Posted on 10/17/2002 5:18:29 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
| Robert Fulford | |
| National Post |
Connoisseurs of human foolishness will always cherish that giddy moment in 1987 when the California legislature, convinced it had found the key to understanding human failure, set up the Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. The assemblyman who promoted this idea, John Vasconcellos, believed that raising the self-image of the citizens would cure drug addiction, crime and many other social ills. This project, Vasconcellos argued, was as important as unlocking the secrets of the atom.
The task force's supporters considered it the takeoff point for the self-esteem movement, but it may instead have been the beginning of the end. This much-publicized example of California eccentricity made people reconsider a belief that had taken a firm grip on the popular imagination years before: That people who hold themselves in high regard will act well and those who don't will act badly.
That sounds like a reasonable notion, and millions still believe it, but it won't stand up under serious thought and it crumples under research. It now appears that those who peddle the promise of self-esteem, including the authors of some 3,000 self-help books, are the modern equivalents of 19th-century snake-oil salesmen. It also appears that high self-esteem can often be harmful rather than beneficial.
The term self-esteem goes back at least to the 17th century. Milton in Paradise Lost suggested that sometimes nothing profits us more than well-grounded self-esteem. In 1890 William James, in Principles of Psychology, outlined a relationship between self-esteem and accomplishment.
The idea as we know it began flowering about half a century ago. The ground was prepared by The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), in which Norman Vincent Peale claimed happiness and material success result from personal optimism and self-regard. Around the same time, clinical studies in psychology showed connections between high self-esteem and success in school, business, marriage and sex.
Low self-esteem, on the other hand, showed up frequently alongside teenage pregnancy, drug-taking, wife-beating and homicide. In the 1960s two books by psychiatrists, Morris Rosenberg's Society and the Adolescent Self-Image (1965) and Stanley Coopersmith's The Antecedents of Self-Esteem (1967), claimed that the right kind of parental attention produces high self-esteem, therefore success, in children.
Armies of psychotherapists leapt on that idea, and soon intellectual garbage began piling up around it in great quantities. In 1969, Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist from Toronto who was once the lover and acolyte of Ayn Rand, moved over to this burgeoning field with The Psychology of Self Esteem, declaring self-esteem "the single most significant key to behaviour." In 1996 Steven Ward wrote in the Canadian Journal of Sociology: "What started as a fragile statement made by William James had by the early 1970s expanded into an encompassing and heterogeneous academic network."
Unfortunately for all those who committed their careers to promulgating this idea, most of what they wrote turns out to be worthless. Low self-esteem often accompanies serious social deviance, but there's no evidence to show that the first causes the second. An often repeated belief of Oprah Winfrey, that poor self-esteem is "the root of all the problems in the world" remains entirely unproven. It's just something that got drummed into her head.
In 1990 California's task force turned in its report, Toward A State Of Esteem, predictably advising school teachers to make students feel better about themselves. More books appeared. Gloria Steinem, a bit late, contributed Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem in 1992. (It turned out that she too suffered from low self-esteem, despite her power, brains and looks. Who knew?)
The task force became a joke (Doonesbury made great fun of it) but the first serious criticism didn't appear until 1996. Three researchers, reporting in Psychology Review on a survey of studies in psychology and criminology, broke the bad news: aggressive people tend to think highly of themselves. Violent and hostile people -- neo-Nazis, wife-beaters, members of the Ku Klux Klan, etc. -- "consistently express favourable views of themselves."
Last year Nicholas Emler, a social psychologist at the London School of Economics, said a close study of the research shows no evidence that low self-esteem leads to delinquency, violence, drug use, alcohol abuse, educational under-attainment or racism. As for high self-esteem, that's a real problem. High scorers on self-esteem questionnaires are often racists and often engage in antisocial activities, such as drunk driving. In one study, conducted in Massachusetts and California, researchers gave standardized self-esteem tests to men serving time for murder, rape, assault or armed robbery. They discovered that the self-esteem of these criminals wasn't notably different from five other samples of men the same age: Vietnam veterans, problem drinkers, dentists, college students and recreational dart throwers.
An article by Jennifer Crocker of the University of Michigan, "The costs of seeking self-esteem," in the current issue of the Journal of Social Issues, describes the two most disastrous effects that flow from "the vicious and costly cycle of seeking self-esteem." First, people pursuing self-esteem tend to avoid acknowledging their errors. They attribute failure to external causes and can't learn from mistakes. Because they are committed to a high opinion of themselves, they react to criticism by protecting their self-esteem rather than improving their work. Second, the pursuit of self-esteem makes it hard to get along with others. In hundreds of studies, people whose self-esteem is threatened respond with avoidance, distancing, blame, excuses, anger, antagonism, and aggression -- each of them a way of undermining love or friendship. "The degree of self-focus required by the pursuit of self-esteem," Crocker argues, "is incompatible with awareness and responsiveness to others' needs." So the quest for self-esteem stands in the way of fulfilling two essential human needs, to be competent and to form relationships.
Nicholas Emler says that in England violent criminals and racists have been put through every test the profession has developed. The results are always the same. The men don't lack self-esteem. They like themselves. "These men," Emler has decided, are racist or violent "because they don't feel bad enough about themselves."
There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, says the old cliché, and we might add that there's nothing more pathetic, and nothing more embarrassing, than an idea whose time has come and gone.
My daughter and I have personal experience from the results of this Task Force. You can even read about it in Chapter 2-10, "Why 'We Three Moms' Headed for Sacramento," from the book by Robert Holland, Not With My Child You Don't [excerpt follows]:
. . . a mom from another school called me to express concerns with her third-grader's radical personality change since school began (actually, my daughter was in Kindergarten, not third grade; the grade was changed to protect her identity). The children in her class were twice-weekly involved in a "magic" circle--a teacher-directed, self-esteem program written by Jack Canfield [he was involved with the above-mentioned Task Force, BTW] ("1,000 Ways to Improve Self-Esteem in the Classroom").
The program instructed little children how to chant mantras, and it encouraged them to share very personal feelings with the group with such questions as "Which parent does the child care for most? Did the child ever wish one of his or her parents were dead? If so, which one and why?"
The child [my 5-year-old daughter] was not sharing as the group passed the stuffed teddy bear around. Unbeknownst to the mother, a male school counselor was called on the scene. The child's lunch was taken away [by her female teacher] until she gave the counselor a hug--a forced hug! Her lunch was given back to her [by her teacher who stood by and watched]. Recalled a parent aid, "she walked to the trash barrel and threw her lunch away." [The parent aid, my friend, said my daughter was almost in tears and wouldn't speak to her afterwards.]
There's more, of course, not printed in the Chapter. I pulled my daughter out of school after getting nowhere with my outrage with the teacher, the counselor, the principal (who, I learned, also stood by and watched the whole episode), the school superintendent, and the President of the Board of Education for the community. End result, I flew to Sacramento to speak to the California Board of Education. They did nothing about these programs. My complaints fell on deaf ears. However, the group in which I was involved successfully forced the school district to stop these programs unless WRITTEN PARENTAL CONSENT was first received by parents: thanks to the HATCH AMENDMENT (as in Orrin Hatch from Utah), which gives FEDERAL protections to students from privacy invasions and psychological manipulation.
I know what self-esteem is; according to my huge Webster's self-esteem and self-respect are interchangeable. Criminals, by definition, have a distorted view of themselves, that's why they're criminals.
Just because a criminal has misplaced self-esteem doesn't mean that self-esteem as a concept should be thrown out. I typically take my lessons about psychological health from psychologically healthy people, not murderers and rapists.
Self-esteem is not the cause nor even a major problem with criminals; their view of right and wrong is. If someone thinks highly of himself after he's murdered someone, he's got a distorted view of reality and a distorted view of himself.
I'm 25
Thanks for your wisdom. Care to share with me some jewels about how to be successful in business?
And I pointed out that the semantics were not the issue. Like the debunkers, your first refuge is to quote studies of criminals and psychopaths, real experts in self-esteem.
I'd prefer to study those who have a healthy view of themselves, true self-esteem, and they are the successful, the happy, those who work for the betterment of society.
Clinton would tell you that he felt good about himself, too, but he engaged in all kinds of self-destructive behavior that proved he loathed himself.
Self confidence relates to what you think you are able to do. Self-esteem has to do with what you think you are worth, or what you think you deserve. Big distinction
I'm associated with a computerized dating service, and I think that there is a problem with excessive self esteem with many people -- like overweight middle-aged women who won't settle for anything less than a wealthy, handsome professional in excellent physical condition, or unemployed slobs who want to date Victoria's Secret models. Jeeze
The essence of criminality is excessive self-esteem, the feeling that, even though you're lazy and illiterate, you deserve more than what a McDonalds job will give you, and if the world won't give it to you, then you're gonna take it.
Self-respect should not be confused with self-esteem, and neither with self-confidence
Self-respect has to do with who you are, the extent to which your image of yourself aligns with an image that you would admire. It has to do with how closely you follow your own code of honor. It has to do with your beingness
Self-confidence has to do with what you feel you can do. (and inadequate or excessive self-confidence can both be bad, the first will result in your not living to your full potential, the latter may result in your pulling stunts that will ruin you or get you killed)
Self-esteem has to do with what you think you deserve to have, with what you think your talents are worth and what the rest of the world should give you in exchange for them
Never confuse the three
Intelligence is relative. Without seeing the study and its particulars, I can't comment.
What questions were asked? Were populations compared? What were the measures of "success"?
Do some people think they're smart when they're actually dumb? Yeah. Does that mean they should feel worthless as human beings because they can't qualify for MIT? Does that mean that a person's overall sense of self-worth should take a nosedive because he can't make straight A's in differential calculus?
Human beings who think well of themselves are generally happier, healthier, and more optimistic.
I'm supremely self-confident, but I couldn't compete academically with a very large percentage of the population. So what?
I know what I can do and am good at, and I do that. I don't commit crimes or do other self-destructive acts that interfere with my life.
Trying to debunk the motivational movement seems misplaced, to me. Yeah, there's a lot of foolishness in some of it. But encouraging people to value what they've got and what they are, along with all the deficiencies and blemishes, is a good thing.
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