Beliefs About Low Self-Esteem 'Are Myths'

London - Many of the most commonly held beliefs about low self-esteem are myths without reliable evidence to support them, says a study published on Wednesday.

Low self-esteem has become one of the most frequently cited explanations for social and personal problems, ranging from young people's involvement in violent crime to adult failures in business, and the US state of California has gone so far as to invest significant public funds in trying to raise the self-esteem of its citizens.

But Nicholas Emler, a social psychologist who conducted the study, said his research showed that people with a high opinion of themselves could pose a far greater threat to others than those with a low sense of self-worth.

"People with low self-esteem tend to injure themselves rather than other people. Those with high self-esteem tend to damage other people, either because they are reckless and dangerous or because they're unpleasant," he said.

Young people with very high self-esteem are more likely than others to hold racist attitudes, reject social pressures from adults and peers, and engage in physically risky pursuits such as drink-driving or driving too fast, the study said.

"Widespread belief in 'raising self-esteem' as an all-purpose cure for social problems has created a huge market for self-help manuals and educational programmes that is threatening to become the psychotherapeutic equivalent of snake oil," said Emler, a professor at the London School of Economics.

High self-esteem was unrelated to real accomplishments. "What causes people to rise in management hierarchies is largely unrelated to their objective performance, but is related to their ability to convince their superiors they should be promoted," he said.

But his study, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the UK's largest independent social research and development charity, found that relatively low self-esteem was not a risk factor for delinquency, violence, drug use, alcohol abuse, educational under-attainment or racism.

It was, however, a risk factor for attempting suicide, depression, teenage pregnancy and being victimised by bullies, he said in the study, which followed the fortunes of children and young people over time.

Relatively low childhood self-esteem also seemed to be associated with adolescent eating disorders. Among young adult males it seemed linked with low earnings and job problems.

Emler said the most important influence on young people's self-esteem was their parents, "partly as a result of genetic inheritance and partly through the degree of love, concern, acceptance and interest that they show to their children".

He said his study, which took a year to complete, reviewed research worldwide from the 19th century onwards, much of it from the United States. - Reuters

One of them, who had also met Fritz, thought that gestalt was all about Fritz getting laid, and was only given a respectable quasi-scientific basis by Paul Goodman and Hefferline. One step above Reich was her take.

Well, Fritz did that a lot and enjoyed groping the ladies in the baths...but I did see him do some excellent work with people in the groups too. But none of the above with me. A fellow named Jim Simpkin, allegedly Fritz's protege, but perhaps the other way around, did excellent and profound gestalt work. Fritz's wife Laura practiced gestalt in NY, I met her at a memorial service after he died and totally detested her. Manipulative and humorless. At least Fritz had a fine sense of humor, and I considered him a great teacher even though he insulted me frequently for having "character." I suppose if you "live in the now and experience your experience" character doesn't count.

I don't recall the Hustling book, but do remember a book called Joy written by one of the Esalen biggies whose name escapes me who had the countenance and manner of Atilla the Hun. Ah, those were the days....I really must write my memoirs.

I have always been of the opinion that "self-esteem" is a phantom created by the psychobabble crowd.

I was raised to believe that "esteem" was a quality that you cannot bestow upon yourself; rather, it was something that was bestowed upon you by others, and that those who did bestow it upon themselves were generally self-important, narcissistic blowhards who came dangerously close to committing the mortal sin of Pride.

Let's imagine for a moment, however, that such a thing as "self-esteem" does exist. It has been the education establishment's belief for years now that if a child is GIVEN "self-esteem," then he will do well in school. Of course, this is complete and utter nonsense. A child will gain this "self-esteem" (which is really self-confidence -- and a whole 'nother ball of wax) only AFTER he does well at a given task. They've had it backwards for years, and I think perhaps it is the root of nearly ALL their problems for the last 25-30 years.

Regards,

I, too have met people who possess the qualities you describe in your post -- people who have risen above the circumstances of their births and upbringings to nevertheless succeed in life, but I hesitate to ascribe the term "self-esteem" to those qualities and abilities.

The way I see it, these people possess self-confidence, self-comfort, self-respect...or even simple grace. But self-esteem? No, I don't think so.

Perhaps you and I merely differ in our understanding of the word "esteem" itself. As I said before, esteem (to me) implies a sense of pride or honor that I have always thought of as being an extremely slippery thing and if one is not very careful, can cause you to become Prideful. Anyway, that's why I would much prefer my children possess self-confidence than self-esteem.

As always, a pleasure,

Regards,

I read a more detailed discussion of this study in Scientific American a few months ago, and it makes a lot of sense.

What the study actually says is not that "high self esteem", period, is a problem -- what *is* a problem is the sort of overblown arrogant high self-esteem that is not based on actual reality.

A person with high self esteem because he is the president of a successful company is not prone to violence. A person with overinflated self esteem who is actually a loser, on the other hand, will be prone to attack anyone who deflates his balloon, both to shut up the unpleasant truths that he has rationalized away, and to "prove" to the threat to his conceit that he is really the "better man".

The article in Sci.Am. pointed out that the really dangerous people throughout history were hardly suffering from low self-esteem, they were in fact supreme egotists -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Bundy, Gacy, etc. Even bin Laden is clearly a huge egotist, not a person subject to low self-esteem and doubt.

And you won't find many shrinking violets among the violent felons in prison, either.

From personal experience, all the dangerous bullies I've ever known were incomparably arrogant bastards, not self-doubters.

The article mentioned that the same is true of nations -- nations with high self esteem because of actual accomplishment feel no need to throw their weight around to prove anything (e.g., the United States). On the other hand, arrogant nations which have a brittle arrogance about their own worth, for no good reason, are the ones most likely to actually go to war or take some other rash action to try to prove to themselves, and others, that they're as good as they keep saying they are.

The most dangerous thing you can do to an overblown ego is to embarrass them, either intentionally or unintentionally. If you do, they'll spend the rest of their days trying to either regain their lost ground, or punish you for taking them down a notch from their (perceived) well-deserved high perch.

Yes, those with low-self esteem sometimes strike out with violence if they feel too helpless or aggrieved. But that's not nearly as common as the bully with the overinflated ego who feels that he *deserves* to mistreat other people, that people who seem to threaten his "obvious" entitlements *deserve* to be punished, and that anyone who might make the bully face unpleasant truths about himself needs to be shut up, permanently.

The problem is not the false sense of self esteem as much as it is an emotional foundation. There are three stages to human development. Dependency, self identity, and divine identity, with two transition stages. The first transition is between dependency and self identity,it is teen age transition. The second transition is between self identity and divine identity, which is called mid life crisis. This is a tough period for most humans as it requires tearing apart the self which has been built up.

The problem is that in today's society we give our children a premature self identity. This premature sense of self is developed prior to our children establishing critical thinking skills. These skills usually begin to develop around the age of eight or nine. The consciousness prior to that, from birth to age eight or nine is emotional based. When we give our children a premature sense of self by empowering them prematurely and allowing them out of the dependency stage, they have an emotional sense of self. This means that throughout life, when they encounter difficult situations, they regress to their foundation and respond emotionally, and often irrationally.

If you look at the 1950's, we as a society were very dependency oriented. Respect parents, and respect the government. Youth were clean cut and respected authority. We were in the dependency stage.

The 1960's and early 1970's were the teenage transition years. This is characterised by the hippy movement. Rebel against society and form your own self identity. Puberty also begins during teenage years, thus you can understand why the sexual revolution also began about this time.

The hippies of the 60's and 70's became the yuppies of the 80's and 90's. The exaltation of self worship. The look what I can do years. Build up wealth, the house in the burbs, and huge pension funds. This is what facillitated the stock market growth of the Clinton era.

We are now entering the mid-life crisis stage of human development. The diminishing of the ego. This is what Paul talked about in the New Testament when he spoke of dying daily. This is also what Buddha spoke of in his teachings. When things start to go wrong, the self turns to the ego self and says, "If you are in control, how can bad things happen?" Thus the tension begins. This is comparable to tribulation in the Bible. You can see people responding in this manner since the 9-11 incident. The problem is, people need a beacon to see their way through the crisis years. That is where religion is important.

People need to realize that there is a higher power that we need to surrender our authority to. Failure to realize this causes one to become fearful, and look for another human being to surrender their authority to. Thus, a very legalistic society is needed to assure protection of all, which also means that siociety will be controlled. This is how Hitler gained control of Germany. It's also why the Jews, who had been defeated by the Romans two thousand years ago were looking for a "king" when Jesus arrived. This is a normal trend in psychological development, and it has repeated itself many times throughout history. Anyone with a weak foundation due to a premature self identity can not move forward without returning to a dependency stage first. The consciousness skills learned by a child surrendering authority to their parents is critical for an adult to surrender to God in mid-life crisis. ie. same direction, upward.

The third stage, divine identity is where a person can wear plaid pants with a striped shirt and care less what other people think. Their sense of self is based upon their relationship with their creator. They are at peace with death and can enjoy life.

Self esteem is only relevant during the building of the self identity. The more it is built up, the greater the panic attacks and anxiety during the diminishing of self later on in life.

This is a small portion of the theory of human development working model I came up with about ten years ago. It's pretty easy to prove in a lab setting on an individual basis. It's closest parallel is Erikson's psychosocial stage theory, as adjusted by Peck, with an overlay of Loevinger's ego development theory. It explains why religion teaches what it does, and why it is so important.

Sorry for my lack of posting skills. I have been a daily reader of the posts since the inception of FR, but do not post.

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