The Trouble with Self Esteem part 1

The Trouble With Self-Esteem

By LAUREN SLATER

Take this test:
1. On the whole I am satisfied with myself.
2. At times I think that I am no good at all.
3. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I certainly feel useless at times.
7. I feel that I am a person of worth, at least the equal of others.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
10. I take a positive attitude toward myself.

Devised by the sociologist Morris Rosenberg, this questionnaire is one of the most widely used self-esteem assessment scales in the United States. If your answers demonstrate solid self-regard, the wisdom of the social sciences predicts that you are well adjusted, clean and sober, basically lucid, without criminal record and with some kind of college cum laude under your high-end belt. If your answers, on the other hand, reveal some inner shame, then it is obvious: you were, or are, a teenage mother; you are prone to social deviance; and if you don't drink, it is because the illicit drugs are bountiful and robust.

It has not been much disputed, until recently, that high self-esteem -- defined quite simply as liking yourself a lot, holding a positive opinion of your actions and capacities -- is essential to well-being and that its opposite is responsible for crime and substance abuse and prostitution and murder and rape and even terrorism. Thousands of papers in psychiatric and social-science literature suggest this, papers with names like ''Characteristics of Abusive Parents: A Look At Self-Esteem'' and ''Low Adolescent Self-Esteem Leads to Multiple Interpersonal Problems.'' In 1990, David Long published ''The Anatomy of Terrorism,'' in which he found that hijackers and suicide bombers suffer from feelings of worthlessness and that their violent, fluorescent acts are desperate attempts to bring some inner flair to a flat mindscape.

This all makes so much sense that we have not thought to question it. The less confidence you have, the worse you do; the more confidence you have, the better you do; and so the luminous loop goes round. Based on our beliefs, we have created self-esteem programs in schools in which the main objective is, as Jennifer Coon-Wallman, a psychotherapist based in Boston, says, ''to dole out huge heapings of praise, regardless of actual accomplishment.'' We have a National Association for Self-Esteem with about a thousand members, and in 1986, the State Legislature of California founded the ''California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility.'' It was galvanized by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, who fervently believed that by raising his citizens' self-concepts, he could divert drug abuse and all sorts of other social ills.

It didn't work.

In fact, crime rates and substance abuse rates are formidable, right along with our self-assessment scores on paper-and-pencil tests. (Whether these tests are valid and reliable indicators of self-esteem is a subject worthy of inquiry itself, but in the parlance of social-science writing, it goes ''beyond the scope of this paper.'') In part, the discrepancy between high self-esteem scores and poor social skills and academic acumen led researchers like Nicholas Emler of the London School of Economics and Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University to consider the unexpected notion that self-esteem is overrated and to suggest that it may even be a culprit, not a cure.

''There is absolutely no evidence that low self-esteem is particularly harmful,'' Emler says. ''It's not at all a cause of poor academic performance; people with low self-esteem seem to do just as well in life as people with high self-esteem. In fact, they may do better, because they often try harder.'' Baumeister takes Emler's findings a bit further, claiming not only that low self-esteem is in most cases a socially benign if not beneficent condition but also that its opposite, high self-regard, can maim and even kill. Baumeister conducted a study that found that some people with favorable views of themselves were more likely to administer loud blasts of ear-piercing noise to a subject than those more tepid, timid folks who held back the horn. An earlier experiment found that men with high self-esteem were more willing to put down victims to whom they had administered electric shocks than were their low-level counterparts

Albert Ellis Dead!

This weeks post has taken me a bit by suprise I recieved news yesterday that Albert Ellis had passed on so I thought I'd do this weeks post early. Albert Ellis is the founder of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy REBT and it is his work that inspired this Blog and Self Esteem is a Joke.com.

This man has revolutionised the lives of many including my own and his passing is felt in the hearts of many. Thank you DR Ellis for all you have given us!

Please read on and check out http://albert-ellis-friends.net/ if you are interested in learning more about this remarkable man.

Dr. Albert Ellis, 93, Creator of Psychology's Cognitive Revolution, Dies
July 24, 2007

Dr. Albert Ellis, the controversial psychologist who revolutionized the field of psychology when he created Rational Emotive Therapy in 1955, died at home on July 24, 2007. His wife, Debbie Joffe was with him. He was 93. He had been seriously ill for more than a year.

Dr. Ellis was born in Pittsburgh on September 27, 1913, and was raised in New York City. He received his M.A. (1943) and Ph.D. (1947) degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University. He practiced psychotherapy, marriage and family counseling and sex therapy for over sixty years. He was the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy, the first of the now-popular cognitive therapies. In later years, he called his creation Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, REBT.

Recognizing the slowness and frequent ineffectiveness of Freudian psychoanalysis, Albert Ellis broke away from it in January 1953, calling himself a rational therapist. He presented REBT to the psychological community in 1955, starting a revolutionary paradigm shift in the way psychology thought about human problems and changing the way psychotherapy is practiced around the world.

REBT is a comprehensive approach to psychological issues and problems that deals with the emotional and behavioral aspects of human disturbance, and places emphasis on how people think. REBT reminds people that they control their own emotional destiny according to whether they think in healthy, rational ways or unhealthy, irrational ways. It teaches people how to forcefully analyze and change their self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. A major aspect of REBT is unconditional acceptance of self, others and life.

His influence extended into areas other than psychology, including education, politics, business and philosophy. He wrote extensively on the problems the world currently faces, such as terrorism and nuclear weapons.

Dr. Ellis received the highest awards from professional societies, including recently the New York State Psychological Association's Lifetime Distinguished Service Award. In a 1982 survey, American and Canadian psychologists rated Albert Ellis as having more influence on psychology than Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung or B.F. Skinner. Psychology Today called him The Prince of Reason. He was also called the greatest humanitarian since Gandhi.

Bullying, violence and murder

welcome to another post today's effort comes once again from wikipedia and sheds light on certain social problems and how they, as previously thought, are not the product of low self esteem.

Some of the most interesting results of recent studies center on the relationships between bullying, violence, and self-esteem. People used to assume that bullies acted violently towards others because they suffered from low self-esteem (although supporters of this position offered no controlled studies to back up this belief).

“	These findings suggest that the low-esteem theory is wrong. But none involves what social psychologists regard as the most convincing form of evidence: controlled laboratory experiments. When we conducted our initial review of the literature, we uncovered no lab studies that probed the link between self-esteem and aggression.	”
—Baumeister, 2001

In contrast to old beliefs, recent research indicates that bullies act the way that they do because they suffer from unearned high self-esteem.

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Violent criminals often describe themselves as superior to others - as special, elite persons who deserve preferential treatment. Many murders and assaults are committed in response to blows to self-esteem such as insults and humiliation. (To be sure, some perpetrators live in settings where insults threaten more than their opinions of themselves. Esteem and respect are linked to status in the social hierarchy, and to put someone down can have tangible and even life-threatening consequences.)

”

“	The same conclusion has emerged from studies of other categories of violent people. Street-gang members have been reported to hold favourable opinions of themselves and turn to violence when these estimations are shaken. Playground bullies regard themselves as superior to other children; low self-esteem is found among the victims of bullies, but not among bullies themselves. Violent groups generally have overt belief systems that emphasise their superiority over others.	”
—Baumeister, 2001

The presence of superiority-complexes can be seen both in individual cases, such as the criminals Baumeister studied, and in whole societies, such as Germany under the Nazi régime.

The findings of this research do not take into account that the concept of self-esteem lacks a clear definition and that differing views exist of the precise definition of self-esteem. In his own work, Baumeister often uses a "common use" definition: self-esteem is how you regard yourself (or how you appear to regard yourself) regardless of how this view was cultivated. Other psychologists believe that a "self esteem" that depends on external validation of the self (or other people's approval), such as what seems relevant in the discussion of violent people, is not, in fact, "true" self-esteem. Nathaniel Branden labeled this "pseudo self-esteem", arguing that "true self-esteem" comes from internal sources, such as self responsibility, self sufficiency and the knowledge of one's own competence and capability to deal with obstacles and adversity, regardless of what other people think.

If you enjoyed this check out the resource page at www.selfesteemisajoke.com for more whilst your there why not get your free e-course and learn more about why this insidious social disease must be stopped.

Self Esteem Grades and Relationships

This weeks post follows on from last weeks post and is taken from the wikipedia it outlines more inconsistencies in self esteem and a little how blind faith was used initially with promotion of self esteem enjoy. Craig

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s Americans assumed as a matter of course that students' self-esteem acted as a critical factor in the grades that they earn in school, in their relationships with their peers, and in their later success in life. Given this assumption, many American groups created programs to increase the self-esteem of students, assuming that grades would increase, conflicts would decrease, and that this would lead to a happier and more successful life. Until the 1990s little peer-reviewed and controlled research took place on this topic.

“	The concept of self-improvement has undergone dramatic change since 1911, when Ambrose Bierce mockingly defined self-esteem as "an erroneous appraisement." Good and bad character are now known as "personality differences". Rights have replaced responsibilities. The research on egocentrism and ethnocentrism that informed discussion of human growth and development in the mid-20th century is ignored; indeed, the terms themselves are considered politically incorrect. A revolution has taken place in the vocabulary of self. Words that imply responsibility or accountability — self-criticism, self-denial, self-discipline, self-control, self-effacement, self-mastery, self-reproach, and self-sacrifice — are no longer in fashion. The language most in favor is that which exalts the self — self-expression, self-assertion, self-indulgence, self-realization, self-approval, self-acceptance, self-love, and the ubiquitous self-esteem.	”
—Ruggiero, 2000

Peer-reviewed research undertaken since then has not validated previous assumptions. Recent research indicates that inflating students' self-esteem in and of itself has no positive effect on grades. One study has shown that inflating self-esteem by itself can actually decrease grades.^[7]

High self-esteem correlates highly with self-reported happiness. However, it is not clear which, if either, necessarily leads to the other.^[8]

Some psychologists believe in a cause-and-effect relationship between high self-esteem and academic success^{[citation needed]}. Ethnic identity may also play a role in the correlation between self-esteem and academic performance. The psychologist Jean S. Phinney, for example, has identified the development of ethnic identity among African-American adolescents as an integral stage in the development of their self-esteem.^{[citation needed]} Psychologists have acknowledged the importance of ethnic identity, but have varying views of its relevance to academic success.^{[citation needed]}

Some research evaluates the extremes of ethnic identity, with those who identify themselves as pro-black experiencing high self-esteem while those whose ethnic identity relates to anti-white behaviors display low self-esteem.^{[citation needed]} Other researchers have built upon this idea and developed questions about the relevance of ethnic identity in the world of academia for African-American students. The field seems amenable to further study of larger numbers of African-American adolescents to accurately identify the role of ethnic identity in the development of self-esteem.

Article from Wikipedia

Some criticisms of Self Esteem

Critics see the all pervading importance given to self-esteem in popular culture and in modern psychology as misleading and dogmatic. A review of self-esteem literature by Roy Baumeister confirmed that high self-regard per se is not necessarily good nor does it translate into higher estimates by others of a person's intellect, appearance or virtue. Self-esteem as panacea is "a very compelling illusion," because it correlates with happiness and other good things, says Baumeister, but psychologists "were a little too eager in promoting the program before the data were in." Some social constructionists argue that modern day America with its overwhelming cultural bias towards self-enhancement has fabricated and validated the dogma of self-esteem as a universal human goal that all must strive towards perfecting. This fails to consider the absence of such an emphasis in other flourishing cultures, where high self-esteem is not as celebrated and central a concept.

Psychological literature and popular culture both concentrate on the presence or absence of high self-esteem, however some evidence suggests that the overemphasis on the self-esteem mantra can lead to rapid falls when the self becomes invalidated in the domains that one considers important. In addition this pursuit may have negative consequences on the welfare of society as a whole. Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhist and Hindu thought, see the self in its limited form as illusory; it perceives a "true self" as a sublime and transcendent entity, whose nature remains hidden from the limited or egoic self. Some Christians^{[weasel words]} also oppose boosting self-esteem, believing that Christians should esteem Christ rather than themselves and that they should turn to him regarding their problems.^[6].

Problems with Self Esteem

In my first post I thought I might dispell a few myths about self esteem and challenge a few misconceptions.

First a definition: Self Esteem is conditioned self acceptance. This becomes an issue because because it requires you to achieve or do something good in order to accept yourself.

What is self esteem so bad?
Unfortunately because self esteem requires you to do something good in order to accept your self apart from being hard work after a while the flipside of the self esteem equation also means that if you fail at something you tend to berate yourself for not succeeding and often consider yourself a failure.

Don't you mean low self esteem is bad?
Unfortunately high self esteem leads to low self esteem it simply can't be maintained for long with out self esteems old friend the ego coming out. But for now let's just stick with self esteem.

So how does this work?
Well if your needing to have something good happen in order to accept your self when nothing does it leads to being un happy for no real reason. You may also find yourself using terms life feeling good about yourself this really is a self centered notion. In the coming posts through my everyday observations and the writings of others the issues of self esteem will be exposed.