This is the 5th lecture of [[Keith Campbell]]'s *[[PA Psychology of the Self]]* from [[Peterson Academy]] Self-esteem is **our evaluation of our self**. To evaluate something is to make a positive or negative judgement about something. It can also be spoken in terms of an attitude towards our self, which means to like or dislike our selves. In simple terms, to have self esteem is to say "I like myself." We have a drive for **self enhancement**, which is a propensity to increase our positive view of our self. Difference between self esteem and: Self efficacy: Self efficacy is about the belief in one's ability to achieve goals, but self esteem is simply about general positive feeling of oneself. Narcisism: Narcisism is specific to the feeling of superiority over others, but self esteem a more general positive feeling of oneself. ## History of Self Esteem ### Intellectual history - Milton in Paradise Lost during the Enlightenment: "God loves you, so you should love yourself too" - William James brings self-esteem into Psychology. He formulated as self esteem as success divided by pretensions aka "how successful you are divided by how successful you want to be."[^1] - Rosenberg in Sociology (and most common today): Self esteem as trait of self-liking. He also has a 10-item Rosenberg self esteem scale commonly used today. ### Popularization history - In the 70s and the 80s, Carl Rogers and Ayn Rand with her "Five Pillars of Self Esteem" were notable figures in championing self-esteem. - From the 80s to the turn of the century, a Californian governor founded the California Task Force for Self Esteem and Social Responsibility to manufacture self-esteem in children, assuming that would solve student crime despite the research suggesting otherwise. ## Unconscious self-esteem While self esteem is typically seen as something conscious, some research were devoted to indirectly searching for associative, implicit, unconscious self-esteem? Two relevant researches were: - **Name-letter effect** show people favor letters of their own name. - The **implicit association test (IAT)** tests for how fast people associate themselves with positive words. However, they don't correlate with each other well. ## Self-esteem as a state (instead of a trait) People with stable, non-fluctuating self-esteem over time are less aggressive. In contrast, unstable self-esteem—whether high or low—predicts aggression and interpersonal conflict. Fluctuation in self-esteem is alarming to the self, and leads to self-validation-seeking behavior—aggression. ## Sources of self-esteem Jenny Crocker's work on **contingent self esteem** makes it clear that self-esteem gained from external sources is contingent and fleeting. Thus, self-esteem has to come from within, because seeking self-esteem from outside sources would inevitably cause problems, whether it be fame, status, money, because there is never enough of any of that. Seeking self-esteem externally also ruins relationships.[^2] 30%-40% of self-esteem is heritable. The rest is how one is brought up. **Early attachment experiences** play a huge role. The way one experiences love and affection at an early age helps build up self esteem.[^3] Apart from that, **healthy relationships** and **age-appropriate challenges** help build up self esteem as well. ## Self Enhancement Sometimes further divided into self-augmentation vs self-protection. The general rule is that we self-enhance wherever there is opportunity, when the situation is ambiguous. Fritz Heider's **self-serving bias** shows that people like to take credit for successes, but cast blame for mistakes. It allows one to feel good all the time, but prevents learning from mistakes, and ruins relationships. The **better-than-average effect** shows that, on average, people think they are better than average. Other things we do to self-enhance include associating with high status people (but at the same time social comparison) and humble bragging. Our memory changes depending on our the story we tell ourselves about it. Our pride tend to favor our positive past memories, while writing off negative ones by seeing it as somebody other than ourselves. Self-enhancement always carries its own risks. "Reality always wins." A related emotion to enhancement is pride. Jessica Tracy researches what is the social emotion of pride. The pro-social side of pride is called authentic pride, and it carries with it senses of joy, positivity and celebration. This sort of pride is not a turn-off to others, as it does not carry with it a sense of arrogance. The less pro-social, more negative side of pride is called hubristic pride, which carries senses of arrogance, superiority and narcissism. Most significant differentiator of one's propensity to self enhance is narcissism. ### Narcissism Generally defined as having an inflated or positive view of one self. Three types of narcissism: 1. Grandiose narcissism — enhancing on classic agentic traits like fame, status, wealth 2. Communal narcissism — enhancing on communal traits indicating moral superiority 3. Vulnerable narcissism — defensive on mostly agentic traits ### Dealing with failure - Kristin Neff **self compassion** — treat yourself like how you would treat a friend - Connection with broader humanity, like in the Buddhist mustard seed parable - Mindfulness — attention and awareness with acceptance and without judgement ## What should be Fritz Heider's **balance theory** states that we should like things we are connected to in order to have a consistent world. But it still has to exist in a golden mean. [^1]: Close formulation compared to self-discrepancy theory by Carl Rogers, but specific to success as metric for measurement. [^2]: Thought experiment of having a new college freshman seek self-esteem, and another seek building relationships. The one seeking self-esteem would ruin his relationships. [^3]: Experiment with barb wire mom, and cloth mom for monkeys by Harry Harlow. Subject: [[Psychology]]