Self-esteem Flashcards
Self-esteem definition
Self-esteem is an attitude regarding oneself: It refers to an evaluation of oneself and of his or her personal worth (Crocker & Major, 1989)
Self-esteem vs self-concept
Self-concept:
- How you define and view yourself e.g. I am a procrastinator
Self-esteem:
- evaluative of yourself - how you feel about yourself e.g. I dislike being a procrastinator
Self-esteem and psychological equanimity
Self-esteem is linked to positive psychological adjustment (e.g. Baumeister et al, 2003)
Increased self-esteem has been associated with:
- reduced depression
- reduced anxiety
- increased happiness
Low SE
- Less clear self-conceptions
- Set unrealistic goals/shy away from goals
- Remember past more negative/wallow in negative moods
- Pessimistic
High SE
- Clear sense of self
- Set appropriate goals
- Savour past experiences/think positively
- Optimistic
Historial perspectives on SE
- During this time SE seemed to be the cause of everything
-Schools therefore developed ways to increase SE and promote increased SE in an attempt to eradicate problems e.g. drinking, teen pregnancy - The self-esteem movement (1970/80s)
- California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social
Responsibility (1986) - Low self-esteem is the cause of individual and societal dysfunction, therefore high self-esteem is the cure to many societal problems
- No evidence for an epidemic of low self-esteem in Western culture (Baumeister et al., 2003)
Evidence for SE and social problems (Baumeister et al., 2003)
Baumeister found there are links between SE and a range of social issues:
- school performance, job performance, anti-social behaviour, unhealthy behaviours
- However the links are weak and when links where found, there is the issue of causality
Is self-esteem a state and a trait?
There are lots of different ways we can define SE
- Trait SE - typical, average evaluation of the self across time
- State SE - moment-to-moment fluctuations in self evaluation
- People can differ in whether they have high or low SE and although there are fluctuations - SE level over time tends to remain stable
Stable vs Unstable SE
Kernis (1993) claimed that individual self-esteem can differ in terms of stability
- The magnitude of fluctuations around general levels of self-esteem e.g. someone could experience more extreme highs and lows
Global evaluations of the self
e. g. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1965)
- “I feel that I have a number of good qualities”
Domain-specific evaluations of the self
e. g. appearance, academic competence, athletic ability
- “I generally think that I am good at my degree”
Bottom-up approach to SE
Evaluative feedback > Domain specific self-esteem > Global SE
Top-down approach to SE
Global SE >
Evaluative feedback > Domain-specific SE
- Therefore we build up a sense of how we evaluate ourselves and this influences our SE
- Studies tend to suggest that it is how you see yourself in certain areas that influence a person’s behaviour
Contingent/non-contingent (Crocker, 2002)
SE can be contingent or non-contingent - when we stake our self-worth in particular domains, our SE can become contingent upon success and failures we experience
- The successes and failures we experience influence how we feel about ourselves and the basis of who we are
- This can be dangerous as staking one’s self-worth on achieving can be detrimental
- All SE can be contingent at some point however, basing your whole self-worth on belief on achieving can be negative
Contingent Self-worth (Crocker, 2003)
- Seven contingent domains of self-esteem: (Seven areas people can put contingent self-worth on) approval of others, appearance, competition, academic competence, family support, virtue, god’s love
- People tend to have one of these areas where they show contingent self-worth
- Domains in which people staked their self-worth predicted self-report activities of what they did that year at college e.g.,
- Academic contingent self-worth spent more time studying
- Appearance contingent self-worth spent more time partying, socialising, shopping, and grooming themselves
Threatened self-esteem
- Because feelings of self-esteem are important, we often react when experiencing threats to our self- esteem
▪ Studies exploring responses to threatened self-esteem often include tests that provide false feedback on how well they did e.g.,
▪ Remotes Associates Test
(RAT)
Threatened self-esteem example - students (Greenberg et al)
- Students told they were going to take part in an intelligence test and told the results are predictive of future academic results
- Participants randomly selected to succeed of fail
- The results indicated that those who failed were much more likely to externalise failure e.g. criticising the clarity of the test instructions or suggesting the test isn’t fair/valid
- Highlights that when our SE is threatened, we try to externalise the failure and diminish the importance of the information given
Threatened self-esteem (vanDellen et al., 2011)
- Meta-analysis of responses to threatened self-esteem
- Depends on whether high v low in trait self-esteem
High self-esteem -More likely to show compensatory responses and blame others/external factors
» More likely to pick themselves up and persevere
» Externally attribute failure
» Positive self-evaluations
» Downward social comparisons
» Negative evaluations of evaluators
» Increased persistence/motivation
Low self-esteem - More likely to show breaking responses e.g. blaming themselves
» More likely to accept failure
» Less likely to improve for the future and therefore give up
» Internally attribute failure
» Negative self-evaluations
» Upward social comparisons»_space; Positive evaluations of evaluators
» Decreased persistence/motivation