to be more resilient, persistent and more emotionally stable
- They are more motivated for self-enhancement
What are the characteristics
of people with low self esteem?
- Very few people with low SE hold extremely negative views about themselves
- The most common form of low self-esteem is simply the absence of strong positive views about themselves
- They do not want to fail
- Their ideas about themselves are conflicted and uncertain
- Focus on self-protection rather than self-enhancement
- More prone to emotional highs and lows
What is secure vs defensive self-esteem?
- Secure self-esteem: possess positive self-views that are confidently held; these individuals feel good about themselves and do not need constant reassurance from others to maintain their high self-esteem
Defensive self-esteem: possess positive self-views that are fragile and vulnerable to threat, these individuals harbor subconscious self-doubts and insecurities, and require repeated positive feedback from others
Why do individuals need good self esteem?
- Sociometer theory: View that self-esteem is linked to social acceptance. Sociometer is a measure of how desirable one would be to other people.
- Terror management theory: The theory that humans cope with the fear or their own death by constructing worldviews that help to preserve their self-esteem; i.e. fear of death is at the foundation of all our strivings- having good-self-esteem helps us feel more secure with the concept of inevitable death
- Simple theory: is that it feels good to have good self-esteem; it is good for our physical heath
Are their gender differences between self-esteem levels?
- Women tend to have slightly lower self-esteem than men
- This difference is greatest during adolescence (but adolescent males have elevated self-esteem)
- This difference is mainly due to body image concerns in females
Are their ethnic differences between self-esteem levels?
- Some studies show differences
- Most likely due to the different cultural understandings of self-esteem and the measures used to test such an abstract concept have limitations
What is self-discrepancy theory?
- Actual vs ideal vs ought selves
- Discrepancy between actual and ought selves: feel guilty, ashamed, resentful
- Discrepancy between actual and ideal selves: feel disappointed, frustrated, unfulfilled and sad
What is self-awareness theory?
- Self-focused attention leads people to notice self-discrepancies
- This motivates either an escape from self-awareness or a change in behaviour
What is private self consciousness?
- A personality characteristic of individuals who are introspective, often attending to their own inner states
e. g. I’m always trying to figure myself out
e. g. I’m constantly examining my motives
What is public self consciousness?
A personality characteristic of individuals who focus on themselves as social objects, as seen by others
e. g. I’m concerned about what other people think of me
e. g. I’m concerned about the way I present myself
e. g. one of the last things I do before leaving my house is look in the mirror
Do depressed people have a distorted view of reality?
- No
- It was ‘normal’ or non-depressed people that are more likely to hold distorted views
- This is because depressed people are less likely to have positive illusions
What are positive illusions?
- Patterns of thought common in non-depressed people
- The three most common are:
- People overestimate their good qualities (and underestimate their faults)- most people rate themselves highly- the above average effect
- People overestimate their perceived control over events
- People are unrealistically optimistic
How are positive illusions maintained in day to day life?
- We maintain positive illusions by using self-deception strategies e.g.
1. Self-serving bias (take credit for success and deny blame for failures)
2. Being more skeptical of bad feedback e.g. if you receive a bad mark on a test you will see the test as unfair
3. Attention and memory (when we sense something will be bad for our self-esteem we divert our attention away from it and we tend to remember things that are good for our self-esteem)
4. Self-handicapping: behaviour that sabotages your progress towards something to provide a subsequent excuse for potential failure in the future
5. Basking in the glory of others: increasing your self-esteem by associating yourself with others who are successful
6. Social comparisons e.g. a downward social comparison- comparing yourself to those who are less successful than you
7. Differential assessments of good traits vs faults: we tend to minimise faults and believe they are very common and we tend to overestimate our strengths and believe they are more rare and special than they actually are
8. Differing the definition of what is a good trait: shifting our criteria depending on circumstances e.g. if you end up with someone who differs from your criteria of what an ideal boyfriend is you will change your criteria for what an ideal boyfriend is to match that person
What are the benefits of high self esteem?
- Not quite as many as originally believed (will not address many issues- it cannot change reality)
- There is now more of a push in fostering resilience
- The main benefits are:
- Initiative: confidence in yourself and your own judgements makes you more willing to speak up, trust your own decisions and interact with others
- It feels good: high SE helps individuals become more resilient and bounce back after failures
- An excellent motivator for behaviour
