Posted by Estella on August 5, 2006, at 8:09:41
In reply to what is a self?, posted by Estella on August 5, 2006, at 7:47:13
>The term “self-esteem” appears to be first coined by William James in 1890 which makes it one of the oldest concepts in psychology. In addition, self-esteem is the third most frequently occurring theme in psychological literature and has already resulted in over 25,000 articles, chapters, and books refer to the topic (Rodewalt & Tragakis, 2003). Given such a long and varied history, it is not surprising to find three major types of definitions in the field, each of which has generated its own tradition of research, findings, and practical applications. The original definition presents self-esteem as a ratio that is found by dividing one’s successes in areas of life that are important to a given individual by the failures in them or one’s “success / pretensions” (James, 1890). A problem with this approach is that making self-esteem contingent upon success means that it is inherently unstable because failure can occur at any moment (Crocker and Park, 2004). In the mid 1960s Maurice Rosenberg and social learning theorists defined self-esteem in terms of a stable sense of personal worth or worthiness that can be measured by self-report testing. This approach became the most frequently used definition but now it is known that feeling good about oneself in healthy ways is difficult to differentiate from such things as narcissism (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). Nathaniel Branden (1969) defined self-esteem as a relationship between one’s competence and one’s worthiness. This definition sees self-esteem as the result of dealing with challenges of living in a way that is worthy or respectable and doing so consistently over time. This two-factor approach, as it has also been called, is a balanced definition that seems to be capable of dealing with limits of defining self-esteem primarily in terms of competence or worth alone (Mruk, 2006).
Hrm. I wonder who decides what is 'worthy' and / or 'respectable'.
I think...
I thought...
Having self esteem was about liking yourself. Being kind to yourself. Accepting yourself. I thought that was what it was about.
I thought the narcissist had self esteem that was 'too high' in the sense that they don't have similar esteem for others.
Maybe some cultures have this notion of the 'happy and adjusted well rounded person' which seems to imply that self esteem is something that has to be earned by 'worthy' 'competent' and 'consistent' acts...
http://www.utexas.edu/student/cmhc/booklets/selfesteem/selfest.html
ah...
of course...
a matter of 'illogic'
:-(
poster:Estella
thread:673916
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/esteem/20060725/msgs/673920.html