From SCIENCE, vol. 300, p1083, 16 May, 2003 www.sciencemag.org
“The self-esteem wave may have crested. For the last couple of decades it has been an article of faith among experts of many stripes that high self-esteem is the font from which all human goodness springs. The movement reached a fever pitch in the 1980’s when California funded a state task force on self-esteem, claiming that “many, if not most, of the major problems plaguing society have roots in …low self-esteem.”
Research on the subject has yielded a mixed bag of results. But a lengthy review of the literature, led by psychologist Roy Baumeister of Florida State University, Tallahassee, confirms that high self-esteem per se is not necessarily good nor does it translate into higher estimates by others of a person’s brains, beauty, or virtue.
Psychologist Robert Bjork of the University of California, Los Angeles, says faith in the powers of self-esteem has led to the credo that ‘every kid should feel good about him-or herself …in some contest, for example, whatever the actual merits of their carved pumpkin every kid had to get the same prize.” In fact though, “self-esteem is a result, not a cause, of doing well,” the authors write in this month’s issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
They also observe that “indiscriminate praise might just as easily promote narcissism.” After all, points out Brown University psychologist Lewis Lipsitt, Hitler thought highly of himself.
Self-esteem as panacea is “a very compelling illusion,” because it correlates with happiness and other good things, says Baumeister, but psychologists “were a little too eager in promoting the program before the data were in.” Baumeister says his current research contains quite a different lesson: “Forget about self-esteem---concentrate on self-control.”
[ June 26, 2003, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Squire Robertsson ]
“The self-esteem wave may have crested. For the last couple of decades it has been an article of faith among experts of many stripes that high self-esteem is the font from which all human goodness springs. The movement reached a fever pitch in the 1980’s when California funded a state task force on self-esteem, claiming that “many, if not most, of the major problems plaguing society have roots in …low self-esteem.”
Research on the subject has yielded a mixed bag of results. But a lengthy review of the literature, led by psychologist Roy Baumeister of Florida State University, Tallahassee, confirms that high self-esteem per se is not necessarily good nor does it translate into higher estimates by others of a person’s brains, beauty, or virtue.
Psychologist Robert Bjork of the University of California, Los Angeles, says faith in the powers of self-esteem has led to the credo that ‘every kid should feel good about him-or herself …in some contest, for example, whatever the actual merits of their carved pumpkin every kid had to get the same prize.” In fact though, “self-esteem is a result, not a cause, of doing well,” the authors write in this month’s issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
They also observe that “indiscriminate praise might just as easily promote narcissism.” After all, points out Brown University psychologist Lewis Lipsitt, Hitler thought highly of himself.
Self-esteem as panacea is “a very compelling illusion,” because it correlates with happiness and other good things, says Baumeister, but psychologists “were a little too eager in promoting the program before the data were in.” Baumeister says his current research contains quite a different lesson: “Forget about self-esteem---concentrate on self-control.”
[ June 26, 2003, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Squire Robertsson ]
