Talk:Self-esteem/Archive 1

Archive 1

Needs New Section on Problems Associated with Low Self Esteem

Such as depression, anxiety, social anxiety, eating disorders etc. Citations are widely available but should be included. Shyness and lack of success and life satisfaction are also connected with self esteem and a section about problems is important.

69.171.160.206 (talk) 22:57, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Narcissistic

The narcissistic article states that people who are narcissistic have low self-esteem, although this article implies that they have high self-esteem. --John Bracegirdle 21:33, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

written into Californian law as something to oppose, low self-esteem rapidly became a universal explanation for any personal failing...

In what way was this written into California law? If a more specific reference can't be produced, I'm deleting this part.

-Ryguasu 08:11 Nov 24, 2002 (UTC)

I will give this page a disputed warning because the first sentence says that it applies to animals but from the rest of the article it seems that it applies to humans. Andries 21:28, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

"Some see low self-esteem as a major predisposing factor for crime; others point out that high self-esteem equates with the risk-taking behaviour of criminals."

Are you certain low self-esteem is known to be a predisposing factor for crime? Bullies and criminals are more likely to suffer from 'High Self Esteem Disorder' than others, where they suffer from unrealistically high self esteem and impulse control problems. (This is not disguised low-esteem as commonly thought)

See the first external link used in article

-JanZ Dec 28 2004

You are correct. The idea that criminals suffer from low self-esteem has zero basis in fact. It simply was an assumption among some social progressives from the 1960s to early 1990s, which they never even bothered to test with peer-reviewed, controlled tests. All studies on this subject show the exact opposite. Those prone to violence and criminal behavior have high self-esteem. RK 17:40, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

now im not saying that all criminal have high or low self esteem, but of all the bullies i have ever encountered (quite a few im kinda the weird kid) the vast majority have a very low self esteem, many of them fell they cant do anything of value so they simply hide it with a tough attitude and fake words (now i know this is not allways the case but this is the discusion part of wiki so dont say im flat out wrong lets dicuss) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.82.176.127 (talk) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Pure Narcissists have no self at all. Or more accurately-- they can not connect very easily with their real selves, so instead they develop and maintain a false self. This is different than low-self esteem.

On the other hand, someone who is narcisstic (who is not a narcissist, but has narcisstic tendencies) does have low self esteem.

Unfortunately, the words are very similar, but mean very different things.

69.171.160.206 (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Not quite right. The true self (hidden a lot of the time) of a narcissist has low esteem but their false self (which others see) has high esteem. So they fake high esteem. --Penbat (talk) 16:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Danniboy's content moved here

The following text was recently added to the article by User:Danniboy, but I've moved it here because I find it to be a cross between an opinionated essay and an advice column. Perhaps some of it is useable, but it'd require a lot of adaptive editing. -- Hadal 19:21, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good move. What you moved here was essentially a commercial advertisement, and did not constitute researched or scholarly encyclopedia quality material. RK 17:40, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Why is your self-esteem so low?

(contributed by NLP Weekly Magazine's Editor)

Most of us are children of dysfunctional families. It doesn’t mean that your parents were alcoholic, physically abused you or worse. Dysfunctional can be considered as “normal” modern interactions. Most of us grew up in families that nurtured conflicting signals (dad says “yes", mom says “no"), de­nials of reality, parental lying, and lack of mutual respect. And these are the characteristics of the AVERAGE family.

We fight with our parents, who are total control freaks. Our siblings are trying to get more attention from the family than we get. We hear our parents say things like “why can’t you be more like A or B?", or find out that they listen to our phone conversations, or get “compliments” like “you’re clumsy, you’ll never make it in sport", “why can’t you be more of a man?” or “forget about college with these grades, you’re not that smart". One of my clients even said that her mother said to her once “I hate you". And that’s normal.

Dysfunctions are not presented only by language. How about the “we don’t talk” game or silence treatment or avoidance or not listening to what you’re really saying or looking upset every time you speak or many other body language patterns and behaviors that basically give you the impression that: you're worthless.

Can you make a list of what your parents or brothers/sisters told you when you were a child, that today you find it horrible to believe you took so seriously? Make that list now. Please note: even if your family was the most dysfunctional anti-supportive family of all, it has played only a part in constructing your low self esteem. Not all of it is your parents’ fault.

Self Esteem Reinforcement Exercise

In order to complete this exercise you will need a piece of paper, a pencil or pen, and a timer or clock. It is better if you take writing instruments that are comfortable for you. Set your timer for 10 minutes or simply write down the time on your watch or clock. Write your first name across the top of the paper.

Now start to write anything you can think of about yourself, in a positive and nurturing way. It sounds simple to complete but it isn’t necessarily, especially if your self-esteem suffered some major hits during the last few years. As you write, make sure to write about special skills, talents, and achievements you have and had. You can write it down by using single words ("Tennis", “Poems", “Loving") or you can write complete sentences ("I play Tennis well", “I write inspiring poems"). As ideas and thoughts come to your mind, it is a matter of getting them down to the paper, and not constructing a grammar book.

You may write the same things over and over if you would want to emphasize certain positive items about you. Don’t worry about writing with the right spelling or grammar. Your ideas don’t have to be organized in any special order. Simply write down on paper whatever comes into your mind. You are the only one who will read this paper.

Remember to avoid any negative statements or using any negative words — use only positive ones. Saying “I am a great Tennis player, unless I’m playing against George” is a negative phrase. Simply say that you are a good Tennis player, no comparisons, no “but” and no “unless". Positive. You must keep writing. Do not stop to think it over or criticize if what you are writing is the “truth". There is no real truth in life besides the laws of nature, and your self-esteem is ever changing. Truth is at the eyes of the beholder, anyhow. Keep writing, do not move the pen away from the paper, move your hand without stopping (I know, it hurts a bit - stop whining!). The key here is to write even if you don’t really have words.

One your 10 minutes of writing positive statements about yourself are up, put down the pen and read the paper over to yourself. It is better if you read it aloud; however, if there are people around they might think you’re an ego-maniac. If you’re alone, go ahead and say it with a strong and persuasive tone of voice. This may happen: you feel sad when you read what you have written because these words are a new, different, and positive point of view of thinking about yourself – this is a way that contradicts some of the most powerful negative thoughts you may have had about yourself as a person.

But don’t worry. Those feelings will diminish once you read this paper again. So the next step would be to read the paper over again several times. After you are done, place this paper in a private but easy to access place – your pocket, your drawer, your wallet, or under the table beside your bed.

You should read it over to yourself at least several times a day to keep reminding yourself of how many talents you really have. If it is possible, read it aloud to a good friend or even to your therapist if you have one.

I know that it sounds simplistic, but as simple as it sounds, it is also very powerful. I suggest to all of my clients to try this quick but powerful exercise. It doesn’t require any special preparation, simply arrange a few minutes and you boost your self esteem higher.

Self Esteem and Attention Seeking Behavior

I think it would be safe to state that low self-esteem causes many people, especially children to resort to attention seeking behavior. What do others think?

That seemingly reasonable assumption has been shown by the last 10 years of research to be very wrong. People with over high self-esteem feel that they can do whatever they like; it is these people who act in ways that we used to label "attention seeking." See the article in Scientific American, Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth. RK 17:00, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Well certainly the article has its points with children who resort to substance use and other things, however there is no direct findings reported in the article related to self esteem. I don't think all behavior related to substance abuse and other things is related to attention seeking behavior. However in terms of social relationships, which is the area of attention seeking behavior there was no link saying that low self esteem had an effect on the ability of social relationships, only in the ability to reach out and make new friendships.

People who regard themselves highly generally state that they are popular and rate their friendships as being of superior quality to those described by people with low self-esteem, who report more negative interactions and less social support. But as Julia Bishop and Heidi M. Inderbitzen-Nolan of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln showed in 1995, these assertions do not reflect reality. The investigators asked 542 ninth-grade students to nominate their most-liked and least-liked peers, and the resulting rankings displayed no correlation whatsoever with self-esteem scores. SA: Scientific American - Exploding the Self Esteem Myth

All I can say is that in most cases I have seen, people who are constantly negative (People with low self-esteem are not merely down on themselves; they are negative about everything. - SA Article) have a tendancy to resort to attention seeking behavior, because they feel they need support with things, and often dramatise and create a negative image to try and get attention.

What do you think about that? --Kintaro 04:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Link removed

Someone removed a link in this revision, I see no reason for it and it was also an anonymous edit. I put it back. --Kintaro 03:06, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

commercial

should this person really be allowed to link to a commercial site like that? it seems like hes using wikipedia for commercial purposes to promote this book.

Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

If the commercial site provides information regarding self-esteem I do not see why he shouldn't be able to link to it.--Kintaro 8 July 2005 11:55 (UTC)

===> Yes of course, however advertising texts are not about the same thing as encyclopaedia texts. They are commercial presentations, and they aim to make you want the book, because you will then want to pay money for it. That is why it is not providing information on self-esteem, but it is positive, one-sided information about the book.

I agree with the reader here above. I have removed the link to the book, and I believe the book itself is not a renowned piece of writing. If the book is of such a contribution to mankind, the link might be restored here later. But not to merchant's page, but to special page which would comment on the book at first. Paul 8/7/05 London

Parhaps a link to a wikipedia page on the book? --Kintaro 07:07, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm concerned that all the reports on "self esteem myth" seem to come from Roy F. Baumeister. Is this article NPOV? We need to write about what is accepted in the field. Secretlondon 07:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I think Baumeister's work in general is okay to treat NPOV - the presentation here is simply skewed to the negative. His more popular work leans negative as well, but that is to counteract the popular work that leans positive. The Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs paper essentially argues that self-esteem is too heterogeneous for one to state that high self-esteem is always a good thing. For example, high self-esteem can lead to greater initiative, but that encompasses prosocial and antisocial behavior. Their take-home point is that noncontingent (unconditional) high self-esteem seems to do more harm than good, but contingent (conditional) high self-esteem seems to have more benefits than drawbacks. They also use the word "floccinaucinihilipilification", which is cool in and of itself.Solitary refinement 23:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Self-Respect

Searching for 'self-respect' redirects to this page. I'm not a psychiatry expert, so perhaps in that context they are synonymous, but it seems to me that although related these are different concepts.--Andymussell 01:13, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

They are definately not the same. Self-respect should redirect to respect. Ziiv 22:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Deficit in the reported research

I think that this article cannot be an accurate representation of all the leading research on this topic since what appears here is structurally flawed, and the grounds for viewing it as structurally flawed have already been adequately discussed by major 20th century figures in the field of depth psychology. I am referring to the fact that the studies of self esteem (why does it have to have a hyphen, anyway) are represented as only evaluating the self reports of the bullies, the people doing poorly in school, etc., etc. The question that apparently has not been resolved (or even looked at) is whether these high self-evaluations derive from the action of compensatory mechanisms. One response to receiving an unfavorable evaluation from others is to accept the evaluation and then make one's best efforts to merit a better evaluation at some later time; the other response to disfavor is to raise a contrary claim and to vigorously defend the real-world social strength of that claim. If you tell the king that he is a lousy saxophone player he may get a better sax teacher and practice twice as long as before, or he may throw selected loud mouths in jail or have them tortured.

If the studies reported in this article are correct, then one of the recommendations for repairative social action to deal with bullies ought to be to subject them to merciless and objective studies that would demonstrate to them without a shadow of doubt that they are not as deserving of esteem as they currently believe. Any studies that have reached this conclusion ought to be noted in the article. P0M 00:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Development of Self-esteem

My self-esteem comes about primarily as a result of a moral code that values life and personallity among other things. My self-esteem is highly resistant to the presence or absence of success or praise or criticism. The article doesn't seem to address this source of self-esteem. Hackwrench 00:56, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Anecdotal reports such as the one above can supply material to researchers, but are not kind of basis upon which article content can be written. If the general point is that an individual can be conditioned to have value judgments that include assigning a high value to oneself, then it may be possible to find studies that assess the impact of such conditioning, the resiliance of such conditioning in the face of real-world evidence that denies the propositions that one has been conditioned to believe, etc. P0M 03:18, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The part of the article that mentions the programs for increasing self esteem is a little light on what those programs did to increase self esteem. There is no source cited for the statement: "The results indicate that a healthy self-esteem should develop from what one has achieved, and not the converse." Hackwrench 19:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The whole article is heavily weighted towards the report of one team Hackwrench 19:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Not necessarily the "same team" - it is just that most of what is cited here is more general sources, of which Baumeister has contributed the most. Baumeister, Krueger, and Vohs each approach the issue of self-esteem in relatively distinct ways. There are other researchers (e.g., Brad Bushman, Nicholas Emler, Jennifer Crocker) who come to similar conclusions on the potential negatives of high self-esteem - it is just that their work is not discussed here. Solitary refinement 18:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

suicide

no mention of suicide? 129.62.113.183 04:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent point! Many people explain suicide as being one possible outcome of self-assessments such as, "I have nothing left to live for," but ignore the more potent judgment, "I am a bad person, a bad job, deserving of destruction, etc." Durkheim was one early writer on the subject of suicide. I read his works a long time ago, and, frankly, did not get much out of what he had to say. Of much more value were the works of Karl Menninger. I think he has one book entitled Life Against Death or something like that, and that book might be the place to look for material to incorporate into this article. Good hunting! P0M 04:50, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Too many wikipedia articles in this realm?

We have Self-esteem, Self-confidence, Confidence and Trust (sociology) - shouldn't we merge those 4 articles into 2, they seem to talk about the same things? Peter S. 13:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

They are all in a similar realm but there is a slight distinction between them. Unfortunately when discussing anything to do with The Self people invariably get muddled up and just end up discussing Self-Esteem.Phil Kavanagh 21:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Christ Esteem + related?

Should this article contain some reference to Christ-Esteem (http://www.google.com.au/search?&q=%22christ-esteem%22) and similar religious concepts, since they are essentially criticisms of Self-Esteem? My (admittedly simple) understanding of Christ-Esteem is that Self-esteem is essentially faith in yourself, but that you are fallible so your esteem rises and falls. If instead you have faith that Jesus always loves you, you don't need to love yourself. Personally, I don't buy it, but should it be mentioned as a counter-position to Self-Esteem?

Eastern ideas such as "Harmony with the Tao" might similarly be viewed as obviating the need for Self-Esteem. Irrevenant 06:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

In general articles should describe what something is and/or does, not the (potentially gazillions of) positions that are critical, dismissive, etc., of it.

I suppose there could be a broader article called self-evaluation, and an even broader article called axiological evaluations of individuals. "Christ-Esteem" would seem pretty clearly to be not self-evaluation but evaluation by others, so it would appear as a sub-category not of "self-evaluation" or of "other-evaluation." P0M 05:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Many of the other articles have a "Controversy and criticisms" section (eg. Scientology). That is where I would see "Christ-esteem" or "God-esteem" sitting. Irrevenant 10:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

And over a year later, that's where I added it. :) --Irrevenant [ talk ] 11:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

related to the above, I strongly question the "In Buddhism" major subsection. It just doesn't belong here. Clocke (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Need to Verify Sources

For the following:

(see narcissism). Many bullies manifest the properties of narcissism and often also those of psychopathy. It appears bullies have unusually high but extremely fragile self-esteem, which they reinforce by denigrating the others; they maintain their position in the pecking order by subjugating the others.

Looking into similar stuff at the moment and this would seem to be unverifiable --Zeraeph 09:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Baumeister Material

Many of the conflicts or disputes arise out of differences in the definition of self-esteem. For example, Baumeister's article "Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth" early on admits that self-reporting as a means of measuring self-esteem doesn't work, stating that self-ratings are often way off. But after listing several studies that demonstrate how flawed self-ratings are, he go goes on to use studies based upon self-rating as a measure of self-esteem so he can 'Explode the Self-Esteem Myth'.

Through out the article you see phrases like "self-esteem scores" but no description of how the scores were obtained - or what did the instrument looked like. There are clues, like where he says, "...think highly of themselves..." that tell us that he or the studies he has chosen are using some sort of self-rating tool and claiming to be measuring self-esteem. He states, "For decades, psychologists believed that low self-esteem was an important cause of aggression. One of us (Baumeister) challenged that notion in 1996, when he reviewed assorted studies and concluded that perpetrators of aggression generally hold favorable and perhaps even inflated views of themselves." Here is a bald assertion that self-esteem is about holding a favorable opinion of oneself (or that one answered questions as if that were the case).

Through out the article there is no definition of self-esteem, no description of the measuring tools, just conclusions purporting to be the product of sensible research. I suggest we toss all references to this material.

Take a look for yourself if you want - here is a link to that article http://scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000CB565-F330-11BE-AD0683414B7F0000 SteveWolfer 19:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The article that you are referring to seems very similar to a rather comprehension version published by the same authors in 2003 titled Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles?, in Psychological Science in the Interest of Public Interest. It is a major review of the current research to-date (well at that date) on the area of self-esteem.

As for the measurement of self-esteem, most researchers will use something such as the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale or something similar. That is were the scores come from. There are a few recognised reliable and valid measures of self-esteem, and you find most typically that these are the ones are repeated used in the literature.

I'm only assuming here, but you'll probably find that the reason why there is no definition of self-esteem probably presupposes that most who would be reading the article would already have a definition in mind. The other obvious problem is that although there a basic generic definition of self-esteem, that is the evaluative component of the self there is, as with any theoretical psychological construct differing opinions on the definition itself.Phil Kavanagh 22:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Attempts to nail something down as 'fact' by means of research requires that any ambiguity or confusion over the definition of a key term be addressed. It is unprofessional to put out something that makes the kind of assertions that Baumeister did without addressing the obvious problems in using a self-reporting survey that purports to measure self-esteem without a even a definition of self-esteem. I've seen Rosenberg's scale and the Single-Item Self-Esteem scale and I can't believe that people take the results of studies based upon their use seriously! I think this article is so badly written and so full of strange hostility towards self-esteem that I can't even begin to think where to start to fix it. Phil K, I appreciate what you said about "the evaluative component of the self" as a generic definition, but there are editors contributing to this article that can't distinguish between defined disorders (Narcissism) and self-esteem. In the article, self-esteem is described as if it were no more than a particular kind of belief. You believe you are efficatious and worthy, voila, you instantly have high self-esteem. That is so far from reality! Maybe we need multiple articles - one per major definition - each with links to the others. Steve 04:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Quality and level of self-esteem

I took out this section which was apparently thrown in without basis:

"[self esteem can be] low but can be raised so that you can see yourself as a person worthy of feeling like you can accomplish anything that will be in front of you in the future for the way you would see yourself and what you think will be in the future of your own success because if you don't think you will have success then no one else will"

Although it may fit in the article, it didn't fit between a description of high but fragile self esteem and low but stable self esteem.

Also, someone might want to add something about exactly what these terms mean. Cheers, CKnapp(talk) 16:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

External links

• www.2knowmyself.com/self_confidence/building_self_confidence

after checking this one i found no refrences, although it seemed good,i guess that what removed it from the page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.205.234.82 (talk) 09:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I suggest this link be included as a description of self esteem as it sums it up quite well: http://www.more-selfesteem.com/whatisselfesteem.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karlp295 (talk • contribs) 14:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Link

http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/images/esteem.jpg —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.72.25.80 (talk) 18:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

== Self Confidence ==-

This is not the same thing as self-esteem. To be self confident is a matter of the moment generally. ONe can have a high self esteem and yet lack confidence of being able to carry out a particular task. The re-direct of self confidence is incorrect. Dndn1011 21:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Self-confidence is different - it should have its own article and not redirect here. There are enough problems with the article - especially the stuff entered by the anti-self-esteem crowd that is NOT self-esteem (bullying, narcissicism, violence, crime, etc.) Steve 22:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent

On a low moment, I typed in "I suck" to the search box. (Yet again, I'm wasting time on Wikipedia rather than doing anything of worth or necessity.)

And it redirects here. That's awesome :D I'm all laughy now. Cheers WP. 80.176.4.125 13:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Redirect

I don't think that Self Esteem should direct you to an article about an album by The Offspring. Surely it would make more sense for it to direct you to this article? 81.154.152.225 17:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Done. CKnapp 17:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I know that the term, "amour-propre" is redirected to self-esteem, but is not listed as a synonym. Should this be changed? Because frankly, I wouldn't have known the term existed apart from an article from the New York Review of Books, so perhaps having it listed as a synonym too would be advisable, since it already has been deemed unworthy of its own article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annakadabra (talk • contribs) 21:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Weasel Words

Many of the 'citation needed' tags do no denote statements that are simply not sourced, they hover around opinions and unsourecable weasel statements.

If you find yourself using weasel words, you probably don't need to say at all the thing you are trying to say.

This is not general clean up. This is a particular standard that future writing needs to adhere to as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.157.219 (talk) 15:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Why Self Esteem Evolved

Self esteem is what we call the part of our emotional system that helps determine where we slot into the `pecking order'. It has evolved (a) to keep us safe and (b) to help us find a partner and procreate. Self esteem is the outcome of comparing yourself with other people and/or concepts which you regard as important and it varies according to the context: A top golfer might be ignored by an attractive woman and have to remind himself of his prowess on the golf course to bolster his self esteem despite this setback. His self esteem will have slipped a bit but it is fairly resistant to change. It is also a very complex computation because of the number of comparisons which need to be made (and then remembered for future reference). Self esteem assessments are carried out automatically when the need arises or a significant success or failure occurs, so although we also make these assessments consciously from time to time, it is the unconscious, emotional side of our brain which decides our self esteem. Teenagers in particular have great difficulties with their self esteem; their new found sexuality produces the need to assess self esteem but it is difficult to work out where they stand in what is a very dynamic social scene, especially as there may not be the time to reassess it when meeting someone. The appearance of spots, a success or failure in school or on the sports field all must be factored in and then compared with the social standing of the people around. This is especially difficult for immature brains and so teenagers often revert to the default setting which is lower than the correct level (not much fun, but keeps you out of trouble). So teenagers are often shy and withdrawn. Unfortunately, this then leaves a minority of teenagers who, finding their competition so self effacing, `seize the high ground’ unopposed (and then regularly top-up their shaky self esteem by becoming bullies). High self esteem gives rise to self confidence, but that is its external manifestation, it is not analogous; bullies may suffer from low self esteem which they attempt to boost by dominating others (especially those who might have achieved academic success as this then takes them to the top of the pecking order. They may appear to be brash and overconfident but they may well be trying to bolster a low self esteem. Liomills 10:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

New finding show that people with high explicit self-esteem and low implicit self-esteem become aggressive. Bullies all around the world usually have a heightened self-esteem on some scales. Sorry no references here, but they can be easily found on PsycINFO. -- unpaid lamer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.149.19.160 (talk) 12:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Self confidence is not a synonym

According to The Macquarie Dictionary, self-confidence is "a confidence in one's own judgement, ability, power, etc., sometimes to an excessive degree." In contrast, self-esteem is defined as "favourable opinion of oneself; conceit." Obviously, when I changed the redirect self confidence to point to confidence instead of self-esteem, it was to correct an obvious error. I'm rather disappointed to note that someone does not understand that these are not synonyms and has reverted the redirect back to the wrong article I'm even more surprised that this article clearly reflects the error of claiming that they are synonyms. Hence, I have tagged this claim of being a synonym in this article. --AliceJMarkham 07:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically, there are two types of self-esteem; High self-esteem, and low self-esteem. Self- esteem affects a person's behavior and attitude. If a person does not think that they are the best that they can be, then they are likely to always be self-conscious and therefore, have low self-esteem. If a person does things to the best of their abilities and is proud of their achievements, then that person is likely to have high self- esteem. -- someone

Actuallay i think wikipedia has a problem with psychological terms, as those have a somewhat disturbed namespace. I could give you 5 different tests for self-esteem, several theories (all working) on self-esteem, that all work with more or less different concepts. So talking in psychologicla terms is only fruitful when citing ... a lot. -- unpaid lamer

Cut this phrase out

Hi. I deleted the sentence: "Self-esteem" is what our subconscious believes to be true about how worthy, loveable, valuable and capable you are. Cause: It's plain wrong, as there are the terms of "explicit self-esteem" and "implicit self-esteem", meaning that there are concious cognitions about self-worth but also not-concious cognitions about it. -- unpaid lamer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.149.19.160 (talk) 12:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Self esteem != self worth?

I'm no scholar, especially in psychology, but could one differentiate between self-esteem and self-worth? Self-worth being what you are worth and self-esteem being what you think you are worth. In other words, self-worth is constant - it is what one is born with, but self-esteem varies... doesn't it? (Yeah, I know I have no sources right here right now to prove this or anything, but if somebody wants to chip in with some, it may sure as heck beat a dictionary definition.) M. W. Holt (talk) 22:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Self-esteem and self-worth are two different things, you are correct. This article treats them as synonyms when in fact they do deal with different, albeit closely related, things. Self-worth is more equivalent to self-confidence such as they talk about a couple topics above this one. This link, while not citable, presents the proper usage of the words in relation to each other. http://news.chira.net/10983549/ Mmurfin (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me, but does this section of the article, seem like it was written, by a two year old, with no sources and terrible grammar.

Please remove it.--AzraelBlack (talk) 10:40, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Announcement: The Self and Identity Task Force

This article on self-esteem is one selected for amendation and amplification by the Self and Identity Task Force. The team consists of a group of postgraduate students, studying for a Ph.D as part of an accredited program, who will create and edit articles on self and identity under the general rubric of the Psychology WikiProject. Hence, these are relative experts on the subject, and they make some significant and warranted changes. Note that this page has been one flagged as needed the attention of an expert, and the task force meets this need.Aidengregg (talk) 16:16, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope that these experts will familiarise themselves with wikipedia's Manual of Style before making too many more changes. --AliceJMarkham (talk) 22:45, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

What used to be there?

Somebody's drive-byed the page and added a bunch of crap about emos and cutting. Does anyone know what used to be written there before? Like the first definition of self-esteem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.148.247 (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Announcement: The Self and Identity Task Force, Part Two

Alas, the previous incarnation of the Self and Identity Task Force did not get around to making that many changes to this and other articles. However, the Task Force has now been reconstituted with different participants--undergraduate students taking my course on Self and Identity. Under my supervision, they will shortly be making various contributions.

Now, allow me to make some general comments about myself and this article on self-esteem.

First, I am Dr. Aiden P. Gregg. As for my academic credentials, I have a PhD in social and personality psychology from Yale University. I have also published articles in leading scientific journals and periodicals on self-esteem and related topics. Here's an example of a review chapter I co-wrote. Hence, I arguably have some legitimate expertise when it comes to self-esteem.

Second, in my estimation, this self-esteem article is in need of several important changes. Among other things, it stands in need of substantial reorganization into better expository categories, which in turn link to more specialist subordinate articles. For example, there should be a new section, and a new subordinate article, on the "Consequences of Self-Esteem", that absorbs, modifies, and adds to, the material currently in the sections "Self-esteem, grades and relationships" and "Bullying, violence and murder". In addition, the material currently represented still does not fully or equitably reflect, in emphasis or content, the scientific literature on self-esteem, with which I am familiar. For example, there is no mention of cultural differences in self-esteem, or the controversy over them, whereas contingencies of self-worth feature rather too prominently, and their relevance is not properly explained.

I'd like to go ahead and try myself to make some of these important changes. I hope people who have made and modified some current contribition don't feel too aggrieved if I do so. It's just that I am better placed than many previous contributers to know what should go in or stay out, and go here or go there. I will try to justify all changes I make, and hope to have a productive dialogue on this page.

Best wishes,

Aiden Aidengregg (talk) 14:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome, Aiden and thanks for bringing your task force here. I think it's uncontroversial that a lot of psychological articles could be improved a great deal. Looking forward to your contributions. Be bold. Cheers, MartinPoulter (talk) 18:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger.

Article states that "Both explicit and implicit self-esteem are subtypes of self-esteem proper." GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

The section on bullying is absolutely absurd at present. It repeatedly quotes a single source to push a single point of view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.23.149.238 (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Bullying section

The bullying section doesn't consider that a 'high but unstable' self-esteem might be a facade of high self-esteem over a low self-esteem. I know that of the 3 school bullies I remeber distinctly two were neglected by their parents, and the third was trying to come to terms with their repressed homosexuality. These situations lead to low self-esteem, which lead to the bullies trying to improve their self-esteem by oppressing others; bullying requires and reinforces an apparently high self-esteem, but the bullying has to be repeated because the real, underlying level of self-esteem is low. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.240.40 (talk) 02:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Albert Ellis seems a bit weird

The Albert Ellis section (aka Criticism and controversy) makes Albert Ellis sound self-contradictory; on one hand saying that self-esteem valuation is innate human behaviour, but on the other hand that is is unethical and absolutist.

I understand that that behaviours like murder and xenophobia are innate but unethical; however, other behaviours like altruism are also innate, but are ethical and tend toward absolutism ('everyone should be nice to each other').

I'd also note that 'ethical' is itself an absolutist rating that is irrational (you have a $100 note, I have a gun, nobody is anywhere near; logically/rationally I should exchange a 20 cent bullet for the $100 note). In the old days - classical Greece, classical Rome, the 1980s - in some philosophies, it was considered 'ethical' to cultivate your self-esteem.

Further - and finally, for now - 'unconditional self-acceptance and unconditional other-acceptance' only works if you live in a secure, rich environment (like some parts of the present-day First World, Mr Ellis) and never meet someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart. 'unconditional other-acceptance' of someone who is intent on e.g. carving their initials on your genitals is not a 'healthier alternative' to assigning them a low esteem value and running away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.240.40 (talk) 02:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any contradiction. Self-esteem is innate, what is not innate is the concept of self-esteem that this article shows, which, on the other hand, is -apparently- based on books written by people with a lot of success and no self-esteem. Pride has nothing to do with self-esteem; in fact, pride is the opposite of self-esteem, and a symptom of narcisism, i.e., low self-esteem. The problem in the United States, and all other capitalist countries, is that people search for happiness outside themselves. They search for possessions, money, fame, glory, and think that that's enough to be happy. In a nutshell, the American dream. As Nathaniel Branden says, to attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure. A person with low self-esteem can be loved and really not to love him/herself, can be admired and not to find the own values, can appear as a secure person and feel insecure, can satisfy other people's expectatives and not the own ones, can be successful and, deep inside, not to recognize it. When you don't feel comfortable with yourself, you never find what you're looking for, because you abandoned yourself since the very beginning, and, thus, have no reference. And when you feel insecure, you treat other people as bad as you'd treat yourself for not being "perfect". One million years ago people probably didn't know what pride was, they just lived every day and felt happy with what they had (when they could survive, of course). --Dalton2 (talk) 11:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

And one more thing: unconditional self-acceptance is precisely what would make somebody treat him/herself as deserved, to live with dignity and not to make him/herself become a delinquent, and when somebody is trying to carve their initials on your genitals, indeed, has a low self-esteem, and not just self-esteem, but also some other needs below (maybe up to the physiological needs). The problem is that in just a moment your needs abruptly drop from self-esteem to survival too (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs for more information), and thus you can't think about needs high above the ones that are compromised. Quite different would be if you're watching that scene on TV; in that case you'd easily understand that one of them had a really bad problem with self-esteem, love, acceptance, security and, maybe, survival. --Dalton2 (talk) 12:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the paragraph is contradictory and confused. What exactly is Ellis objecting to? Is he saying that people don't have self-esteem, or that it isn't productive to aim for it? Is it a scientific, definitional or ethical complaint? How does he interpret and respond to the experimental literature on measuring and affecting self-esteem? More to the point, are his criticisms notable? Are they cited by academic literature? If not, what are they doing in the article? MartinPoulter (talk) 13:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

He's saying that the concept of self-esteem as "a way to increase ego", as "selfishness without altruism", typical in the capitalist society, is wrong. In Spain, books about self-esteem cite Ellis. Self-esteem in Spain is not the same as self-esteem in the USA. The concept has been altered to match the philosophy of selfishness on which capitalism is based. His ideas could destruct the capitalist system, since, if you'd alright as you are, if you'd love yourself unconditionally, the American dream would dissapear. Jesus Christ was crucified just to suggest we shouldn't be selfish.

Regarding his notability, "Ellis was voted the second-most influential psychotherapist in history in a 1982 poll of 800 clinical psychologists. Carl Rogers, the father of humanistic psychology, was No. 1, and Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was No. 3." (reference: [1]). --Dalton2 (talk) 20:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the first sentence. You haven't answered the question of what sense of "wrong" is in use: conceptual, empirical, moral? We have multiple definitions of self-esteem in the article and they do not define self-esteem as either "a way to increase ego", or "selfishness without altruism". It sounds like Ellis' critique is not of the concept described in the article. I'm not disputing the notability of Ellis: I'm asking if his critique of self-esteem is cited in books and academic papers. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Please tell me what you don't understand about the first sentence. It's wrong as a concept, empirically, and morally. A person with no success, with no posessions, with almost nothing at all, may have a high self-esteem, he or she may have dignity and hope. You erased everything explaining it, and now you come asking for an answer? I really can't understand. Maybe you don't feel comfortable when you see people who feel good with themselves with no posessions, with no academic success, without anything you got with a great effort? Well, that's your problem. I think you should improve your self-esteem. Mine is OK. Sorry.--Dalton2 (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Bullies and narcissists

needs to be a section covering the self esteem of bullies and narcissists--Penbat (talk) 22:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Self-esteem, or sense of capitalism?

I think that this is a wrong view of what self-esteem really is. You don't have to feel you're successful when you accept yourself as you are. Only a capitalist system like the one in the U.S. would allow such a point of view. In fact, all the aggressiveness that some people say they feel from other people in the English Wikipedia (the gender gap, you know) is, probably, due to a mislead concept about which are the main values to achieve happiness. You don't have to be better than the rest, you have to be the best to yourself. Regards. --Dalton2 (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

If you see a problem with the article, don't just add a POV tag; try editing the article to improve it, making sure to cite anything you assert. Thanks! ciphergoth (talk) 09:21, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes

I'm concerned at some of the recent changes to this article, and will be undoing some of them. Sorry to do this when you've put so much work into it, Dalton, but:

• The lead image has no stated relation to the topic of the article. It needs to go.
• Material needs to be a verifiable summary of reliable published sources. The article is not the place for unsourced personal reflections.
• The existing article was based (imperfectly) on quality academic sources. To label the scientific mainstream view as "Self-esteem in the United States" disrupts the article's neutrality.
• The article should have alternative viewpoints and sources from non-English literature, when those are of sufficient quality. To give unnecessary prominence to them - by using one non-mainstream theory as the explanation of the whole topic - is a violation of neutrality. See WP:WEIGHT.
• Don't include external links in the article body, especially to personal home pages, which are not an appropriate kind of source for the article.
• The article needs an encyclopedic tone: avoid contractions such as "don't", "doesn't". Avoid second-person language ("you") and avoid vacuous sentences such as "Self-esteem is a personal experience, which resides in the core of our being."
• The article is supposed to reflect the most reliable sources on the topic. If we don't personally agree with them, we still have to use them and represent them fairly.

MartinPoulter (talk) 11:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved quotes from article

These quotes are interesting and could well belong as pull-quotes in the article or on Wikiquote, if they were all properly sourced. I'm moving them here for now so as to remove a section with no content.

No psychological health is possible unless the essential core of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by his self.

— Abraham Maslow

It is not necessary to hate ourselves before we can learn to love ourselves more; we do not have to feel inferior in order to want to feel more confident. We do not have to be miserable to want to expand our capacity for joy.

— Nathaniel Branden

Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love toward themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others.

— Erich Fromm

José-Vicente Bonet, in his book Sé amigo de ti mismo: manual de autoestima ("be a friend of yourself: manual of self-esteem"), reminds that the importance of self-esteem is obvious:

The importance of self-esteem can be better seen when one realizes that the opposite of it is not the esteem of others, but self-reject, a characteristic of that state of great unhappiness that we call "depression". People who really reject themselves, who despise themselves, who dislike themselves..., can't be happy, since one shouldn't forget or give up taking interest on himself/herself.

— José-Vicente Bonet

John Powell, a known psychology popularizer, confesses in one of his books that, when somebody sincerely praises him, instead of toning down his own merits, as used, he replies: "go ahead, please, go ahead". It's a reply that is unusual and makes an audience laugh when told in public. It is also a reply that makes you think.

— José-Vicente Bonet

MartinPoulter (talk) 12:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

General note about sourcing

This article needs to answer the "how do we know?" question. It's not enough to cite someone's opinion from a book that self-esteem is caused by X, that it results in Y or that the sufficient amount of it is Z. Self-esteem is studied in academic social psychology, which uses controlled experiments and other scientific techniques. We need the article to be based on that research and to describe (briefly and accessibly) how that knowledge is achieved. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/How to write a psychology article MartinPoulter (talk) 13:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I saw the new article Self-esteem in humanistic psychology pop up in newpages. It's mostly WP:OR and WP:ESSAY, but it is clearly rather duplicative of this article. I propose that any relevant, sourced, and NPOV content be merged over here and the article Self-esteem in humanistic psychology turned into a redirect or deleted. Zachlipton (talk) 04:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not original research, it's based on reference sources. Maybe you are not used to this in the USA, but in Spain we read these books, and we don't follow psychoanalysis in public health. If you don't like it, it's something different. I created this article because somebody erased almost everything from self-esteem, so I'm afraid that he won't want to see the information back. --Dalton2 (talk) 04:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Humanistic psychology appeared as a reaction to pyschoanalysis and behaviorism as a part of counterculture in the 60's. It's not based on lab experimentation or analysis, so don't expect what it's not (it's like erasing an article about Buddha because it's not scientific). Humanistic psychology is also related to arts, so the initial image of a picture is a good choice. Abraham Maslow, Albert Ellis and Nathaniel Branden are authors of this approach to psychology, all of them notable. You don't share this point of view?, OK, perfect. But, please, live and let live. Also, remember: WP:DBN. And don't forget that my natural language is not English, but Spanish. Maybe you'd do it much worse than me if you had to create an article in the Spanish Wikipedia. --Dalton2 (talk) 05:37, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Support. The article is clearly a WP:CONTENTFORK. It was mostly deleted from this article because of the issues that I set out above, which are still present. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Support. The other article has a section on narcissism. I am keen that this article has a decent section on narcissism and bullying. The narcissism material from the other article would be a start. --Penbat (talk) 13:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Is somebody going to do the merge then ? --Penbat (talk) 06:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Refs on Narcissism and relation to self-esteem

Some highly cited papers from prestigious journals according to Google scholar. I don't think these are in the article.

• Bushman & Baumeister, "Threatened Egotism, Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and Direct and Displaced Aggression: Does Self-Love or Self-Hate Lead to Violence?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998, Vol. 75, No. 1, 219-229 (possibly a WP:COPYVIO link)
• Campbell, W. K.; Rudich, E. A.; Sedikides, C. (2002). "Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and the Positivity of Self-Views: Two Portraits of Self-Love". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 28 (3): 358–368. doi:10.1177/0146167202286007. ISSN 0146-1672.
• Baumeister, Roy F.; Bushman, Brad J.; Campbell, W. Keith (2000). "Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Aggression: Does Violence Result From Low Self-Esteem or From Threatened Egotism?". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 9 (1): 26–29. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00053. ISSN 0963-7214. (free version at http://www.sju.edu/academics/centers/ivrp/pdf/Baumeister.pdf )

MartinPoulter (talk) 22:54, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

External link added by anonymous user

The link is not commercial spam, but it is inappropriate because it is an uncredited personal essay, labelled promotionally as "The #1 Source For TRUE Self Esteem On The Web!" See WP:ELNO criteria 2 (unverifable research) and 11 (personal web pages). Repeatedly adding the link, with no edit summary and no attempt to justify its inclusion in Talk, is not how we do things on Wikipedia. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Self-respect does not equal self esteem

they are different things but self respect leads here. seems like a big mistake to me, its possible to have one but not the other. self respect has to do with how you treat yourself, self esteem has to do with how you value yourself. the two may effect each other (not in certain cases, like that of a narcissist), but they are still separate concepts.just because a person acknowledges they have a fault in the way they act doesnt mean they dont think they are valuable. a person can like themselves, but not what they do. a 30 year old high school graduate who lives in there moms basement may have plenty of self esteem, but hate themselves for not doing anything with there lives. i haven't read much of the article but im willing to bet a lot that the two concepts are mixed together thoughtlessly in this article as it is everywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.165.150 (talk) 22:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

looks like somebody needs to start a separate "self respect" article. --Penbat (talk) 22:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Grammar

Hello, if anybody wants to invest one or two hours in this article I would like to recommend you put some time into correcting spelling/grammar mistakes. I will re-write one section that was barely comprehensible myself, but overall this article still has very poor grammar. Chymæra (talk) 23:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Can someone add a new section about misconceptions that a high self esteem causes success?

I have found sources, including some very credible ones from universities, about the subject.

http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/papers/baumeistersmartboden1996%5B1%5D.pdf

http://tomweston.net/RaisingSmartKids.pdf

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/selfesteembaumeister.pdf

carmine.se.edu/cvonbergen/The%20Self-esteem%20Fraud.doc

Can someone add a section about these?Aattss (talk) 03:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Kings University College

I have decided to edit this article for Psych 2410A at Kings 2012 Mooseluver18 (talk) 18:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I have decided to edit this article for my psych 2410A class at Kings University College Khart28 (talk) 15:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Psych 2410A Improvements 1. I will be improving the grammar/sentence and paragraph structure of this page with large focus on the introductory paragraph. 2. I will add a sub section to the page, expanding on the types of self-esteem such as distinguishing between secure high self-esteem, defensive high self-esteem and narcissism.( which may result in removal of some content or movement of the initial information) 3 I will be posting an empirical article to the page relevent to the study of self -esteem development: Erol, R. Y., & Orth, U. (2011, July 4). Self-Esteem Development From Age 14 to 30 Years: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0024299

3. I will also be adding information to the section on self-esteem definitions and clarifying the theorists portion. Khart28 (talk) 02:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

For Psych 2410A Mooseluver18 (talk) 04:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Edits

-edit the measurement section because it have very little information and there is some information floating around the whole article that should be organized under this section

-edit the importance section

-adding a section on Self-Evaluation and its development. I plan on using the article Character Development and Self-Esteem:Psychological Foundations and Educational Implications written by F Clark Power and Vladimir T Khmelkov in 1998.

Peer Evaluation Self-Esteem User:Mooseluver18

1/1 the student has improved the quality of the information available in this article

1/1 the student has improved the clarity and/or organization of the content

1/1 the student has clearly explained the method and findings of an empirical paper

1/1 the student has correctly cited the empirical paper according to Wikipedia guidelines

The changes to the article this student has made were well done. They improved the accuracy and depth of the article while also providing an understanding of the topic. One small change would be to make sure that the sentence structure is crisp, clear and appropriate in order for an easy read and general knowledge of the article. I liked the clear breakdown and narrow specifics used to explain the different forms of the individual. It helped broaden my understanding. Overall the editing process done on this article was done with high accuracy. Good job! lpatric4 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Maslow's approaches to esteem section

I think this section needs to be divided up as it is one big paragraph, therefore hard to read.

____________

Thirty years after writing a paper on the virtues of monkey behavior, Maslow had begun to see individuals acting like monkeys in the name of self-actualization and repudiated his own work and especially its application. His observations on his granddaughter led him to repudiate his work, but it is hallowed today because it is foundational to liberal orthodoxy.

In later life, he wrote in his journals about his previously mistaken view of "the sacred impulse." He concluded, "My unconscious is not the boss, my impulse is not sacred and irrefutable." He condemned Carl Rogers' idea that we should follow our feelings whether they were right or wrong. Maslow had caught on to the fact that this idea of the human-potential movement was a civilization-destroying concept. It failed to understand the reality of evil in human life. When we implied to people that they could trust their impulses, they also understood us to mean that they could trust their evil impulses... and that if they trusted them, they wouldn't turn out to be evil.

Richard Webb webb@4Brevard.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.85.202.25 (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Self-worth and body surveillance

An interesting paper about women's self worth has been linked by User:Tebbe_en and probably belongs in the article, but the way it has been summarised seems to be confusing and give the opposite impression to what I get from reading the abstract from the article. So I'm moving the text here for other users to consider improving.

Aspects of self-worth (closely related to self-esteem), on the other hand, have been directly linked to body surveillance, and indirectly related to lower appearance satisfaction<ref>Overstreet, N. M., & Quinn, D. M. (2012). Contingencies of self-worth and appearance concerns: Do domains of self-worth matter? ''Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36'', 314-325. doi:10.1177/0361684311435221 [http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/36/3/314.short]</ref>. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:56, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Idea for History section

I would like to read about personal values before the idea that "self esteem is a good thing" developed. I'm talking about the times when loyalty, obedience, hard work, seriousness, and honesty were valued over all of this self worth stuff. Alas, I don't have time to look up sources and write about it myself but surely somebody else can. MarshallKe (talk) 04:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

bipolar

Hello, I would like to know if anyone with bipolar can give me in their definition of self-esteem° — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biggiggles29 (talk • contribs) 23:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Esteem in sociology?

Linking "esteem" directly to "self-esteem" really doesn't make sense considering that the sociological definition of esteem in reference to social status and prestige is wholly different from psychological self-esteem. Did that page get merged here or has it ever existed, and should there be a better way to deal with that redirect? 66.99.172.59 (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Geology?

The article says that "Self-esteem is a term used in Geology". I don't get this, could anyone explain? 77.172.147.34 (talk) 15:08, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

This was caused by the latest round of vandalism. It has been fixed. Thanks for pointing out the problem. Reify-tech (talk) 17:54, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Typo in section "Longitudinal Study"?

In the section "Longitudinal Study", sentence 5 begins with "In mer of personality..." Is that a typo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.46.72 (talk • contribs)

Appears to be so. Nice catch. Occurred in this edit by Tim bates. I changed it to In terms of personality. Tim bates - if that's not what you meant, feel free to correct my edit. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:27, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Best way to distinguish self-esteem and self-confidence?

In light of literature I have read in a Social Psychology graduate seminar, I think it might be helpful in the introduction to the entry for self-confidence to distinguish it from self-esteem, and perhaps other older concepts like self-efficacy and self-enhancement. What do you think about that? Part of the problem seems to be that many psychologists mention the self-esteem and self-confidence or as synonyms without distinguishing the two. I am actually not working on this entry but rather self-confidence entry, though you might want to do the same here. I think the citation by Robert Reasoner (footnote 83) and Baumeister and Tierney (footnote 90) and Yagual (footnote 60) helps a lot in clarifying the distinction and thought I could summarize their points together...or maybe I just emphasize what is distinct about self-confidence in the introductory paragraph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob.richard.thomas (talk • contribs) 15:30, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Sock from Kerala, India

rm rv sock from Kerala, India see: Talk:Social work#IP-hopper and User:Jim1138/IP Hopper from Kerala per wp:deny Jim1138 (talk) 23:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Self-confidence

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was not merged and improve both articles to avoid confusion as to the different meanings of the two concepts, "self-esteem" and "self-confidence".  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  14:31, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

---

This article deals also with the concept of self-esteem; Wikipedia has a much better one abut it. Λeternus ^(talk) 10:17, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support. I think these are just synonyms for the same concept. FuriouslySerene (talk) 21:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. From a psychological theory standpoint, self-confidence and self-esteem are related but distinct constructs. Self-esteem is an appraisal of self-worth based in the cognitive and affective, while self-confidence refers to the trust in one's aptitude for a particular interaction or task. The current self-confidence page is in need of a clean up to remove the unclear distinction between similar concepts (i.e. self-esteem) it carries. Anoesis23 (talk) 00:02, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Citation? Most of the citations on the self-confidence page actually refer to self-esteem. Are there studies that have shown demonstrable differences in the two concepts? I'm not aware of any.FuriouslySerene (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Anoesis23's analysis, its the fault of the self-confidence page that it gets confused with self-esteem.--Penbat (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - per User:Anoesis23 --DynaGirl (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - per User:Anoesis23 --Penbat (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Complete invalid paragraph?

The first paragraph, instead of defining or explaining the term, it states as below:

"|title=Bartleby.com: Great Books Onliner -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more|website=Bartleby.com|accessdate=11 December 2017}}</ref> self-respect,[1][2] and self-integrity."

This has nothing to do with Self-esteem definition and it does not stay within Wikipedia's good article etiquette. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thevalos (talk • contribs) 01:33, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Unconditional positive regard

This article mentions Carl Rogers and then talks about "unconditional acceptance". I thought that the term which Rogers used was "unconditional positive regard". Vorbee (talk) 17:22, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Eſteem listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Eſteem. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:45, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible copyvio

High overlap between article and heavenhealthclinic in rev 971293527, but possibly predates that, and is possibly a reverse-copy. I'm a bit confused by the copyvio-revdel placed on the article for a completely different url (theschooloflife). A comparison with a 2016 capture by IA also shows the overlap in 2016. Mathglot (talk) 07:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Heavenhealthclinic.com doesn't look like the kind of place that produces its own material. Troll Control (talk) 09:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

For example its page on Generalized Anxiety Disorder appears to be shared by bartleby.com. Troll Control (talk) 09:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

History?

There needs to be an article about the development of self-esteem as an educational concept, with a timeline.

Your second paragraph, concerning the history with James seems to be plagiarized. This information is taken almost directly from the source of The Briefer Course by William James. I suggest putting this particular section/paragraph into your own words, then cite James accordingly. MStearns21 (talk) 18:39, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I also believe that you should dive into more detail about what self-esteem is and how it is formed in this section. For instance, stating that self-esteem, whether high or low, is established in early childhood. Having a good or bad familial environment can have a large impact on self-esteem. The Mayo Clinic goes into more detail about what contributes to self-esteem. Orth U, et al. Self-esteem development from young adulthood to old age: A cohort-sequential longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2010;98:645. MStearns21 (talk) 18:48, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

References

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Examples of fallacious reasoning and plain idiocy could and should be deleted

In a number of places in this article the fallacy that improved self-esteem leads to improved life outcomes is stated or implied. The wacky US politician and his various councils, the malaysian undergraduate study, etc. Why mention it? Why not delete this self-evident idiocy? Why is not blindingly obvious to to any reasonably intelligent being that improved life outcomes lead to improved self-esteem, and NOT the reverse? Just as water, light and nutrients lead to plant growth. Plant growth does not lead to water, light and nutrients. Very basic logic, really. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.151.210.84 (talk) 06:59, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Article summary

Self-esteem is the respect you have for your abilities, characteristics and your physical look. Jokerkick (talk) 12:56, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the opinion, or esteem, you have for what is also known as the 'self'. Hence the term. Self-esteem. What is your point? 122.151.210.84 (talk) 07:02, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

The difference between Self-esteem and self worth.

They are mentioned in this page as synonyms. There are subtle differences in the nuances of the two. Many psychologists and authors express the view that self-worth is intrinsic (and not dependant on external circumstances) whilst Self-esteem is (for many) contingent. I would like to add a split section on self worth to expand this idea. Really I also believe that so much has been written on self-worth in its own right that it should have its own page and we could lose the redirect. What are your thoughts on the matter? Adam Bradley Giles (talk) 18:29, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I tend to be "pro-lumping" and "anti-splitting" because I think comparing distinct literatures and ideas is useful for the reader who would otherwise be deprived a more expansive view of the topic. If there are splits before a high level argument to discuss both related concepts. I also find that splitting can lead to particular literatues (e.g. psychology vs social psycholgy vs psychiatry vs social work vs sociology) excluding others. I don't think most people agree with me.

I think the topics are close enough that'd be good to discuss them together Talpedia (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok thanks for your input, Talpedia. I´ll draft a section on this page. Open it up for discussion, then we'll see where we go from there. Adam Bradley Giles (talk) 07:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

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