Self-Esteem

Virgil Zeigler-Hill

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135068738
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In this edited collection a distinguished set of contributors present a broad overview of psychological research on self-esteem. Each chapter is written by leading experts in the field, and surveys current research on a particular issue concerning self-esteem. Together, the chapters provide a comprehensive overview of one of the most popular topics in psychology.

Each chapter presents an in-depth review of particular issues concerning self-esteem, such as the connection that self-esteem has with the self-concept and psychological adjustment. A number of further topics are covered in the book, including:

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• How individuals pursue self-esteem

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• The developmental changes in feelings of self-worth over the life span.

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• The existence of multiple forms of high self-esteem

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• The role that self-esteem plays as an interpersonal signal

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• The protective properties associated with the possession of high self-esteem

This collection of state-of-the-art reviews of key areas of the psychological literature on self-esteem will be of great interest to researchers, and academics, and also to graduate and advanced undergraduate students of social psychology.

1 The importance of self-esteem

Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Self-esteem is clearly one of the most popular topics in modern psychology, with more than 35,000 publications on the subject of this construct. This exceptionally wide and diverse literature has examined the potential causes, consequences, and correlates of self-esteem. The considerable attention that has been given to self-esteem is most likely due to the fact that self-esteem was once believed to play a causal role in many important life outcomes. Widespread interest in self-esteem began to build during the 1970s as results emerged that linked self-esteem with a variety of social problems including drug abuse, unemployment, academic underachievement, and violence. The so-called self-esteem movement was in full swing by the 1980s, as evidenced by the funding of the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility (1990). The goal of this Task Force was to raise the self-esteem of Californian citizens with the hope that some of the social problems that were plaguing the state at that time would be reduced if individuals felt better about themselves. Various efforts to raise self-esteem have been implemented but they have not resulted in the societal changes that had been envisioned and, as a result, self-esteem is no longer considered to be the sort of panacea that many once hoped it would be. In fact, there has been considerable debate in recent years concerning the value of self-esteem, with some researchers continuing to argue that self-esteem is a fundamental construct that is associated with a wide array of important life outcomes (e.g., Orth, Robins, & Widaman, 2012; Schimel, Landau, & Hayes, 2008; Swann, Chang-Schneider, & Larsen McClarty, 2007; Trzesniewski et al., 2006), whereas other researchers have adopted a much more negative view of self-esteem and consider it to have – at best – limited value (e.g., Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003; Boden, Fergusson, & Horwood, 2008; Damon, 1995; Scheff & Fearon, 2004; Seligman, 1993). Most often, those who argue against the utility of self-esteem believe that it is something akin to an epi-phenomenon that simply reflects other processes rather than serving as a causal agent. The purpose of the present chapter – as well as this entire volume to some degree – is to provide a relatively concise overview of this expansive and controversial literature in an effort to answer one of the most vital questions in this area of the literature: Does self-esteem play an important role in our lives?

What is self-esteem?

The construct of self-esteem was first described by William James (1890) as capturing the sense of positive self-regard that develops when individuals consistently meet or exceed the important goals in their lives. More than a century later, the definition of self-esteem that was offered by James continues to be relevant such that self-esteem is generally considered to be the evaluative aspect of self-knowledge that reflects the extent to which people like themselves and believe they are competent (e.g., Brown, 1998; Tafarodi & Swann, 1995). High self-esteem refers to a highly favorable view of the self, whereas low self-esteem refers to evaluations of the self that are either uncertain or outright negative (Campbell et al., 1996). Self-esteem is not necessarily accurate or inaccurate. Rather, high levels of self-esteem may be commensurate with an individual’s attributes and accomplishments or these feelings of self-worth may have little to do with any sort of objective appraisal of the individual. This is important because self-esteem reflects perception rather than reality.

Self-esteem is considered to be a relatively enduring characteristic that possesses both motivational and cognitive components (Kernis, 2003). Individuals tend to show a desire for high levels of self-esteem and engage in a variety of strategies to maintain or enhance their feelings of self-worth (see Chapter 3 in this volume, by Park and Crocker, for a review). Individuals with different levels of self-esteem tend to adopt different strategies to regulate their feelings of self-worth, such that those with high self-esteem are more likely to focus their efforts on further increasing their feelings of self-worth (i.e., self-enhancement), whereas those with low self-esteem are primarily concerned with not losing the limited self-esteem resources they already possess (i.e., self-protection; e.g., Baumeister Tice, & Hutton, 1989). In contrast to the self-enhancing tendencies exhibited by those with high self-esteem, individuals with low levels of self-esteem are more likely to employ self-protective strategies characterized by a reluctance to call attention to themselves, attempts to prevent their bad qualities from being noticed, and an aversion to risk. In essence, individuals with low self-esteem tend to behave in a manner that is generally cautious and conservative (Josephs, Larrick, Steele, & Nisbett, 1992). It appears that individuals with low self-esteem are reluctant to risk failure or rejection unless doing so is absolutely necessary. In many ways, the risks taken by individuals with low self-esteem appear to have a greater potential cost for them than for those with high self-esteem because those with low self-esteem lack the evaluative resources necessary to buffer themselves from the self-esteem threats that accompany negative experiences such as failure and rejection.

Who has high self-esteem?

It is sometimes assumed that modern society suffers from rampant low self-esteem. This idea served as the foundation of the self-esteem movement in the 1970s even though there is no empirical support for the idea that society suffers from low self-esteem. Rather, the average scores for most self-esteem instruments are well above the midpoint of their response scales (more than one standard deviation in many cases; Baumeister et al., 1989). Generational increases in self-esteem have also been observed (Gentile, Twenge, & Campbell, 2010; Twenge & Campbell, 2001) which are consistent with the increasing cultural importance placed on this construct (e.g., parents and teachers are much more concerned about the self-esteem of children than they have been in past generations). This pattern suggests that rather than suffering from low self-esteem, most individuals are actually likely to experience somewhat high levels of self-esteem such that they view themselves in a positive manner.

Although individuals tend to report high self-esteem, their feelings of self-worth show age-related changes across the life span. More specifically, self-esteem is often relatively high during childhood before dropping precipitously at the beginning of adolescence (Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy, Gosling, & Potter, 2002). From that point, self-esteem follows a quadratic developmental trajectory such that it increases throughout adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood before reaching its peak around age 60 and then declining in old age (Erol & Orth, 2011; Orth et al., 2012; Orth, Trzesniewski, & Robins, 2010; Robins et al., 2002; Shaw, Liang, & Krause, 2010; see Chapter 4, this volume, by Trzesniewski, Donnellan, and Robins, for a review). These developmental changes in self-esteem do not emerge consistently across groups. For example, girls have self-esteem levels that are comparable to those of boys during childhood but boys begin reporting higher levels of self-esteem than girls during adolescence (Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999; Major, Barr, Zubek, & Babey, 1999; Twenge & Campbell, 2001). Adolescence is the first time that this gender difference emerges and it is also the period of life when the difference is the largest. Following this divergence, women do not report feelings of self-worth comparable to those of men again until old age, when the self-esteem of men drops dramatically (Robins et al., 2002). The pronounced gender difference in self-esteem during adolescence has led to a great deal of speculation concerning the reason for this pattern (see Zeigler-Hill & Myers, in press, for a review). The most likely reasons for the more pronounced drop in the self-esteem of girls during adolescence include subtle forms of sexism that occur in the classroom (e.g., teachers treating boys and girls differently; Sadker & Sadker, 1994), a decline in girls’ attitudes about their appearance with boys tending to maintain relatively positive attitudes about their appearance (Harter, 1993), and prescriptive gender norms concerning female modesty (e.g., Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 1999, 2001).

The possibility that cultural differences in self-esteem exist has often captured the interest of researchers. A number of articles have compared the self-esteem levels of individuals from collectivistic cultures (e.g., East Asian countries) with those from individualistic cultures (e.g., Western countries). The results of these studies have been mixed with some studies finding that individuals from individualistic cultures report higher levels of self-esteem than those from collectivistic cultures (e.g., Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999), whereas others have not found any difference (Cai, Wu, & Brown, 2009). Similar mixed results have emerged for the connection that low self-esteem has with important outcomes such as psychopathology in these cultures (see Cai et al., 2009 for a review).

In addition to these cross-cultural comparisons, researchers have also been interested in self-esteem differences that may exist between majority group and minority group members within the same culture. The reason for this interest is that minority groups often serve as targets for discrimination and prejudice with one notable consequence being that members of these stigmatized groups often report lower levels of self-esteem than majority group members (see Major & O’Brien, 2005, for a review). The fact that individuals from stigmatized groups often report low levels of self-esteem has been observed for various groups including overweight individuals (Miller & Downey, 1999), individuals with physical abnormalities (Van Loey & Van Son, 2003), and individuals with severe mental illnesses (Markowitz, 1998). The most prominent explanation for the low levels of self-esteem reported by individuals who belong to stigmatized groups is that they internalize the negative views of their groups that are held by wider society.

It is important to note, however, that the internalization of stigma explanation does not appear to apply to all stigmatized groups. Perhaps the most notable exceptions to this pattern is that Black individuals (i.e., African Americans of sub-Saharan biological ancestry) report higher levels of self-esteem than any other racial group in the United States including White individuals (i.e., non-Hispanic Caucasians of European heritage; see Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000, or Twenge & Crocker, 2002, for meta-analyses concerning this issue). This pattern led to the development of another explanation for the influence that being a member of a stigmatized minority group member may exert on self-perception which is referred to as stigma as self-protection (Crocker & Major, 1989). This explanation suggests that membership in a stigmatized group may serve as a buffer against negative experiences because members of devalued groups have the capacity to attribute these events to discrimination or prejudice which may bolster or protect their feelings of self-worth. This explanation is appealing but it is at least somewhat limited because it only appears to apply to the members of very few stigmatized groups, with Black individuals in the United States being among the most prominent. It is generally assumed that the increases in self-esteem reported by Black individuals during recent decades suggest a positive shift in how these individuals view themselves stemming from cultural events such as the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement. However, a recent series of studies suggests that these racial differences in self-esteem may be at least somewhat more complicated because the high levels of self-esteem reported by Black individuals appear to be relatively fragile (Zeigler-Hill, Wallace, & Myers, in press) and may sometimes reflect narcissistic tendencies (Foster, Campbell, & Twenge, 2003; Pickard, Barry, Wallace, & Zeigler-Hill, in press; Zeigler-Hill & Wallace, 2011).

Why do individuals want to feel good about themselves?

Self-esteem is often considered to be a fundamental human need (e.g., Allport, 1955). Consistent with this view, individuals show a clear preference for high levels of self-esteem under most conditions (see Swann, Griffin, Predmore, & Gaines, 1987, for an exception) and even prefer self-esteem boosts over other pleasant activities when given a choice (e.g., eating a favorite food, engaging in a favorite sexual activity; Bushman, Moeller, & Crocker, 2011). Further, increases in self-esteem are often considered to be one of the most important elements of the most satisfying events in the lives of individuals (Sheldon, Elliot, Kim, & Kasser, 2001). However, the underlying reasons for this desire to possess high levels of self-esteem have only recently become the subject of serious empirical attention. Two of the possible benefits associated with the possession of high self-esteem are that it may: (1) be a means for transferring information between the individual and the social environment; and (2) serve a protective function that buffers individuals from negative experiences (e.g., social rejection, achievement failure). These potential functions of self-esteem will be reviewed in the following sections. It is important to note that this is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list of the benefits associated with the possession of high self-esteem. Rather, the goal is simply to review two of the commonly identified benefits that accompany high self-esteem.

Transfer of information between the individual and the social environment

One possible explanation for the desire to possess high self-esteem is that feelings of self-worth may play a role in transferring information concerning social status between the individual and the social environment. The most widely studied informational model of self-esteem is the sociometer model developed by Leary and his colleagues (e.g., Leary, Haupt, Strausser, & Chokel, 1998; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). According to the sociometer model, self-esteem has a status-tracking property such that the feelings of self-worth possessed by an individual depend on the level of relational value that the individual believes he or she possesses. This model argues that self-esteem is an evolutionary adaptation that allows individuals to monitor the degree to which they believe they are valued by others. In essence, the sociometer model suggests that self-esteem is analogous to a gauge that tracks gains in perceived relational value (accompanied by increases in self-esteem) as well as losses in perceived value (accompanied by decreases in self-esteem). A variety of studies have shown that feelings of self-worth tend to change in accordance with the perception of social acceptance and rejection (e.g., Downie, Mageau, Koestner, & Liodden, 2006; Leary et al., 1995, 1998; Murray, Griffin, Rose, & Bellavia, 2003). However, it is important to note that a recent meta-analysis found that even though individuals are likely to report an increase in self-esteem following social acceptance, they are unlikely to display any evidence of a significant decline in self-esteem following...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of contributors
• 1 The importance of self-esteem
• 2 Self-structure: The social and emotional contexts of self-esteem
• 3 Pursuing self-esteem: Implications for self-regulation and relationships
• 4 Development of self-esteem
• 5 Fragile self-esteem: The perils and pitfalls of (some) high self-esteem
• 6 The development of explicit and implicit self-esteem and their role in psychological adjustment
• 7 An existential perspective on the need for self-esteem
• 8 Badge of honor or mark of shame: Self-esteem as aninterpersonal signal
• 9 Changing self-esteem through competence and worthiness training: A positive therapy
• Index