Self-esteem

Self-Esteem

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Traditional Debates

Self-Esteem Ole Jacob Madsen Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway

Introduction In psychology self-esteem basically refers to a person’s assessment or appraisal of his or her own worth. From the perspective of critical psychology ‘self-esteem’ is a noteworthy case as selfesteem is currently considered a universal psychological quality of outmost importance for personal well-being within mainstream and popular psychology, while a genealogical recount reveals a contingent psychological concept that only recently emerged in the public mindset.

Definition Self-esteem has traditionally been defined as a stable sense of personal worth and worthiness (Rosenberg, 1965). Self-esteem is related to similar notions like self-worth, self-regard and self-respect that all encompass the individual’s beliefs about his or herself like “I am lovable person” etc. It is not uncommon however to distinguish between self-esteem and ‘self-confidence’ as the latter is more related to a person’s sense of personal capacity rather than personal worth, and refers to the appraisal of one’s competence, skill or ability often in a specific domain with more objective criteria and past results as determinants (Crocker & Major, 1989).

Keywords Self-esteem; self-confidence; technology of the self; commodity; makeover culture; cosmetic surgery

Self-esteem first became a widely used conception within social-learning theory in the 1960s and 1970s. Pioneer researchers like Morris Rosenberg (1965) and Stanley Coopersmith (1968) was able to measure self-esteem along a continuous scale with questionnaires like The Rosenberg 10-item and The Coopersmith Inventory, in which participants indicated their level of self-esteem by agreeing to a range of statements and rating others as similar or dissimilar to themselves. In the following decades self-esteem went far beyond the scientific sphere and was broadly profiled as a key factor in educational success amid young Americans, spawned social self-esteem raising civil citizen movements like the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility (Cruikshank, 1999), and inspired prolific activists like Gloria Steinem (1993) vital in the 60s and 70s women’s liberation movement to embrace the empowering appeal of self-esteem and redefine the quest of feminism in her book Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem. Nonetheless, the widely held belief in selfesteem over the past decades has not gone unnoticed and has been met with criticism from several influential clinical psychologists. The famous American therapist Albert Ellis (2005) has for instance been highly critical of the concept of self-esteem as he believes it is essentially self-defeating and possibly destructive. Ellis maintains that self-esteem relies on an arbitrary definitional premise that rates and values humans in ways that really are unhelpful for predicting wanted behavior in clinical treatment. Whereas Roy Baumeister, Laura Smart and Joseph Boden demonstrated that high self-esteem (because of threatened egotism) rather than low self-esteem as previously believed was a far more reliable cause for violence and aggression given the available crime stats in America. Baumeister et al. (1996, p. 29) therefore concludes: “the societal pursuit of high self-esteem for everyone may literary end up doing considerable harm.” In

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his latest book Baumeister (together with John Tierney) (2011) has launched self-control as a more valuable quality in order to succeed in life than self-esteem.

Critical Debates ‘Self-esteem’ quickly materialized as the most sought after state in the present, as a psychologized emotional auxiliary to ‘happiness’ and looks to continue to do so. The front page of the February 2012 issue of the world’s leading popular psychological magazine Psychology Today reads “If you want to boost selfesteem, read this. . .” Sociologists of psychology has pinpointed that ‘self-esteem’ until the 1970s was largely unknown to the general public, and largely confined to psychological research. Steven C. Ward (2002) maintains that after being introduced by William James in the 1890s ‘self-esteem’ largely lay dormant until the 1940s and 50s when self-psychology emerged. Then self-esteem first became part of the common knowledge of clinical and experimental psychology and then self-esteem evolved and was introduced outside to policy makers and educators in advanced Western democracies who looked for new ways of solving problems. From the perspective of governmentality studies ‘self-esteem’ is an important technology of the self under neoliberal government. For example Barbara Cruikshank (1996) maintains that ‘self-esteem’ becomes a highly effective means for the individual to govern themselves in order to become healthy citizens so that the police, judge or doctor do not have to. This conceptualization of self-esteem can be interpreted both as a way of controlling subjects, but also as a tool that genuinely ignites people to power by exercising control over their own bodies and souls. Nikolas Rose (1996, p. 195) points to ‘self-esteem’ as the most visible psy technique under neoliberal rule where people have ethical obligations to develop self-to-self relations in quest for personal fulfillment. However, Rose warns against simplistic readings that maintains

Self-Esteem

that psychology and its experts are the sole origin behind this evolvement; it is rather the sum of subjectivation where life and its contingencies must become meaningful to the individual consumer. The therapeutic direction autonomy takes in present advanced liberal democracies through concepts like ‘self-esteem’ appears to suit this task perfectly. Kurt Danziger (1997, p. 36) tackles ‘self-esteem’ somewhat differently to the above as he enlists it as one of the categories which modern psychology could use a building block from an earlier period in creating twentieth-century psychology. Still the versatility of ‘self-esteem’ appears as the common denominator. The transition from ‘self-confidence’ to ‘selfesteem’ as the foremost goal for the individual seeking happiness and well-being is illustrative of how the social surroundings becomes of less importance whereas the prominence of inner tranquility increases in the therapeutic culture. Self-confidence is a relational and contextual concept where low or high self-confidence is connected to a certain activity (doing math, dancing etc.) and others whom you compare to. Self-esteem is a much deeper psychological metaphor and less prone to be influenced from outside factors. This transition from outer to inner is celebrated in the present Scandinavian self-help literature and popular psychology as a humane development where how you feel about yourself is what ultimately matters as opposed to personal success and achievements. However, the downside to the thriving of self-esteem might be that the detachment from situations and other people creates an endless standard in accordance with the late capitalist makeover culture (McGee, 2005). When does one really know that one has gained enough self-esteem? Another consequence is that the promise of self-esteem becomes an important commodity in the consumer culture and is at the moment the foremost therapeutic spirit (geist) that supports the rise of cosmetic surgery in Western regions like Great Britain and Scandinavia (Madsen, 2011). In this way, cosmetic surgeons are able to make the claim that the

Self-Harm

makeover of the body is not about how you look on the outside, but all about how you feel on the inside. With a psychological concept as elusive and flexible as ‘self-esteem’ it is of course hard to delimit where it applies and serves the best interest of mankind and where it does not apply. In this sense, the current status of self-esteem perfectly sums up the crucial dilemmas of psychology in general in late modernity.

References Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103(1), 5–33. Baumeister, R. F., & Tierney, J. (2011). Willpower. Rediscovering the greatest human strength. New York: Penguin. Coopersmith, S. (1968). The antecedents of self-esteem. London: W. H. Freeman & Co. Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96(4), 608–630. Cruikshank, B. (1996). Revolutions within: selfgovernment and self-esteem. In A. Barry, T. Osborne, & N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault and political reason. Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp. 231–251). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Cruikshank, B. (1999). The will to empower: democratic citizens and other subjects. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Danziger, K. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. London: Sage. Ellis, A. (2005). The myth of self-esteem. How rational emotive behavior therapy can change your life forever. New York: Prometheus Books. Madsen, O. J. (2011). The unfolding of the therapeutic. The cultural influence of psychology in contemporary society. Ph.D, University of Bergen, Bergen. McGee, M. (2005). Self-help, Inc.: Makeover culture in American life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Rose, N. (1996). Inventing our selves: Psychology, power and personhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Steinem, G. (1993). Revolution from within: A book of self-esteem. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Ward, S. C. (2002). Modernizing the mind. Psychological knowledge and the remaking of society. London: Praeger.

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Self-Harm Allan Brownrigg Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK

Introduction Understanding why people self-harm is a complex process. A range of psychological models exist which help to clarify why some individuals self-harm, and for those seeking help these models are used to devise and implement psychologist-selected treatment strategies. Despite the availability of different psychological models, the experience of people who self-harm is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and disempowering. An alternative approach to understanding self-harm would be to do as critical psychologists strive and see self-harm as a multidimensional, transdisciplinary, complex human behavior (Parker, 2006). What follows is a brief introduction to key debates, namely, the diagnosis, practice, and attitudes, held about self-harm.

Definition Traditionally, psychology describes self-harm as a direct behavior which causes harm to body tissue, regardless of whether the individual has suicidal intent. Types of self-harm can include poisoning, overdosing, cutting, burning or branding the skin, interfering with wound healing, self-strangulation, suffocation, and breaking bones. Other behaviors which may be harmful to the body but not described as self-harm include smoking, eating distress, tattooing and body piercing, aesthetic enhancements, and substance use, for tissue damage, should it occur in these instances, is unintentional (Klonsky, 2007). Self-harm can occur when an individual has increased tension (Mangnall, 2008) or when overwhelmed by negative emotions (Ross &

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