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copied from [Self-esteem]

History[edit]

The identification of self-esteem as a distinct psychological construct is thought to have its origins in the work of philosopher and psychologist, geologist, anthropologist William James (1892). James identified multiple dimensions of the self, with two levels of hierarchy: processes of knowing (called the 'I-self') and the resulting knowledge about the self (the 'Me-self'). Observation about the self and storage of those observations by the I-self create three types of knowledge, which collectively account for the Me-self, according to James. These are the material self, social self, and spiritual self. The social self comes closest to self-esteem, comprising all characteristics recognized by others. The material self consists of representations of the body and possessions, and the spiritual self of descriptive representations and evaluative dispositions regarding the self. This view of self-esteem as the collection of an individual's attitudes toward oneself remains today.

In the mid-1960s, sociologist Morris Rosenberg defined self-esteem as a feeling of self-worth and developed the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES), which became the most-widely used scale to measure self-esteem in the social sciences.

In the early 20th century, the behaviorist movement minimized introspective study of mental processes, emotions and feelings, which was replaced by objective study through experiments on behaviors observed in relation with environment. Behaviorism placed the human being as an animal subject to reinforcements, and suggested placing psychology as an experimental science, similar to chemistry or biology. As a consequence, clinical trials on self-esteem were overlooked, since behaviorists considered the idea less liable to rigorous measurement. In the mid-20th century, the rise of phenomenology and humanistic psychology led to renewed interest in self-esteem. Self-esteem then took a central role in personal self-actualization and in the treatment of psychic disorders. Psychologists started to consider the relationship between psychotherapy and the personal satisfaction of a person with high self-esteem as useful to the field. This led to new elements being introduced to the concept of self-esteem, including the reasons why people tend to feel less worthy and why people become discouraged or unable to meet challenges by themselves.

As an educational concept, self-esteem has been discussed as correlated with educational achievement. Beginning in the late 20^th Century, many scholars have explored the impact of self-esteem in a classroom setting. Studies showed that self-esteem does affect achievement. Jack Canfield illustrated that students who are in an encouraging, self-esteem driven environment excelled in their work and attendance in class. In 1995, high levels of self-esteem in children was linked to the ability to interact with peers more easily than children with low levels of self-esteem.

Currently, the core self-evaluations approach includes self-esteem as one of four dimensions that comprise one's fundamental appraisal of oneself, along with locus of control, neuroticism, and self-efficacy. The concept of core self-evaluations as first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997), has since proven to have the ability to predict job satisfaction and job performance. Since the development of self-esteem is assumed to form early in life, some researchers have chosen to study whether people with high levels of self-esteem essentially behave differently than those with low self-esteem. Self evaluations tend to predicted cognitive reactions of an individual, while self-esteem predictes an individual’s emotional reactions to success and failure. Therefore, self-esteem may be essential to self-evaluation.

Theories[edit]

Many early theories suggested that self-esteem is a basic human need or motivation. American psychologist Abraham Maslow included self-esteem in his hierarchy of human needs. He described two different forms of "esteem": the need for respect from others in the form of recognition, success, and admiration, and the need for self-respect in the form of self-love, self-confidence, skill, or aptitude. Respect from others was believed to be more fragile and easily lost than inner self-esteem. According to Maslow, without the fulfillment of the self-esteem need, individuals will be driven to seek it and unable to grow and obtain self-actualization. Maslow also states that the healthiest expression of self-esteem "is the one which manifests in respect we deserve for others, more than renown, fame and flattery". Modern theories of self-esteem explore the reasons humans are motivated to maintain a high regard for themselves. Sociometer theory maintains 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 a protective function and reduces anxiety about life and death.

Self-esteem is important because it shows ourselves how we view the way we are and the sense of our personal value. As a component of personality, self-esteem is defined as the evaluation of one's self concept

Thus, it affects the way we are and act in the world and the way we are related to everybody else.

Carl Rogers (1902-1987), an advocate of humanistic psychology, theorized the origin of many people's problems to be that they despise themselves and consider themselves worthless and incapable of being loved. This is why Rogers believed in the importance of giving unconditional acceptance to a client and when this was done it could improve the client's self-esteem. In his therapy sessions with clients, he offered positive regard no matter what. Indeed, the concept of self-esteem is approached since then in humanistic psychology as an inalienable right for every person, summarized in the following 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.

”

Recently, a latent state-trait model of self-esteem has proposed and explored. Petra Hank found support for Raymond Cattell's suggestion of that long-lasting states can qualify as traits. Assuming that self-esteem is a broad selection of personal attributes, the latent state-trait model generates supportive results for the relationship between the state and trait components of self-esteem.

Measurement[edit]

Self-esteem is typically assessed using self-report inventories., however, most scales developed to determine self-esteem also employ principle assumptions including, an assumption of variability and an assumption that self-esteem is quantifiable

One of the most widely used instruments, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale(RSES) is a 10-item self-esteem scale scores that requires participants to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements about themselves. An alternative measure, The Coopersmith Inventory uses a 50-question battery over a variety of topics and asks subjects whether they rate someone as similar or dissimilar to themselves. If a subject's answers demonstrate solid self-regard, the scale regards them as well adjusted. If those answers reveal some inner shame, it considers them to be prone to social deviance.

Implicit measures of self-esteem began to be used in the 1980s. These rely on indirect measures of cognitive processing thought to be linked to implicit self-esteem, including the Name Letter Task. Such indirect measures are designed to reduce awareness of the process of assessment. When used to assess implicit self-esteem, psychologists feature self-relevant stimuli to the participant and then measure how quickly a person identifies positive or negative stimuli. For example, if a woman was given the self-relevant stimuli of female and mother, psychologists would measure how quickly she identified the negative word, evil, or the positive word, kind.