snowdeal.org - conflux: the self-esteem myth.

conflux

the self-esteem myth.

until reading debunking the self-esteem myth is hadn't even occurred to me to question the validity of the conventional wisdom that self-esteem, or the lack thereof, is the cause of this or that woe:

"Of course, the science on self-esteem has matured over the past few decades� and we�ve determined that, in fact, we were dead wrong in our initial inferences about the effects of self-esteem on people�s abilities to function and perform in society.

More recent studies tracked the behavior of children over time, and showed that their self-esteem levels rose when they received good grades, and fell when they received bad grades. Grades were the cause, not the effect of low self-esteem. And pregnant teenagers more than likely suffered from low self-esteem after they became pregnant teenagers� because they were pregnant teenagers. And violent criminals, counter to assumptions of many, actually tend to have higher self-esteem, which enables them to feel far enough �above� their victims to commit their crimes."

the authors go on to claim that the lack of self-control is the root cause of at least some of problems formerly attributed to the lack of self-esteem which is interesting and worthy of more investigation ( note to self: look into their reference, "Rethinking Self Esteem: Why nonprofits should stop pushing self-esteem and start endorsing self-control", published in the Stanford Social Innovation review. ).

the blog post doesn't provide much by way of support for "self-esteem myth" but a commenter left a link to "exploding the self-esteem myth" that more thoroughly summarizes the evidence that the lack of self esteem is not casually related to academic performance, interpersonal conflicts, drug use or aggression. the topic is also much more exhaustively covered in, "does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness or healthier lifestyles?" included amongst the many summary points:

"With the exception of the link to happiness, most of the effects are weak to modest. Self-esteem is thus not a major predictor or cause of almost anything (again, with the possible exception of happiness)."

"There appear to be relatively few personal costs to high self-esteem. If anything, the costs of high self-esteem (and especially of certain subcategories of high self-esteem, such as narcissism) are borne by other people. People high in self-esteem or narcissism are prone to bully others, to retaliate aggressively, and to be prejudiced against out-group members. Self-enhancers are sometimes annoying or obnoxious to others. They may be willing to cheat and perform other antisocial, self-serving acts. The most palpable cost to the self is that of overconfident risk taking (see Emler, 2001), and the evidence supporting this possibility is quite sparse."

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the self-esteem myth.

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