Self Esteem
Self esteem is a psychological term that is employed to determine the general assessment of his or her significance.
Self-esteem entails attitude and emotions such as achievement, hopelessness, arrogance and disgrace. It can be relevant to a specific aspect or harbors a universal degree. Psychologists generally consider it as a lasting characteristic of persons which is a normal and a short termed variation. Self esteem can be regarded by the following names: self-regard, self love, self integrity, self respect and self worth. It stands out from self confidence and self efficiency since the two entails attitude and performance in the future. Self esteem is highly important and forms the basis of a constructive attitude towards life.
It is very vital since it affects the way one think, do something and even how one lives with other people. It helps people to live their lives to the perfection (Branden, 1995).Low self esteem is when a person views him or herself inferior. It develops from a self image that is poor. This is purely based on how one perceives his or herself.
It also depends on some other factors for example the job factor. It feeds the negative thoughts making one believe in the criticisms that other people make against one. This in turn causes loss of confidence in oneself and hence lowering ones performance because success highly depends on inner power and confidence. It is therefore crucial for one to negative thoughts in order to climb the esteem ladder. Low self esteem means poor self-confidence and that also causes one to give up simply rather than taking time to face challenges.
In addition, it affects one’s contentment and welfare.High esteem is the situation that one feels superior and does not believe in other people criticisms. It results to one being happy, confident, greatly motivated and has the positive attitude which ensures success. When one has a positive view on him or herself, he or she develops confidence in his abilities, accepts the way he or she is, does not care of what others think about him or her, and is optimistic. In case one develop unconstructive attitude towards oneself, he or she lacks confidence, always yearn to be like other people, constantly worries of the thought of others towards him or her, and becomes pessimistic (Branden, 1988).
There has been development of many theories in the past which saw self esteem as a basic need for all human beings. Maslow an American psychologist had even included it in the hierarchy of needs. He points out that exists in two forms which are: urge for self respect and the need to be respected by others. Respect from others encompasses acknowledgment, approval, rank, and which can be termed as delicate which can easily vanish than self respect. With the lack of this vital need, persons will be forced to seek it and will not be able to grow and realize their real self.
Theories of the modern society try to identify the reasons for human motivation in maintaining their high regard. According to the social meter theory, self esteem developed in order to maintain the status and to make one acceptable in social groups. Terror management theory also has it that self esteem is a protective function that causes reduction in the nervousness about life and death.The Level and the class of self-esteem are quite different. One can show low levels of high-quality self esteem and/or high levels of low-quality self esteem, bringing delicate self-esteem or little but steady self-esteem.
Nevertheless, investigators can ultimately evaluate the quality of self-esteem in the following ways: its steadiness with time, its non contingency, and its indirect nature.From the recent studies, there exists a strong relationship between violence, bullying and self esteem. Research shows that violence is mostly connected to high self-esteem. It is usually a response against someone who tampers with one’s self esteem, in event of an assault or negative appraisal; making them unable to contain the negative effects and hence it sprouts in form of anger. In most cases people with very high esteem ends up to ego threats since other people tend to hate them. People with unstable high esteem are more dangerous since have positive thoughts about themselves which fluctuates with time.
Since they act in a defensive manner, they are likely to be hostile, and aggressive than common persons. Many deaths through brutal murder have been attributed to deflation of low esteem by those who think they are superior to others in terms of being elite. Self esteems problems can also be attributed to family problems. It has been seen that husbands who mistreat their wives hail from poor backgrounds, have inferior education or earn smaller amount of money than their wives; they engage violence in order to uphold their superiority.It is also likely that high self esteem can lead to superiority complexes, where those who feel superior tend to be violent to inferior parties.
Baumeister, by defining self esteem as how one regards him or herself, enters into conflict with other psychologists who have it that self esteem depends entirely on how other parties perceive somebody. According to Nathaniel Branden exterior validations are “simulated self-worth and the actual self-esteem emanate from within, such as self-responsibility, self-reliance and ability to work with obstacles and difficulty, irrespective with the thoughts of other people.Albert Ellis who is an American psychologist brings the outstanding self-esteem concept. He acknowledges the human inclination and propensity to ego ranking as native, he claims that the idea of self-esteem in the past is impractical, irrational and both self and communally unhelpful. He views ranking and valuing human beings’ entirety and absolute selves as unreasonable, unprincipled and complete. He sees unconditional self and other people acceptance as the only viable alternative.
Self esteem difference is therefore a key determinant to the way people behave in different situation. Self esteem can also be seen an important ingredient to shaping one’s life since low esteem lowers one’s confidence in facing real life hardships compared to high self esteem which provides on with sufficient energy to pursue one’s dreams hence arriving at success.
