Posted on 04/28/2008 6:02:31 AM PDT by decimon
Athens, Ga. – Oscar Levant, a mid-century pianist, film star and wit, once watched noted keyboardist and composer George Gershwin spend an evening playing his own music at a party and clearly having a great time.
“Tell me, George,” Levant said, somewhat jealously, “if you have it to do all over again would you still fall in love with yourself"”
Increasingly, psychologists are looking at such behavior and saying out loud what may go against the grain of how many people act: high self-esteem is not the same thing as healthy self-esteem. And new research by a psychology professor from the University of Georgia is adding another twist: those with “secure” high self-esteem are less likely to be verbally defensive than those who have “fragile” high self-esteem.
“There are many kinds of high self-esteem, and in this study we found that for those in which it is fragile and shallow it’s no better than having low self-esteem,” said Michael Kernis. “People with fragile high self-esteem compensate for their self-doubts by engaging in exaggerated tendencies to defend, protect and enhance their feelings of self-worth.”
The research was published today in the Journal of Personality. Kernis’s co-authors are Chad Lakey and Whitney Heppner, both doctoral students in the UGA social psychology program.
Amid the complexity of perspectives on the human psyche, a slow but relentless change is occurring in how psychologists view self-esteem, said Kernis. It was once thought that more self-esteem necessarily is better self-esteem. In recent years, however, high self-esteem per se has come under attack on several fronts, especially in areas such as aggressive behavior. Also, individuals with high self-esteem sometimes become very unlikable when others or events threaten their egos.
While high self-esteem is still generally valued as a good quality that is important to a happy and productive life, more researchers are breaking it down into finer gradations and starting to understand when high self-esteem turns from good to bad. In fact, it is now thought that there are multiple forms of high self-esteem, only some of which consistently relate to positive psychological functioning.
One of the ways in which high self-esteem can turn bad is when it is accompanied by verbal defensiveness—lashing out at others when a person’s opinions, beliefs, statements or values are threatened. So Kernis and his colleagues designed a study, reported in the current article, to see if respondents whose self-esteem is “fragile” were more verbally defensive than those whose self-esteem was “secure.”
Using 100 undergraduates, they set up a study in three phases. In the first part, students completed a basic demographic questionnaire and other measures to evaluate their levels and other aspects of self-esteem. In phase 2, the team assessed the students’ stability of self-esteem because the more unstable or variable one’s self-esteem, the more fragile it is. And finally, in the last phase, the researchers conducted a structured “life experiences interview” to measure what they call “defensive verbalization.”
“Our findings offer strong support for a multi-component model of self-esteem that highlights the distinction between its fragile and secure forms,” said Kernis. “Individuals with low self-esteem or fragile high self-esteem were more verbally defensive than individuals with secure high self-esteem. One reason for this is that potential threats are in fact more threatening to people with low or fragile high self-esteem than those with secure high self-esteem, and so they work harder to counteract them.”
On the other hand, individuals with secure high self-esteem appear to accept themselves “warts and all,” and, feeling less threatened, they are less likely to be defensive by blaming others or providing excuses when they speak about past transgressions or threatening experiences.
One reason the study’s findings are important, Kernis said, is that it shows that greater verbal defensiveness relates to lower psychological well-being and life satisfaction.
“These findings support the view that heightened defensiveness reflects insecurity, fragility and less-than-optimal functioning rather than a healthy psychological outlook,” said Kernis. “We aren’t suggesting there’s something wrong with people when they want to feel good about themselves. What we are saying is that when feeling good about themselves becomes a prime directive, for these people excessive defensiveness and self-promotion are likely to follow, the self-esteem is likely to be fragile rather than secure and any psychological benefits will be very limited.”
And what of Oscar Levant and George Gershwin" While Levant may now be largely remembered for his acid opinions, Gershwin left us Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and Porgy and Bess, three of the most memorable compositions of the 20th century.
So the score for that fabled encounter on the secure self-esteem scale could be Gershwin 1, Levant, 0. Maybe it’s a reminder of how complicated self-esteem really is.
I home schooled my kids for a while, because my son’s 3rd grade teacher didn’t want to put him in remedial reading classes until he was at least 2 years behind his peers, because that would damage his self esteem. At that point, he was about one year behind, and very frustrated. I asked what she thought fumbling around and not being able to do the work now was doing to his self esteem. Yeah, this one was voted teacher of the year. I pulled my kids out of public school.
Sounds like people are confusing self-esteem and arrogance.
Sounds like he's describing Monika's exboyfriends wife. You know, the one named after Sir Edmund Hilary, the one who dodged sniperfire, and who's daughter was walking by the trade center when it fell.
I once told my doctor, "You're arrogant-I like that in someone who knows what they are doing". He laughed.
There seem to be plenty of "I Am Special" people, who are arrogant and self-confident while being bad at their jobs. Sooner or later the wheels come off. It's fun to watch.
Or self-esteem and self-respect.
Why, this is sheer genius! These fellows must have the "good" self-esteem, LOL.
What about self-confidence?
Yes. I had a professor who was both arrogant and insecure. It seems like it might be contradictory, but both traits can co-exist. He got extremely defensive when questioned. I guess we were just supposed to recognize his superiority. He usually got away with it, because most students would not confront him. They saw through it and talked about him outside of class. But they didn't want to risk their grades by letting on that they knew the emperor had no clothes. I was an older student, taking the class for pleasure, rather than a grade. I openly disagreed with him and he hated me for it.
Bingo
This is pop psychology. It’s no wonder psychology is a pseudo science at best!
Self esteem by definition is not how a person feels about themself. It is the discrepancy between how a person feels about themself and the way reality treats them.
Thus a person who is a jerk, but has a high self image, will end up with low self esteem as the discrepancy between the two is great.
If a real jerk knows that they are a jerk, they do not necessarily have low self esteem. They have low self image. There is a difference.
The problem in today’s society is the inflated self image that parent’s give their children. The your crap doesn’t smell self image where they can do no wrong. The “society owes you” because you are great.
Recently my daughter, a biochem major in college, did a modeling job for some extra money. It was humorous to hear the other models talk about their childhood and how they had to wear dresses all the time, gloves to play in the sand box, could never get dirty ..... I turned to my daughter and said... You wore boots to shovel the manure out of the chicken house.... Is that the same? My point was well taken.... It’s hard to teach children humility in todays society..
A couple of news stories over the past few years have said it all about self-esteem. In comparison of self-esteem and math scores in the US and other nations, US students ranked first in self-esteem and eighteen in math ability.
Self-esteem is necessary, but it is only a basic starting point in building confidence as a result of actual accomplishment in some endeavor.
Here is the concluding paragraph in a relevant, but long-winded article from the Washington Post:
“Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, said the report shows that schools need not be fun to be effective. “Schools should work on academics, not feelings,” Finn said. “True self-esteem, self-confidence and happiness are born of true achievement.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701298.html
But I’m not holding my breath waiting for the US education establishment to put self-esteem in its proper place.
More like self pity
There is something wrong with wanting to feel good about yourself if you have to believe lies to accomplish it.
Modern Psychology as a profession again proves to be barely advanced over African Witch Doctors.
These people make up bogeymen and then name them and then refute what they just claimed to be true.
Don’t paint everything with such a broad brush. I went to a psychologist for therapy during and after my divorce and he was great. No feel good BS, just a lot of good advice from someone who has seen a lot, is entirely impartial, and was not afraid to tell me the truth.
We started losing the culture war when we replaced pride with self-esteem...
That is EXACTLY why I do not like psychologists in general, and why I paint them with a hasty generalization brush.
1- No human is entirely impartial
2- No human knows 'the truth'
Now certainly, I believe that certain people can gain a leg up from certain psychotherapy. I also believe they can irreperably damage someone by becoming a permanent psychological crutch.
A lot of medicines are prescribed by real doctors where they really don't completely know what the pharmacological mechanism is to make it work, but they know exactly what it does in what dosages. Psychologists have no such scientific A+B=C underlying science. Their 'therapy' cannot be second-guessed by another expert for effectiveness the way a doctor's treatment can be tested by another doctor's impartial lab. (Yes that is just my opinion.)
But I think it's fair to say that a broken bone can be set correctly or not independently of the personaility, history or lifestyle of the patient.
A person going through psychoterapy has to learn how to set their OWN mental parts right, and I think that the success or failure of psychoterapy is entirely dependent on the patient, which in my humblest opinion puts a psychotherapist about on the same professional level of a good bartender or a patient friend, not a scientist.
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