9 Self-Concept,

Self-Esteem,
and Identity
R O Y F. B A U M E I S T E R

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Background Social Motives

Definitions Plasticity

Self-Concept Emotion and Coping

Formation of the Self-Concept Prejudice

Pursuit of Self-Knowledge Maintaining Self-Esteem

Spontaneous Self-Concept Identity

Self-Schemas Structure and Functions of Identity
Culture and Interdependence Identity Crises
Self-Concept Change Summary
Self-Esteem Discussion Questions
Activity Box 9.1: Measuring Your Self-Esteem Suggested Readings
Self-Esteem and Self-Concept
Suggested Web Sites
Roots of Self-Esteem
InfoTrac College Edition Search Topics
Is High Self-Esteem a Good Thing?
Why Care About Self-Esteem? References

246
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 247

BACKGROUND
What is the self? When asked that question, small children answer by indicat-
ing their bodies. Self starts with body, in the sense that people first develop a
notion of self that is based on the physical self. Older children and adults, how-
ever, have notions of selfhood that go far beyond the physical self. These no-
tions include social identity, reputation, personal values, and other factors.
They think of the self as something that exists inside, that is, somewhere not
visible to physical inspection and something separate from the palpable, phys-
ical body.
If you are asked to identify yourself, you might respond in quite different
ways depending on what you were doing and who was asking. Feelings about
the self may also change from time to time. There is probably a stable core to
the self, but different parts or versions of the self are apparent in different cir-
cumstances. Moreover, selves do change over time in fundamental ways, so
even the most stable core of the self may not be fixed and constant. You can see
why it has proven difficult for psychology to come up with firm answers about
the nature of the self, for the self includes stability and change, visible manifes-
tations and inner phenomena, ideas and feelings, and other complexities.
In this chapter we will be concerned with one large region of the self
namely, self-concept and identity. Self-concept and identity refer to ideas about
the self, to definitions placed on the self. This part of the self is constructed out
of meaning. Unlike the body, which is made out of biochemical substances, the
self-concept is made of meaning, which is a symbolic, social, linguistic phenom-
enon. Without symbols or language, there would be no self-concepts. Another
way of putting this is that the self-concept is a network of interrelated ideas.

Definitions
Self is perhaps the broadest term. It has been used in many different ways,
referring to many parts of a whole set of experiences and thoughts. Sometimes
it is used to refer to the whole set. Some related terms are ego, identity, self-
concept, self-schema. Because the term self has many meanings, different
theorists have used it in different ways, and this varying usage generates some
confusion. Its not always safe to assume that what one writer means by self
is the same as what another writer means by it.
In this chapter, we will use self pretty much the same way the word is
used in ordinary language. Your self is the totality of you, including your
body, your sense of identity, your reputation (how others know you), and so
on. It encompasses both the physical self and the self that is constructed out
of meaning.

Self-Concept: Your Idea(s) About Yourself. The self-concept is the individuals

beliefs about himself or herself, including the persons attributes and who and
what the self is. The self-concept includes many things that might not be part
of ones identity. For example, a persons self-concept might include many per-
sonality attributes, such as being friendly or talkative.
248 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

Self-Esteem: How You Evaluate Yourself. An important part of the self-

concept is self-esteem. A self-concept is not merely an abstract summary or
notion of the self, but it is full of evaluations, that is, of perceptions of the self
as good, bad, or mediocre. Self-esteem refers to the persons broadest self-
evaluation. Of course, people also have levels of specific self-esteem for spe-
cific domains. Someone may regard herself, for example, as an excellent ten-
nis player, a mediocre student, and a poor cook.

Identity: Who You Are. Identity is a definition placed on the self. Your sense of
identity refers to your knowledge of who you are. Identity always answers the
question, Who are you? Self-concept, in contrast, may contain answers to
other questions like What kind of person are you? and How good are
you?
Identity may contain material that is not part of the self-concept, because
identity is not fully contained inside the persons own mind. To use an extreme
example, newborn babies do not have self-concepts, but they do have identities:
They belong to a certain family, they soon have a name, and so on.
The concept of identity rests on two notions, sameness (continuity) and dif-
ference. Identity means being the same person you were yesterday or ten years
ago; it also means being different from someone else. The task of eyewitness
identification is to decide which person in the police lineup is the person who
committed some crime. This means identifying someone as being the same per-
son who performed some other deed and differentiating that person from other,
innocent people. Likewise, a campus identification card links your identity
across time (you have the same card for a period of time) and differentiates you
from other people (for example, you are permitted to use campus facilities that
others may not use).

SELF-CONCEPT
This section will cover current knowledge about the self-concept, except self-
esteem, which is covered in the next section. Self-esteem is the aspect of self
that has received the greatest amount of research attention as well as interest
from the mass media and popular culture. It is, however, only one part of the
self-concept, and so we begin with the broader issues of self-concept and self-
knowledge.

Formation of the Self-Concept

Although psychology still has much to learn about how self-concepts form and
develop, there is a reasonable amount of information available. Psychologists
have recently devised several very clever strategies to study self-concepts in very
young children.
The first step in forming a self-concept is learning to distinguish between
ones own body and the rest of the world. The infant learns that some things
are always there, whereas others come and go. The bed, like Daddy, is only
present at certain times, but ones own hands and feet are always there. Grad-
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 249

ually the infant learns the boundaries of its own body. For a long time, self is
equated with body.
How early does sense of self start? There is no way to be certain, but the
signs suggest that it starts very early in life. By the time an infant is 3 months
old, it likes to look at itself in the mirror, presumably because it can see that its
own body movements magically produce movements in the image (Lewis &
Brooks-Gunn, 1979). Recognizing oneself on the basis of facial features such
as recognizing a photograph rather than a moving image in a mirror hap-
pens during the second year of life.
During this second year of life, children begin to understand that they need
to conform to external standards and rules, and they begin to evaluate their
own actions against external standards (Kagan, 1981). This is a big step in the
growth of self-awareness. Children learn to evaluate their actions as good or
bad, and they develop some concept of mastery, as in knowing how to do
things. Obviously, at this age, there are many things one cannot do, but the
childs mastery of simple skills brings him or her pleasure and satisfaction. One
sign of this is that children will smile when they successfully accomplish some-
thing (Kagan, 1981). This suggests a feeling of self as capable of performing up
to certain external standards.
The proper beginnings of a self-concept seem to occur around 15 months
of age. At this point, children are able to identify themselves (and others) on the
basis of gender and age (Damon & Hart, 1982; Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979).
Of course, they do not understand numerical age this early, but merely the dif-
ference between children and adults. Thus, age and gender seem to be the first
ingredients of the self-concept. Familiarity is also important, implying that chil-
drens self-concepts also soon incorporate some sense of belonging to a certain
family group.
During the second year of life, the childs self-concept begins to include ac-
tive skills. Perhaps the first such skill to have a major impact on self-concept is
the ability to walk (Erikson, 1968; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975). From ages
3 to 5, self-concepts of children seem to emphasize skills and abilities. The self
is understood in terms of what it can and cannot do (Keller, Ford, & Meacham,
1978). The childs concept of self revolves around whether she can brush her
teeth, tie her shoes, ride a tricycle or bicycle, tell time, and so on.
From ages 6 to 12, childrens sense of competency and control normally
tends to increase in a steady fashion (e.g., Brim, 1976; Erikson, 1968). Children
begin to see their competencies in more complex ways than simply what they
can versus cannot do. In particular, they begin to compare their competencies
against those of others and to measure them by hierarchies of standards. To the
young child, the issue is simply whether one can ride a bike or not. The older
child is concerned with riding a bike faster, farther, or better than other children
(Damon & Hart, 1982).
Another development of the period from age 6 to age 12 is the beginning
of a conception of self as something inner or hidden. If you ask a young child
about the self, the child will point to the body, for the young child has no other
way of thinking about the self. Older children begin to develop notions of a
more psychological self, including thoughts, feelings, and intentions, that go
250 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

beyond the mere physical self (Mohr, 1978). The idea of an inner self is diffi-
cult for children at first, and they tend to accept whatever their parents (or
other authority figures) tell them. Indeed, 11-year-old children, when asked
Who knows best what kind of person you really are, deep down inside, your
mother or father or yourself? tend to say that the mother or father knows the
child better than the child knows himself or herself (Rosenberg, 1979). The
idea of knowing ones own self better than anyone elsethe principle of privi-
leged access to ones inner selfdoes not become firm until adolescence.
The self-concept undergoes further refinements during the teen years. In-
creases in mental abilities greatly improve childrens capacity to consider them-
selves from other, outside perspectives. In particular, teenagers are much better
than younger children at imagining how they appear to someone else. As a re-
sult, self-consciousness increases greatly around age 12 or 13 (Simmons, Rosen-
berg, & Rosenberg, 1973; Tice, Buder, & Baumeister, 1985). Moral issues and
dilemmas become important, and adolescents seek to ground their self-concept
in a firm set of values, often in the form of universal or abstract principles. The
self-concept comes to include ideological beliefs such as religious, political, and
philosophical views (Montemayor & Eisen, 1977). Many people undergo iden-
tity crises at this age (Erikson, 1968). We shall return to the nature of identity
crises at the end of this chapter.

Pursuit of Self-Knowledge
Undoubtedly people are very interested in finding out about themselves. From
reading horoscopes to comparing oneself with others to buying self-help books
to enrolling in psychology courses, much human behavior is marked by the
quest for information about the self. The self-concept is largely the result of
this process.
There seem to be three main motives that shape the quest for self-knowl-
edge. The first is the desire to gain accurate information about oneself (Trope,
1983, 1986). The second is to gain some confirmation of what one already
knows and believes about oneself (Swann, 1985, 1987). The third is to learn
positive, favorable things about oneself. These have been called the self-assess-
ment, self-verification, and self-enhancement motives, respectively. They do not
always concur in what sort of information people want to hear.
How do the three motives compare? From the standpoint of practical,
adaptive benefits, one could make clear predictions. The self-assessment motive
should be the strongest, because accurate information about the self is the most
useful. The self-verification motive should be next, because maintaining a sta-
ble understanding of self and world (even if occasionally inaccurate) is useful
too. The self-enhancement motive should be weakest, because hearing favor-
able things about oneself creates pleasant emotional states but when these are
not accurate they should have little or no practical value. If you are trying to
decide what courses to take or what romantic partner to pursue, it is useful to
know (accurately) how your own abilities and sex appeal stack up. Having an
unrealistically positive view could lead you into wasting time and effort, not to
mention failure or heartbreak. Hence, it seems logical that people should be
most eager to get accurate information about themselves.
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 251

Research, however, has concluded that the opposite ranking is closer to the
truth (Sedikides, 1993). The self-enhancement motive appears to be the
strongest of the three, with the preference for consistency a distant second and
the interest in simply accurate information about the self a very distant third.
The quest for self-knowledge is thus dominated by the emotionally potent (but
informationally dubious) preference to find out positive, flattering things about
oneself. There is however some evidence that even though people may prefer
highly favorable feedback about themselves, their sober cognitive responses
may be skeptical, and so the cognitive (as opposed to emotional) responses to
self-knowledge are influenced by the self-verification and self-assessment mo-
tives. Still, the immediate and emotional reaction strongly favors positivity.
A broad review of the research literature has concluded that self-knowl-
edge is typically subject to three main patterns of distortion (Taylor & Brown,
1988). First, people overestimate their good qualities. They believe themselves
to be somewhat smarter, more attractive, more socially adept, and otherwise
more likable and competent than they really are. Second, they overestimate
their degree of control over their lives. They believe that they can accomplish
the things they want to and that their successes and failures in life will depend
mainly on their own actions and choices instead of on external forces and fate
or luck. Third, they are unrealistically optimistic. People overestimate the like-
lihood that good things will happen to them (such as a major promotion, be-
coming wealthy, or having a gifted child) and underestimate the likelihood that
bad things will happen (such as being seriously injured in an accident, or hav-
ing a retarded child, or being fired from a job).
In short, the average person regards himself or herself as being above aver-
age. This is true in terms of ones worth as a person, ones control over life, and
ones prospects of having life turn out well. Although these illusions and distor-
tions may depart from the truth, they do seem to help people feel good, bounce
back from misfortune, and have confidence to tackle ambitious projects. In-
deed, research suggests that people who show all these biases are in general an
exceptionally happy group of people (Campbell, 1981). Meanwhile, depressed
people seem to lack these biases and see the world in a much more accurate, un-
biased, even-handed fashion (Alloy & Abramson, 1979; Taylor & Brown,
1988), which is a rather sad advertisement for being in touch with reality!

Spontaneous Self-Concept
Is the self-concept stable, or does it change and fluctuate from day to day?
Many people think it fluctuates, but most researchers have found self-concepts
to be quite stable. Attempts to raise or lower self-esteem often have weak or
negligible effects.
One reason for this discrepancy between popular wisdom and research be-
liefs is that the self-concept is very large and complex, and although the entire
structure of self-concept may remain rather stable, the parts of it that come to
mind immediately may fluctuate. On the surface, self-concepts may seem to
change from day to day, even from hour to hour, as different features of the
self come to the forefront of ones mind. The concept of self is not really chang-
ing; rather, different parts of it are coming to light.
252 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

What is changing, then, is that part of the self-concept that happens to be

present on ones mind at a given moment. This is sometimes called the spon-
taneous self-concept or the phenomenal self. There is indeed evidence that
the spontaneous self-concept changes, even though self-esteem and the deeper
aspects of the self-concept appear to be quite resistant to change. The immedi-
ate social context brings out different features of the self, causing the sponta-
neous self-concept to change.
Changes in the spontaneous self-concept have been shown in a series of
clever studies by McGuire and his colleagues (McGuire & McGuire, 1982;
McGuire, McGuire, Child, & Fujioka, 1978). They reasoned that people will
become aware of their attributes that make them stand out in a given situation.
For example, being an American may not come to mind readily when you think
about yourself here in America, because everyone else is an American too. But
if you travel alone overseas, you may often be quite conscious of being an
American, because it sets you apart from most of the people you encounter.
The researchers tested this idea by asking schoolchildren to describe them-
selves in writing. The children were tested in groups, and the researchers made
sure that each group was composed of either all boys except for one girl, or of
all girls except for one boy. The child who was the only one present of his or
her sex was much more likely to mention that fact in describing himself or her-
self. In other words, a girl was much more likely to mention being a girl as part
of her self-concept if she were the lone girl in a group of boys than if she were
in a group of girls. Likewise, boys were more conscious of being boys when
they were alone in a group of girls. Thus, the spontaneous self-concept changed
in response to the social context.
It is important to remember that these changes occurred only on the sur-
face of the self-concept, that is, only at the level of what features of the self are
on ones mind at a given time. McGuire and his colleagues were certainly not
claiming that a boy in a group of boys ceases to consider himself a boy. If you
asked him whether he is a boy, he would certainly say yes. But if nobody asks
him, he is not likely to be paying much attention to the fact that he is a boy.
Being surrounded by girls, however, will make him very aware of being a boy.
The immediate social context brings out certain features of the self and makes
others seem temporarily unimportant, minor, or irrelevant.
In short, not all of ones self-concept is present in ones mind at any given
moment. Indeed, some researchers have suggested that the self-concept is like
a large, complex set of files, and current events cause people to pull out one
drawer or another of these files. People may scan their files in different ways
depending on the immediate context and recent experiences.

Self-Schemas
Another important approach to self-knowledge rejects the notion that each per-
son has one single, integrated self-concept. Rather, it may be that people have
a loose collection of specific ideas about themselves. For example, someone
may regard herself as intelligent, friendly, lazy, talkative, helpful, dependent,
sympathetic, and sensitive. Perhaps the important thing is not how all these
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 253

traits fit together to compose a single self-concept with a given level of global
self-esteem. The important thing may be the individual pieces: being intelligent,
friendly, and so forth. In this view, each trait or attribute about oneself is a
self-schema. A self-schema is thus a concept of some particular attribute of
the self. Instead of one large self-concept, this approach emphasizes many small
concepts of parts and features of the self (Markus, 1977).
One important feature of the self-schema approach is that it makes changes
in self-concept easier to understand. The person may feel that he or she remains
pretty much the same across time, although specific schemas about the self may
change. Another important implication of the self-schema approach is that on
some dimensions, many people simply dont have self-schemas. Thus, for ex-
ample, some people may think of themselves as talkative, others may think of
themselves as quiet and reticent, but many other people may not think of them-
selves as characteristically being either one. It is not that they regard themselves
as somewhat or moderately talkative; rather, they may think that in some cir-
cumstances they are extremely talkative, while in other situations they are ex-
tremely shy and quiet. Or perhaps they have simply never thought about them-
selves in terms of talkativeness or quietness.
Thus, not all self-concepts are made out of the same ingredients. Dimen-
sions or traits that may be extremely important to some self-concepts may sim-
ply be irrelevant to others. Each individual self-concept is made up of several
self-schemas on certain dimensions, but other dimensions are left out.

Culture and Interdependence

Do people in different cultures hold systematically different self-concepts? In-
tuition says that they must, but researchers were slow to establish any clear ev-
idence of cultural variations. Recent work, however, has identified one impor-
tant dimension on which self-concepts vary across major cultural boundaries.
The dimension runs from independence to interdependence (Markus & Ki-
tayama, 1991; also see chapter 15 in this book). To have an independent self-
construal (self-construal is any kind of self-schema or specific view of self) is to
focus on the things that make oneself stand out as different and special. In par-
ticular, you might focus on your unique traits and accomplishments. In con-
trast, an interdependent self-construal downplays these unique aspects of the
self and instead emphasizes the self as part of a network of social relationships.
If two people were both asked to describe what is important about themselves,
the interdependent person would start by listing family and other groups to
which he or she belongs, thus expressing the view that the self is important only
as a part of these groups and relationships. In contrast, the independent person
would answer the same question by listing what he or she has achieved and
what traits set the person apart from others, often while downplaying any con-
nections to others.
Independent self-construals are predominant in Western cultureEurope
and North America. Interdependent self-construals are more common in Asian
cultures. Asian cultural traditions are sometimes described as collectivist, which
means that they see the value of the individual mainly in being part of the
254 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

group. Collectivist views also held sway in the West, but starting around the
Renaissance (in the 15th century) Europeans began to place more emphasis on
the individual, and the United States was founded with an explicit commitment
to individualism. As a result of this heritage, Europeans and North Americans
are unusually prone to focus their self-concepts on what is unique or special
about themselves.

Self-Concept Change
People have the impression that they frequently change their opinions of them-
selves, but in fact researchers have tended to find the opposite: Self-concepts
are remarkably durable and stable. People avoid, ignore, or discount events
that can change their self-opinions. It appears that changing the self-concept is
often a last resort. Indeed, psychotherapists know very well how difficult it is
to induce change in the self-concept, even when the client wants to change.
Still, it is important to know how self-concepts can change. One method
was identified in early research studies, based on a theory of biased scanning.
According to the biased scanning theory, people can be induced to think about
themselves in new, different ways. People all have a great deal of widely as-
sorted information about themselves, and the trick is to get them to scan it in
a one-sided (biased) fashion so they only attend to part of it. In these studies,
researchers asked people to recall incidents in which they acted in an ex-
traverted, outgoing fashionor, alternatively, in an introverted, socially with-
drawn fashion. By remembering only such incidents, people came to think of
themselves in that way, and their subsequent views of themselves (and their cor-
responding actions, such as whether they would strike up a conversation with
a stranger) followed suit (Fazio, Effrein, & Fallender, 1981; Jones, Rhodewalt,
Berglas, & Skelton, 1981).
More recent work has indicated that social interactions play a crucial role
in these self-concept changes. Tice (1992) asked some people to answer biased
questions about introverted versus extraverted behavior either in a face-to-face
interview with another person, or in an anonymous session with only a tape
recorder. The mental scanning should have been the same, but self-concept
change occurred only in the face-to-face interview. Tice concluded that biased
scanning only changes the self-concept if other people are involved to lend so-
cial reality to the interaction. Schlenker, Dlugolecki, and Doherty (1994) con-
firmed her findings and even challenged the biased scanning view. They con-
ducted an experiment in which people presented themselves one way in social
interaction but then the researchers privately conducted biased scanning for the
opposite view of self. The self-concept change followed the way they had pre-
sented themselves to others rather than the private memory scan. For example,
many people are far from certain how creative they are. You can probably
think of several events from your life that suggest you are a creative person, if
you specifically search your memory for them. On the other hand, if you were
to make the opposite search to find evidence that you are not particularly cre-
ative, you can probably find some of that too. Neither of these private exercises
is likely to have a major impact on your self-concept. But if you were to try
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 255

hard to convince somebody else of either of those positionseither that youre

very creative, or not very creativethat exercise would end up affecting how
you think about yourself. Getting other people to see you in a certain way ends
up having a bigger impact on your self-concept than simply ruminating pri-
vately about it.
At present, then, there is some question as to how important the role of bi-
ased memory scanning is, but it does not seem able to induce self-concept
change by itself. Undoubtedly there is some role for processes such as memory
shifts. Still, the interpersonal dimension seems to be strong and decisive. To
change the self, it is helpful and powerful to change the way one is perceived by
other people, and these socially reflected views of self can then be internalized
(see also Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). Moreover, when people do try to
change, other peoples input and perceptions seem to make a big difference
(Heatherton & Nichols, 1994). If you tell everyone that you want to quit smok-
ing or lose weight or take up a new hobby, you are more likely to follow
through and succeed than if you keep your plans for change to yourself.

SELF-ESTEEM
Of all the aspects of the self-concept, one of the most important is self-esteem.
When researchers set out to study the self-concept, they usually end up study-
ing self-esteem. This is because people instantly recognize the importance of
self-esteem. When self-esteem goes up, they often feel happy, whereas events
that lower self-esteem generally make people feel terrible. Another reason peo-
ple study self-esteem is that it is easy and convenient to measure.
There is no single measure of self-esteem that is used by everyone. Rather,
there are many such measures, partly because the topic is quite important and
partly because researchers criticize one anothers ways of measuring it. As al-
ready noted, one approach was to look for discrepancies between the real self
and the ideal self. Another way is to ask a series of simple questions about
global self-regard (e.g., Rosenberg, 1965). The most common approach is to
ask a series of questions about different attributes and add them up. The prob-
lem is that such a measure might not lend the right importance to the various
attributes or dimensions. Most of the common self-esteem measures tend to
emphasize social self-esteem, for example. To get an understanding of this ap-
proach, please consult the Activity Box 9.1, Measuring Self-Esteem.
The results of these self-esteem measures yield a continuum of scores. Al-
though everyone speaks of high and low self-esteem as if these were distinct
types, they are not types in the sense of distinct clusters of scores. Rather, there
is a continuum and people may range anywhere along it. Dividing the scores
into high and low self-esteem groups is done for the sake of conceptual conven-
ience (i.e., it makes results easier to talk about). Sometimes researchers divide
their scores into two groups for analyzing their datathat is, to compare
the typical behaviors of highversus low self-esteem groups. There are some
minor statistical problems with that approach (e.g., it ignores the fact that the
highest score in the low-esteem group is probably closer to the lowest score in
256 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

Activity Box 9.1 Measuring Your Self-Esteem

Most measures of self-esteem rely on asking the person to rate himself or herself on
various dimensions. Here are some sample items that are similar to those used on ac-
tual scales. Try to rate yourself on each one. Give yourself a numerical rating from
0 to 6 on each scale, such that 0 = Very Often, or Very Much, and 6 = Almost Never,
or Not at All.
_____ 1. How often do you feel superior to most other people?
_____ 2. How often do you think that one day you will accomplish great things?
_____ 3. Do you worry about making a good impression on other people?
_____ 4. Do you frequently fear that other people will dislike you or think badly of you?
_____ 5. When you complete an assignment or test, do you usually have the feeling that
you did a poor or inadequate job?
_____ 6. Do you consider yourself more physically attractive than the average person you
know?
_____ 7. How often do you do things that seem clumsy or uncoordinated?
Self-esteem is then scored by computing a total based on the number of points
per item. For questions #3, 4, 5, and 7, your rating (0 to 6) is your score. The other
three items (#1, 2, and 6) are reverse scored; that is, you compute your score by sub-
tracting your rating from 6. For example, if you responded to question #2 by rating
yourself 4, your score would be 6 4 = 2.
These questions refer to various areas or facets of self-esteem. Questions 1 and
2 refer to global self-esteemthat is, the persons overall appraisal of self. Ques-
tions 3 and 4 measure social self-esteem, that is, feelings of confidence and inhibition
about getting along with other people. Question 5 refers to school (intellectual) abil-
ities (confidence in your ability to do good work). Questions 6 and 7 refer to body
image; #6 is concerned with attractiveness and #7 is concerned with physical skills
and ability.
Most self-esteem scales use more items than these (see Fleming & Courtney,
1984, for a good example of a complete scale), so you should not place much trust
in the reliability of your total score from these few items. Still, you can get a rough
idea of how self-esteem is measured by considering these items and similar ones.

the high-esteem group than to the lowest score in the low-esteem group), but
these can safely be overlooked in making rough comparisons.
The goal of understanding and measuring self-esteem is further compli-
cated by new distinctions that researchers are starting to make. In recent years,
there has been an upsurge of interest in a trait called narcissism, which can be
understood as an obnoxious kind of high self-esteem (Emmons, 1984; Morf &
Rhodewalt, 2001). The term narcissism is derived from a Greek myth, in which
Narcissus was a young man who fell in love with his own reflected image, and
narcissism is therefore used to refer to excessive or absurd self-love. Narcissis-
tic individuals hold high opinions of themselves and want other people to re-
gard them favorably alsoor else! If you let a narcissist know that you do not
admire him or her, you may become the target of his or her anger and venom.
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 257

Self-Esteem and Self-Concept

Self-esteem is essentially the evaluative dimension of the self-concept. Any piece
of information about the self may be incorporated into the self-concept. It only
affects self-esteem once it takes on a value judgment: Is it good or bad? High
self-esteem denotes thinking well of oneself. This may include a healthy self-
confidence and proper appreciation of ones genuine accomplishments and abil-
ities. It may also exaggerate or distort the truth wildly. High self-esteem can
mean being conceited, egotistical, arrogant, and narcissistic. The common
thread is thinking well of oneselfregardless of whether this is justified.
In theory, low self-esteem is the opposite of high self-esteem, and so it
should mean having a negative, unflattering view of self. In practice, however,
relatively few people are firmly convinced that they are bad people. Most re-
searchers define low self-esteem as anyone who scores in the bottom half or
bottom third of a sample of scores on a self-esteem scale. An examination of
these scores shows that usually they are in the middle range of possible scores,
because almost no one scores at the low end (Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton,
1989). In other words, in response to self-esteem scale questions such as Do
you often feel inferior to most other people? a high self-esteem person will an-
swer Never but a typical low self-esteem person will say Sometimes rather
than Frequently. In fact, hardly anyone says Frequently in answer to such
questions.
Thus, low self-esteem is the absence of positives more than the presence of
negative beliefs about the self (Baumeister, 1993). People with high self-esteem
hold firm, highly favorable beliefs about themselves. People with low self-
esteem lack those beliefs, but they generally do not hold firm unfavorable be-
liefs about themselves.
A powerful and influential line of research on the self-conceptions that ac-
company different levels of self-esteem was conducted by Campbell (1990;
Campbell & Lavallee, 1993). The broad conclusion is that low self-esteem is
marked by self-concept confusion. That is, people with high self-esteem have
clear, consistent, and definite ideas about themselves, whereas people with low
self-esteem do not. When people with low self-esteem answer questions about
themselves, they differ from people with high self-esteem in several key ways.
They tend to give uncertain answers or say they do not know. They give con-
tradictory or inconsistent answers to similar questions. They give different an-
swers to the same questions on different occasions. All of these suggest that low
self-esteem is marked by a lack of firm self-knowledge. Once again, then, low
self-esteem is not a matter of being convinced that you are bad. More com-
monly, it is simply the lack of firm conviction that you are good.
Self-esteem and narcissism are not quite the same thing. Most narcissists
have high self-esteem, but many people with high self-esteem are not narcis-
sists. A person with high self-esteem might be a conceited, obnoxious fool or a
person with a reasonable appreciation of his or her genuine talents and achieve-
ments. Some people with high self-esteem simply accept themselves and do not
worry about what others think. In contrast, narcissists tend to feel superior to
others and to want very badly to have other people confirm this view.
258 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

Roots of Self-Esteem
The roots of self-esteem were the target of many years of research by Cooper-
smith (1967). He concluded that three factors contributed to high self-esteem
among children. The first was unconditional positive regard, which means that
parents (or others) should convey to the child the message that the child was
loved no matter what. Many parents give the impression that they love the
child only when the child behaves well. For building a strong, healthy self-
concept, however, the foundation is apparently the sense that one is loved and
valued regardless of how one is behaving.
The second factor identified by Coopersmith was the existence of clear and
strong standards. That is, parents can build self-esteem by setting forth firm,
definite criteria as to how the child should behave and expecting the child to
live up to them. These include rules and limits on what the child is allowed to
do. The modern self-esteem movements message has been misinterpreted by
many modern parents to believe that in order to build self-esteem they should
approve of the childs behavior regardless of whether it is good. However,
Coopersmith found that children ended up with higher self-esteem if they knew
definitely what was expected of them and if these expectations were clear and
consistent.
The third ingredient was that parents should give the child freedom, lati-
tude, and respect for behavior that lies within the limits. In particular, it is im-
portant that the parents show some positive approval when the child does live
up to expectations. Some parents make rules and set expectations but only
show any feelings when the child falls short. It is better for self-esteem, appar-
ently, if the parent also expresses pride and other positive feelings when the
child succeeds.
One might think that the first and second features contradict each other:
The first says to love the child no matter what, whereas the second says to set
firm rules and punish the child when the child performs badly. The resolution
of this seeming contradiction is that it is fine, even desirable, to disapprove of
specific behaviors, but one should continue to feel and show love for the child.
When the child disobeys, or fails to complete chores, or does badly in school,
the ideal parental message will be, I love you, but I hate what you are doing.
Parents who can effectively combine steady love with firm rules (and consis-
tent punishments) while they give the child freedom and approval for behavior
that satisfies these rules will likely raise the child with the strongest, healthiest
self-esteem.
Self-esteem may begin to take shape in childhood, but it can continue to
change and develop throughout life. Recent work has begun to show the life
course of self-esteem (Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy, Gosling, & Potter, 2002).
Self-esteem is relatively high during childhood, and in fact, many children hold
very positive, confident, unrealistic views about themselves. During adoles-
cence, self-esteem is often somewhat lower. Adolescents worry about how oth-
ers view them and about learning how to get others to like them. After adoles-
cence, self-esteem rises slowly into middle adulthood, and its peak is found in
late midlife. Perhaps surprisingly, on average self-esteem is highest among peo-
ple in their early 60s. Then it drops again (sharply) as people reach their 70s
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 259

and 80s, probably due to multiple factors, including physical impairments, loss
of occupational roles and death of spouse, and gradual decline in ones physi-
cal and mental powers.

Is High Self-Esteem a Good Thing?

Interest in self-esteem has extended beyond the research community to society
at large. California created a state task force to develop ideas for raising the
self-esteem of all residents, in the belief that self-esteem would serve as a so-
cial vaccine to combat a broad array of personal and social problems, includ-
ing drug abuse, teen pregnancy, crime, school failure, debt, and mental illness
(California Task Force, 1990). Many school systems now devote considerable
time and effort to boosting self-esteem, even devoting class time to it rather
than to academic topics.
Although beliefs remain strong in the positive value of self-esteem, the re-
search evidence does not justify them. Even while the California Task Force
was touting the benefits of self-esteem, a group of researchers they commis-
sioned to study those benefits were publishing a contrary conclusion: The
news most consistently reported, however, is that the associations between self-
esteem and its expected consequences are mixed, insignificant, or absent
(Mecca, Smelser, & Vasconcellos, 1989, p. 15). Raising self-esteem does not
appear to be an effective way to prevent teen pregnancy, drug abuse, school
failure, or the like.
There are two crucial questions. First, are people with high self-esteem bet-
ter off in important ways than people with low self-esteem? Second, does high
self-esteem actually cause people to be better off? Hundreds of research stud-
ies have tried to answer those questions. Recently some researchers have begun
wading through the hundreds of published reports to come up with broad, gen-
eral conclusions (see Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003; Emler,
2001).
The answer to the first question appears to be a qualified yes. To the sec-
ond question, the answer is mostly no.
People with high self-esteem seem to enjoy being able to feel good about
themselves. They consistently rate themselves as doing well on many measures.
They rate themselves as being smarter, more popular, more physically hand-
some or beautiful, better able to get along with others, healthier, happier, and
better adjusted than other people. Unfortunately, these patterns tell more about
how people with high self-esteem flatter themselves than about objective real-
ity. When researchers get objective measures, most of these advantages of high
self-esteem disappear. Thus, people with high self-esteem rate themselves as
more intelligent than people with low self-esteem, but actual IQ tests show no
difference (Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee, 1994). Likewise, they rate themselves as bet-
ter looking than people with low self-esteem, but when judges rate photographs
for facial beauty, people with high self-esteem are not any more attractive than
those with low (Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995; Gabriel et al., 1994).
There are many reasons to expect that high self-esteem will lead people to
do better in school, and studies have tried to show that self-esteem leads to
260 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

better grades or other signs of intellectual achievement. It doesnt. Doing well

in school may lead to a slight rise in self-esteem, and certain factors like having
a good family background or having high intelligence can lead to both success
in school and high self-esteem, but self-esteem has not been found to have any
causal impact on school performance (Bachman & OMalley, 1977, 1986;
Maruyama, Rubin, & Kingsbury, 1981; Pottebaum, Keith, & Ehly, 1986;
Rosenberg, Schooler, & Schoenbach, 1989).
Likewise, many psychologists have long advocated the view that in order
to love others, you must first love yourself, but careful studies have failed to
show that high self-esteem leads to better interpersonal relationships or greater
popularity. Laboratory studies have tested the effects of self-esteem by having
people meet and get acquainted and then afterward rate their impressions of
each other. People with high self-esteem often think they made a great impres-
sion (and better than the impression that people with low self-esteem think they
made), but their interaction partners give them about the same rating that they
do people with low self-esteem (Brockner & Lloyd, 1986; Campbell & Fehr,
1990). If anything, people sometimes end up liking the person with low self-
esteem better than the one with high self-esteem, especially if the low-esteem
person has been criticized or offended. People with high self-esteem tend to re-
spond to criticism or other threats to esteem by becoming huffy or obnoxious,
and so they make a bad impression on others (Heatherton & Vohs, 2000).
The link to violence may even be the opposite of what the self-esteem
movement assumed. A large-scale review of the research literature by Baumeis-
ter, Smart, and Boden (1996) found that the evidence massively contradicted
the theory that low self-esteem causes violence. In general, violence seems to
occur primarily among people who hold very favorable, even inflated views of
themselvesand who then encounter someone who questions or challenges
their high self-esteem. From gang members who shoot someone who disses
(i.e., shows disrespect to) them, to adults who beat their spouses and lovers to
prove that they should be the boss in the family, to playground bullies who vic-
timize other children to prove their own superiority, to tyrannical governments
headed by megalomaniacal dictators, to nations who make war to avenge
threats to their honor, to ethnic groups who oppress or attack others based on
flimsy notions of racial pride, the same pattern was found over and over:
Threatened egotism is the decisive cause of violence and aggression. Not all
high self-esteem causes aggression, but when self-esteem consists of inflated,
exaggerated, or narcissistic notions of personal superiority, the results can be
dangerous. In controlled laboratory studies, people with high self-esteem are
found among both the aggressive and nonaggressive individualswhile the
most aggressive people were prone to narcissism, which is a rather nasty and
obnoxious form of high self-esteem (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998).
Are there any benefits to high self-esteem? Two main benefits were identi-
fied after a long search by Baumeister et al. (2003; see also Emler, 2001). The
first is that high self-esteem supports initiative. People with high self-esteem are
more willing to approach strangers to strike up a conversation, more likely to
speak up in a group (especially when they do not agree with what the group is
doing), more able to resist other peoples attempts to tell them what to do, and
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 261

better able to persist in the face of failure. People with high self-esteem are more
likely than others to be bulliesbut they are also more likely to be the one who
stands up to the bully and protects the victim. Probably the difference in initia-
tive has to do with simple confidence: High self-esteem fosters a confidence that
ones own judgment is sound and ones actions will lead to good outcomes.
Meanwhile people with low self-esteem may suffer from self-doubts and there-
fore be reluctant to take independent action.
The second benefit of high self-esteem is that it appears to consist of a stock
of good feelings. In a sense, high self-esteem is an emotional resource that peo-
ple can draw upon. People with high self-esteem are happier than others, bet-
ter able to recover from trauma or cope with stress, and less vulnerable to
mood swings in response to external events. Common sense tells us that it sim-
ply feels good to think well of yourself, and in this respect common sense ap-
pears to be quite right.
Thus, researchers are slowly moving toward a more balanced view of self-
esteem that acknowledges both its advantages and its disadvantages, as well as
recognizing that its causal impact on important social and personal problems
may be far weaker than previously hoped. Low self-esteem is linked to social
anxiety and shyness, which can impair peoples chances of making friends and
getting along with others (Leary & Kowalski, 1995; Schlenker & Leary,
1982)but people with inflated (high) self-esteem tend to irritate others and
turn them off, and in the long run these self-centered, conceited individuals
show poor social skills and psychological maladjustment (Colvin, Block, &
Funder, 1995). Low self-esteem is associated with some patterns of self-defeat-
ing behavior, such as giving up too easilybut high self-esteem is associated
with other patterns, such as overconfidence (Heatherton & Ambady, 1993).
When things are going well, people with high self-esteem manage themselves
better than those with low, such as by making appropriate commitments and
selecting optimal performance goalsbut in response to an ego threat, people
with high self-esteem often become irrational and set unrealistic, macho goals
for themselves, leading to costly failures (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice,
1993; McFarlin & Blascovich, 1981).
Much of the downside of high self-esteem seems to involve overestimating
oneself, as in being conceited or narcissistic. The present state of the evidence
does not indicate that there is anything wrong with having an accurate appre-
ciation of ones good points and strengths, particularly if this is tempered with
some interpersonal humility and with an accurate recognition of ones faults
and weaknesses. Some experts conclude from this that there are right and
wrong (or true and false) kinds of high self-esteem. To make such a dis-
tinction, however, is already to shift the focus away from self-esteem per se (in
the sense of thinking well of oneself) and on to the issue of how good a person
one can manage to be.
To understand this, suppose there were an effective way to sort true
from false versions of high self-esteem. For example, a team of researchers
might identify all the students who think they are smart and then give them an
IQ test to see which ones are really smart. The ones who are smart and know
it have true high self-esteem, and the ones who overestimate their intelligence
262 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

have false high self-esteem. Suppose, then, that the researchers found that
true high self-esteem was associated with success in school, whereas false
high self-esteem tended to backfire (a likely outcome). Would this show that
some forms of self-esteem are better than others? On the contrary, it seems to
show that self-esteem is irrelevant. Remember, the students with true self-
esteem are by definition smarter than those with false high self-esteem, and so
it is no surprise that they do better in school. Both groups think theyre equally
smartwhich suggests that the mere fact of thinking oneself smart is irrele-
vant. What matters is the underlying reality of actually being smart.
In other words, it is perhaps the underlying reality rather than the percep-
tion that matters most. Self-esteem is merely the perception, not the reality.
When perception does matter, the best state may well be close to accurate
neither overestimating nor underestimating oneself. Those who underestimate
their intelligence may avoid challenges or give up too easily. Those who over-
estimate their intelligence may get in over their heads or may not bother to
work hard enough. Either distortion can interfere with learning.
Achieving a balanced, accurate appraisal of oneself is unfortunately quite
difficult. In the meantime, the world might be a better place if more people
would forget about trying to boost their self-esteem and concentrate instead on
trying to be a better person. Focusing on self-esteem, after all, is merely a mat-
ter of trying to think that youre a better person.

Why Care About Self-Esteem?

People everywhere care about self-esteem. Anything that gives a boost in self-
esteem is almost universally welcome, and by the same token hardly anyone
enjoys events that constitute a blow or loss to their self-esteem. Yet as we have
seen, self-esteem does not lead to many palpable, direct material benefits. Self-
esteem does not make people richer, smarter, better liked, or more successful.
In a few small ways, people with high self-esteem do better than others; in a few
other ways they do worseand the overall effect is quite small. Why are peo-
ple so concerned with something that seems to mean so little?
The emotional implications of self-esteem contain a partial answer, but
only a partial one. People do feel better when their self-esteem is high or rising,
and they feel bad when self-esteem is low or dropping, and so it is only natural
that they should become concerned about self-esteem. Yet this answer is hardly
satisfactory because it raises the next question of why emotions should be so
strongly tied to something that has little practical value. We have emotions for
good reasons: They help us adapt to the world and pass on our genes to the
next generation. Fear makes us avoid danger. Love makes us stay with desirable
partners, especially when we may reproduce. Anger helps us assert our rights
and tackle obstacles. But why should self-esteem be linked to emotions?
At present, several possible answers have been suggested, but none is fully
satisfactory. One answer is that people are driven by fear of death, and self-
esteem helps comfort them in the face of human mortality (Becker, 1973;
Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon; 1986; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, &
Solomon, 1997). Critics of this view point out that self-esteem does not seem
to correlate with death anxiety and that high self-esteem would seemingly make
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 263

death seem worse, not better (because the value of ones own life is higher). In
support of this view, however, researchers have shown that high self-esteem
seems to hold back anxiety in response to cues designed to evoke thoughts of
death and pain (Greenberg, Solomon, et al., 1992).
Another view is that self-esteem is sought because it is a valuable aid in
coping with stress, trauma, and misfortunes (Steele, 1988). Self-esteem may be
of little value under normal circumstances, but in response to adversity people
need self-esteem to keep their spirits up and to keep striving for positive out-
comes. Self-esteem is thus a valuable resource. This theory does correspond
well with the actual, limited benefits of self-esteem, especially the emotional
benefits and the improved capacity to persist in the face of failure, but it is not
clear that people want self-esteem merely in order to have a resource in case
they encounter misfortune. Even when times are good, people seem to want
self-esteem. Moreover, this theory still does not explain why it is that people
should find that self-esteem helps them cope with failure or misfortune.
A third view is that self-esteem is a sociometer, that is, an internal measure
of how well one is connected to other human beings (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, &
Downs, 1995). There is a large amount of evidence that forming good social re-
lations and getting along with others is conducive to health, happiness, and well-
being, as well as the evolutionary goal of survival and reproduction, and it is
fair to say that human beings are partly driven by a fundamental and powerful
need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Self-esteem may be fairly unimpor-
tant in terms of its direct consequences, but it could be very important as an
inner meter that keeps track of this all-important project of forming and main-
taining social bonds. (By analogy, the gas gauge in the car has no direct impor-
tance for helping the car run, but it is very important as a measure of something
crucial, namely how much fuel the car has.) To support this theory, Leary and his
colleagues (1995) showed that self-esteem rises based on events that are linked
to social inclusionsuch as being accepted by others, proving ones competence,
being found attractive, and so forth. Meanwhile, events that can lead to social
rejection also tend to lower self-esteem. Moreover, we have already seen that
self-esteem is strongly (inversely) correlated with social anxiety, which means
that low self-esteem is often linked to a fear of social rejection.
The sociometer theory is a novel solution to the question of why self-
esteem matters. It leaves several issues unresolved, however. Can people have
high self-esteem even if they do not have strong social connections and rela-
tionships? And how can some people have low self-esteem even when they seem
to be well connected to family and friends? Still, it is probably no mere coinci-
dence that the main criteria on which self-esteem is basedbeing likable, at-
tractive, and competentare the same criteria that groups use to include ver-
sus exclude individuals.

Social Motives
What do people with low self-esteem want? This question has led various the-
orists to pose a wide assortment of answers. Some have asserted that people
with low self-esteem desire to fail or suffer. Some have proposed that they want
to confirm their bad opinions of themselves. Some have proposed that they
264 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

want to gain esteem at all costs. Others have proposed that their motivations
are largely the same as those of people with high self-esteem.
After many years of research, some answers have finally emerged. The no-
tion that people with low self-esteem desire to fail or suffer in order to prove
how bad they are has not been confirmed. People with low self-esteem want to
succeed as much as people with high self-esteem; they are simply less confident
that they will be able to do so (McFarlin & Blascovich, 1981).
The broadest motivational pattern associated with low self-esteem seems to
be one of self-protection (Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton, 1989). That is, people
with low self-esteem worry about failure, rejection, humiliation, and other un-
pleasant outcomes, and they seem to go through life watching out for such dan-
gers and trying to minimize them. People with high self-esteem, in contrast,
seem to spend much less time worrying about failure or protecting themselves
from it. They do hate to fail, but in general they do not expect it to happen, and
so self-protection is not an overriding concern.
To put this in broader perspective, it is helpful to realize that nearly every-
one wants to do wellto succeed at work, to make friends, to have good inti-
mate relationships, and so forth. As part of that, nearly everyone wants to be
well regarded by others and to be able to respect himself or herself too. This
motive to think well of oneself can be subdivided into two motives: self-
enhancement, which is the desire to gain esteem, and self-protection, which is
the desire to avoid losing esteem. Often the self-enhancement motive and the
self-protection motive operate together, in tandem, as when someone tries to
make the best possible score on an examination.
Other times, however, the two motives are opposed. For example, calling
someone up to ask for a date pits the two motives against each other. If the
other person accepts the invitation, you may feel a gain in esteem; but if the
other person rejects you, you may lose esteem. Asking someone out is therefore
risky from an esteem point of view. If the self-enhancement motive predomi-
nates and you are mainly concerned with the opportunity to gain esteem, then
you may well take the chance. But if the self-protection motive predominates,
you would not make the call, to prevent the possibility of being rejected. Simi-
lar arguments apply in many other situations, such as accepting a challenge or
undertaking a public performance when there are significant opportunities for
both gaining and losing esteem.
In general, people with high self-esteem are oriented toward self-enhance-
ment. They are looking for ways to gain esteem and to do even better than they
have done so far. They do not expect to fail or be rejected and so they do not
worry about it much. In contrast, people with low self-esteem give priority to
self-protection. They might be happy to gain esteem, but gaining esteem does
not dominate their outlook on life. Instead, they look for ways to avoid or min-
imize possible failures, rejections, and setbacks.

Plasticity
People with low self-esteem tend to be more malleable and gullible than people
with high self-esteem (Brockner 1984). This is a common pattern across many
spheres of behavior. People with low self-esteem are more likely to change their
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 265

attitudes when someone tries to persuade them (e.g., Janis, 1954). They may
yield or conform to group influence more than others, and they are more will-
ing to take advice. Their behavior changes more from one situation to another.
The malleability may well be connected with the broad patterns we have
already identified. First, because people with low self-esteem lack firm, consis-
tent self-concepts, it is harder for them than for other people to resist situa-
tional influences and follow their own inner promptings. Second, because they
are oriented toward self-protection, they may find it safer to go along with the
group and do what they are told rather than strike out on their own. Third, be-
cause high self-esteem is linked to greater initiative, people who have it may be
more willing to resist someone elses influence or pressure. It may take confi-
dence to reject someones advice and do what you think best, because if you end
up being proven wrong, the other person can say I told you so. With high
self-esteem, a person will tend to think that he or she will not be proven wrong,
so the person does not worry about that possibility.

Emotion and Coping

High self-esteem does not contribute to a great many advantages or successes
in life, but it does undoubtedly make one feel better. As a result, some of the
most important differences between high and low self-esteem involve emotion.
One difference is simply in the overall positivity of emotion. People with
low self-esteem are more likely to suffer unpleasant emotional states. As we
have already seen, low self-esteem correlates strongly with anxiety and de-
pression, which are two of the most common and serious patterns of emo-
tional distress. In a recent study in which people kept diaries of their emo-
tions, people with low self-esteem showed more negative emotions of all sorts
(Campbell, Chew, & Scratchley, 1991). They had more bad moods and fewer
good moods.
Beyond the simple issue of good versus bad emotions, however, there is an-
other emotional difference. People with low self-esteem have higher emotional
lability than people with high self-esteem (Campbell et al., 1991; Campbell &
Lavallee, 1993). That is, their emotions fluctuate more widely from one day to
the next or one hour to the next. High self-esteem apparently helps keep one on
an even keel, whereas low self-esteem can have one riding an emotional roller
coaster.
Probably the emotional lability of low self-esteem is linked to the plastic-
ity of low self-esteem. After all, it is hard not to respond to the immediate event
or situation if you are having a strong emotional reaction to it. The self-concept
confusion may also be connected. If your ideas about yourself are not firmly
fixed, then each event can have a bigger impact on the way you think and feel
about yourself, which in turn will set off stronger emotional reactions.
Self-esteem can thus be understood as an emotional resource, and this may
explain the difference in resiliency in the face of stress, trauma, and setbacks.
People with high self-esteem seem to have a stock of positive feelings, possibly
associated with all the positive beliefs they hold about themselves, and so when
something goes wrong they can draw on these beliefs and feelings to help them-
selves shrug off the misfortune, feel better, and maybe try again (Steele, 1988).
266 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

In contrast, people with low self-esteem have a much smaller stock of positive
beliefs and feelings, and so they may feel overwhelmed or devastated when
something goes wrong.

Prejudice
On the surface, it seems that people with low self-esteem are more prejudiced
than people with high self-esteem. Several studies have shown, for example,
that people with low self-esteem give more negative ratings to minority group
members and other stereotyped groups. But one must recall that low self-
esteem means giving oneself a negative rating. To examine prejudice, one must
ask: Do people with low self-esteem rate others worse than themselves?
The answer appears to be no. People with low self-esteem rate themselves,
members of their own group, and members of other groups all about the same
(Crocker & Schwartz, 1985). All of these ratings tend to be somewhat negative
relative to the ratings given by people with high self-esteem. But the negativity
does not reflect any selective prejudice, for it applies to everyone. People with
low self-esteem are apparently more critical of everyoneincluding minority
groups and themselves. When one looks at the difference between how one
rates oneself and how one rates members of outgroups, it is people with high
self-esteem who emerge as more prejudiced (Crocker & Schwartz, 1985;
Crocker et al., 1987). A meta-analysis (i.e., a statistical technique that com-
bines the results of many different studies, thereby furnishing especially con-
clusive findings) recently confirmed that prejudice and discrimination are
higher among people who have high self-esteem. They rate the groups to which
they belong more favorably than outgroups, and they tend to give preferential
treatment to members of their own groups. People with low self-esteem tend to
treat ingroups and outgroups about the same (Aberson et al., 2000).

Maintaining Self-Esteem
How do people keep their self-esteem up? And why do some people seem un-
able to form a favorable view of themselves? In principle, one way to achieve
high self-esteem would be to succeed at everything. As long as work and social
life go well, there is not much danger to ones self-esteem. Unfortunately, life
does not usually cooperate, and nearly everyone experiences periodic setbacks,
failures, rejections, interpersonal conflicts, and other events that strike painful
blows to ones sense of self-worth.
Most studies have not found that people with high self-esteem are really
more talented, intelligent, likable, attractive, or otherwise superior. Indeed, the
more common finding among laboratory researchers is that the actual perform-
ance of people with high self-esteem is, on average, no different from that of
people with low self-esteem. People with high self-esteem do believe they are
better: They rate their performance better, they consider themselves more beau-
tiful or handsome, and so forth, compared with people who have low self-
esteem. But the difference seems to be mainly one of perception. As we have al-
ready noted, studies that ask unbiased judges to rate peoples attractiveness
conclude that people with high and low self-esteem are about equally attrac-
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 267

tivebut studies that ask people to rate their own physical appearance find
that people with high, compared to low, self-esteem consistently rate themselves
as being more attractive (e.g., Harter, 1993).
Success in life depends on more than ability, however. Two people may
have precisely the same amount of talent, but one may succeed better than the
other by virtue of choosing more appropriate undertakings. (For example, two
equally smart and equally knowledgeable people may get different grades de-
pending on which courses they take.) Remember, people with high self-esteem
seem to have superior knowledge about themselves (Campbell, 1990), and this
knowledge can prove very useful in selecting the optimal courses, jobs, chal-
lenges, projects, and dating partners. Experiments have indeed shown that peo-
ple with high self-esteem are better at choosing the right level of challenge for
themselves to ensure maximum success (as long as they are not distracted by an
ego threat; Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993). This kind of advantage may
be what helps people with high self-esteem to perform a little better in school
(and elsewhere) without actually being any smarter (Felson, 1993; Hattie &
Hansford, 1982).
Thus, it is plausible that some people can sustain higher self-esteem than
others by achieving more successes, even without any superior gifts. Undoubt-
edly, however, the other route to maintaining high self-esteem involves various
styles of thinking that boost ones self-appraisal. Many of these techniques in-
volve self-deception, to the extent that people fool themselves in systematic
ways to maintain comfortable, flattering illusions about how great they are. A
famous article by Anthony Greenwald (1980) compared the self to a totalitar-
ian regime in the way it rewrites history to make itself look good. Researchers
have identified several esteem-boosting and self-deception techniques, de-
scribed in the following paragraphs (from Baumeister, 1998).
First, people systematically take credit for success but deny blame for fail-
ure. This self-serving bias has been widely documented in many contexts and
studies (Zuckerman, 1979). When something important happens, people are
quick to judge whether they are responsible, and they make those judgments in
a one-sided fashion. People with high self-esteem are especially prone to show
this pattern of grabbing the credit but denying the blame (e.g., Fitch, 1970).
Second, people happily and uncritically accept information that makes
them look good, but when someone criticizes them they often stop to find faults
or flaws in the critics reasons. For example, when people take a test and are
then asked whether the test was valid, their answers depend heavily on how
well they are told they performed (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Holt, 1985;
Wyer & Frey, 1983; see also Kunda, 1990). As many instructors know, stu-
dents who do well think the test was fair and objective, whereas those who do
badly are more likely to believe that the test was biased or inappropriate. A
variation on this is that people dismiss criticism as motivated by prejudice or
personal animosity, and so their self-esteem is unaffected even when someone
tells them that they have done badly or have undesirable traits (Crocker &
Major, 1989; Crocker, Voelkl, Testa, & Major, 1991).
Third, people shift the amount of attention they pay when they receive
feedback about their abilities or performances (Baumeister & Cairns, 1992).
When people receive positive, flattering feedback, they often linger over it,
268 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

study it carefully, and let its full implications sink in. In contrast, when they
hear criticism of unfavorable remarks, they tend to skip over them or pay much
less attention.
Fourth, people show biased memory. They recall their successes and good
points better than their failures and bad points (Crary, 1966; Kuiper & Derry,
1982; Mischel, Ebbesen, & Zeiss, 1976).
Fifth, they have ways of sorting through their memory to prove to them-
selves that they fit whatever pattern is desirable. Thus, when people are led to
believe that being an introvert leads to success, they recall more of their own ac-
tions as introverted, and they are quicker to come up with introverted memo-
ries, than when they are told that extraversion is associated with success (San-
itioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990).
Sixth, they compare themselves selectively against targets that make them
feel good. In particular, they engage in downward comparison, which means
that they identify people who are doing worse than themselves to use as a base-
line for evaluating themselves (Wills, 1981). People like to have some contact
with people who are less intelligent, less attractive, or fatter than they are be-
cause seeing such individuals makes them feel good about themselves.
Seventh, people distort their perceptions of others so as to furnish a rosy
view of their own traits and opinions. With opinions and beliefs, people exhibit
a false consensus effect, which means that they overestimate the proportion of
people who would agree with themand which encourages them to think they
must be right: I must be correct, because everybody agrees with me. In con-
trast, with abilities, people show a false uniqueness effect, which means that
they underestimate the proportion of others who are similar. This helps people
feel that their abilities are special because they think hardly anyone could per-
form as well as they do. The combination of false uniqueness and false consen-
sus effects has been especially linked to high self-esteem, and indeed it seems
well designed to give people a comfortable sense of personal superiority
(Campbell, 1986; Marks, 1984; Suls & Wan, 1987).
These patterns are fairly common and widespread. This is not to say that
everyone always uses them, but most people do show some of them. More to
the point, people with high self-esteem use them more than others. We noted
earlier that self-esteem seems to be somewhat inflated across the U.S. popula-
tion today, and these techniques indicate how people give their self-esteem an
extra boost, perhaps beyond what is warranted. These are the means, in other
words, by which the average person convinces himself (or herself) that he is
above average.

IDENTITY
We turn now to consider identity. Although the terms identity and self-concept
have some things in common, they are different. A self-concept exists only in
one persons mind, whereas identity is essentially social. That is, identity rests
on a definition of the self that is shared by the person, other people, and soci-
ety at large.
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 269

Structure and Functions of Identity

Identity, as we said earlier, is a definition of the self. It is actually a composite
definition made up of several partial definitions. The components of identity
are these partial definitions. Any answer to the question Who are you? is an
identity component, for to answer that question is to give a partial definition
of oneself. Examples of identity components include being an employee of a
certain company, a lawyer, a student, someones nephew, a member of the swim
team, and so on.
If identity is a definition, then there have to be certain criteria used for
defining it. There are two major defining criteria of identitynamely, continu-
ity and differentiation. Continuity means sameness over time. Part of having
an identity is being the same person today as yesterday, last week, and last year.
People do change in various ways, but they retain some continuity of identity,
as signified by having the same name and other things. Differentiation refers to
the things that distinguish someone from other people. Being identified with a
certain family or organization, for example, marks one off as distinct from non-
members.
Anything that furnishes continuity and differentiation thus helps to define
identity. A strong sense of identity arises from having many sources of continu-
ity and differentiation. A stable home, strong family ties, a secure job, an estab-
lished reputation, and such things make identity secure, and someone with all
those things is not likely to have identity problems. One reason for the in-
creased concern over identity in modern life is that many things that once pro-
vided continuity and differentiation no longer do so (Baumeister, 1986). For
example, in previous centuries many people would live their entire lives in the
same locale, even having the same neighbors and friends, but now people are
much more mobile, so home and friendship networks are no longer the sources
of stability that they once were.
The makeup of each individual identity is different, but there are certain
broad common features. Identity seems to include at least three major types of
things. First, it includes ones interpersonal self: how others know you, your in-
terpersonal style, your reputation, and so forth. Second, it includes some con-
cept of potentiality, that is, of what you may become. Third, it includes some
general values, principles, and priorities.

Identity Crises
The notion of an identity crisis appears to be a modern phenomenon. Peo-
ple in the Middle Ages, for example, do not seem to have had identity crises or
anything resembling them. Likewise, there is not much evidence of identity
crises in cultures very different from our own. Probably identity crises are fos-
tered by some of the unique features of modern Western cultures (see Baumeis-
ter, 1986, 1987).
The term identity crisis was coined by Erik Erikson in the 1940s. It was
quickly adopted and used by many people, which suggests that it named an ex-
perience that was already common and widespread. Erikson thought that
270 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

nearly everyone has an identity crisis during adolescence, although in many

cases this could be an unconscious crisis so the person would be unaware of it.
Erikson believed that the identity crisis resulted from the need to separate one-
self emotionally from ones parents (cf. Blos, 1962) and to make basic decisions
about ones values, goals, and ambitions in life.
In the 1960s, psychologists started to do research on identity crises. They
soon abandoned Eriksons original theory that everyone goes through an iden-
tity crisis. Instead, they began to think that some people go through life with-
out ever having such a crisis, although many others have important crises. Re-
searchers became interested in comparing people who had identity crises
against people who did not have them.
James Marcia (1966, 1967) developed a typology of people based on iden-
tity crises. Four types of people were distinguished, based on two dimensions:
(1) Has the person ever had an active period of identity crisis? (2) Does the per-
son have a stable identity based on firm commitments? Here are the four types:

Identity Achieved: Crisis plus Commitment People who have had an identity
crisis and resolved it are classified as identity-achieved. They are typically re-
garded as being mature, capable individuals, whose identity is solidly based on
the outcome of a personal struggle.

Moratorium: Crisis but no Commitment When there is evidence of an identity

crisis but firm commitments are lacking, the individual is classified as having
moratorium status. In most cases, this means that the identity crisis is cur-
rently in progress. These people are thus currently, actively struggling to form
an identity. They are often thoughtful individuals, open to experimenting with
new ideas and lifestyles. They sometimes seem to change their personalities and
styles from day to day. Part of this process of change results from their efforts
to try out different ways of being in order to see how these feel and what reac-
tions they get. The term moratorium comes from Eriksons term psychosocial
moratorium, which he used to refer to the modern status of adolescence in
which the individual is psychologically grown up in many respects but is not
well integrated into society. Rather, the person is left for several years (as in col-
lege) with minimal social obligations and commitments so as to be free to try
out different ways of forming an identity.

Foreclosure: Commitment Without Crisis When the person has a stable, com-
mitted identity but there is no sign of having had a period of crisis, he or she is
classified as foreclosure status. In most cases, these are people who have re-
mained close to how their parents brought them up, perhaps with minor mod-
ifications (usually ones that the parents would approve). Children are almost
all classified as having foreclosed identities until an identity crisis starts, and
if no crisis ever happens the person simply remains in the foreclosed status.
Foreclosure status is a complex one. On the surface, these people tend to
seem unusually mature, often having adult values, plans, and opinions while
still in their teens. But this is partly an illusion, for these signs of maturity are
simply accepted from the parents rather than acquired personally. Upon closer
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 271

inspection, many people with foreclosed identities turn out to be rigid and in-
flexible, defensive, even insecure. They are often the exact opposite of the
moratorium status individuals who are open to trying out new things; fore-
closures tend to be uninterested in new ideas or experimental lifestyles. The
rigidity of the foreclosed individual may cause problems when the person
comes under stress or tries to form intimate relationships.
Other work soon showed, however, that foreclosure status is a reasonably
healthy one for females (e.g., Damon, 1983; Waterman, 1982). Apparently, fe-
males can grow up to be normal and capable without an identity crisis. In our
culture, maturity may require the male to reject parental teachings and find his
or her own identity, but a female may do just fine to remain close to the values
and goals her parents taught her. Given the rapid recent changes in the feminine
sex role and womans places in society, these results are likely to change from
one generation to the next. For the present, though, it is important to remem-
ber that most of the disadvantages of the foreclosure status have mainly been
documented among males.

Identity Diffusion: Neither Crisis nor Commitment The last category refers to
people who have neither had an identity crisis not remained foreclosed in the
commitments they were brought up with. These identity diffuse people lack
a stable, committed identity, but they do not seem to mind this, and they are
not engaged in any struggle to form one. Identity diffusion can border on psy-
chopathology. This may be because the mentally ill do not tend to have and re-
solve identity crises and are most comfortable with a vague, uncommitted po-
sition in society. At best, individuals with diffuse identities tend to be
perpetual teenagers, people who seem to thrive on the uncommitted lifestyle
of adolescence and who may seek to prolong it long after others have formed
adult identities. They may shun long-term relationships that might lead to mar-
riage, and they postpone career choices and other decisions that solidify the
adult identity.
Perhaps surprising, most of the research suggests that identity crises are
good for you, even though they may be unpleasant. Research shows that peo-
ple who experience identity crisesespecially people who successfully resolve
them and reach identity-achieved statusare superior to others on many
things, including academic performance at college, motivation and ambition,
ability to adapt and perform under stress, and ability to form mature, intimate
relationships (Bernard, 1981; Bourne, 1978). Many of the studies providing
this evidence used males only, so it is less clear whether identity crises are good
for females. There is some suggestion that women with foreclosed identities are
just as capable and mature as those with achieved identities, although identity-
diffuse females are worse off (e.g., Marcia & Scheidel, 1983). There is almost
nothing to suggest that identity crises have negative effects on males or females.
The best conclusion at present, then, is that identity crises are beneficial for
males and either beneficial or neutral for females.
What is an identity crisis like, and how does it happen? When researchers
attempted to answer this question, they came to the conclusion that all identity
crises are not the same. There appear to be at least two major types of identity
272 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

crises, which follow quite different patterns and processes. These two types of
identity crisis may be called identity deficit and identity conflict (Baumeister,
Shapiro, & Tice, 1985; Baumeister, 1986). Lets take a look at these two types
of identity crisis.
Identity deficit is just what it sounds like, that is, the person does not have
enough identity to deal with life and make major decisions. This type of
identity crisis may be caused by reaching a point in life where major decisions
need to be made, but the person does not have a satisfactory inner basis for
making them. Adolescence is a prime example, for in our culture adolescents
need to make the choices that will shape their adult identitiesespecially
choosing a career and a spousebut such decisions are enormously difficult
because one lacks information and there are many possible options. As a result,
the person often feels a need to look inside himself or herself to find the basis
for making these decisions. Sometimes a person will look inside and imme-
diately feel a strong preference for one course of action, but in many other cases
there is nothing inside to make the choice. That is called an identity deficit.
Identity deficits arise when people reject some beliefs or values or ambi-
tions that they have been taught or have long held. Adolescents, for example,
are often in the process of rejecting many things their parents taught them. Ev-
idence suggests that adolescent identity crises may be more common in males
than females, probably because males tend to make more drastic breaks with
their parents than females do (e.g., Blos, 1962). There is also evidence that ado-
lescents are more likely to have an identity crisis if they attend college than if
they go right to work out of high school (Morash, 1980), because college pres-
ents individuals with many new ideas and opinions that encourage them to
question parental teachings.
The individual who rejects many of his or her beliefs, values, and goals thus
creates an inner vacuum that constitutes the identity deficit. This inner vacuum
often causes an active search for new views to replace the discarded ones. Peo-
ple having identity deficit crises are often very interesting people, for they are
busily exploring and trying out many new ideas and new ways of relating to
others. They are also more vulnerable to influence than other people are, prob-
ably because the inner vacuum makes them receptive to new views. Recruiters
for religious cults, for example, may often have their best success with people
in the midst of identity deficit crises.
The emotional side of an identity deficit may seem like a roller-coaster
ride from despair to euphoria and back again, in rapid succession. People
having such crises may feel depressed and bewildered at times, and the lack of
certainty about where their lives are going may seem alternately like an exhil-
arating breadth of opportunity and freedom, and a dispiriting, confusing
meaninglessness.
Not everyone has an identity crisis at adolescence, of course, and not every-
one who does have one manages to resolve it. But for those who do, the reso-
lution of an identity deficit seems to be a two-step process. First, the person re-
solves the fundamental issues of value and meaning. That is, he or she decides
on basic, abstract principles, such as what is important in life. The second step
is to translate these abstract values and convictions into concrete, realistic am-
bitions. For example, someone may first struggle to reach the decision that
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 273

what he wants out of life is to help others and to earn a comfortable salary; in
the second stage, these general values are elaborated into a specific desire, such
as becoming a physician or psychotherapist. Once this is done, the identity cri-
sis is ended, and the person begins to work toward fulfilling these goals.
Identity crises are most common at adolescence, but there may be a second
set of them at midlife (Levinson, 1978). Some evidence indicates that many men
grow dissatisfied with their lives around the age of 40. They often feel that
things have not turned out the way they had envisioned them. They come to re-
alize that the goals that have guided them ever since adolescence are either not
going to be reachedor, if they do reach them, this will not bring satisfaction
and fulfillment. As a result, many men begin to discard, downplay, or reject
these goals, and an identity deficit is the result. Males with midlife crises show
many of the same signs and symptoms of adolescent identity crises. They may
detach themselves from their family, experiment with new opinions and
lifestyles, rethink their career ambitions or even change careers, and so forth.
Most often, they change their priorities among career, family, religion, and
other involvements, such as by deciding to work less hard and spend more time
with their wives and children. Although this initial research has used only male
subjects, there may well be comparable patterns for women.
If identity deficit means having too little identity to make vital life deci-
sions, identity conflict is the opposite problem. An identity conflict is an incon-
sistency or incompatibility between two parts of the self. In most cases, these
parts of the self were not initially in conflict, but circumstances brought them
into conflict (such as by forcing a decision that affects both parts). Identity con-
flict means that the person has several identity components that disagree about
the best decision to make. For example, a working mother who is offered a pro-
motion that would entail increased responsibility and travel may be torn be-
tween her work identity (which tells her to accept the promotion) and her iden-
tity as a mother (which may tell her not to take time away from her family).
This form of identity crisis also occurs among immigrants, who want to remain
loyal to their old culture while embracing the new one. It can also occur in mar-
riages between people who come from strong but different religious back-
grounds, especially if there is pressure to convert. Loyalty to spouse may then
conflict with maintaining ones most deeply held beliefs. It may well also arise
among students who are the first in their family to attend college: They may be
proud and highly motivated to get an education beyond what their parents and
relatives received, yet they may also find that the education moves them away
from their heritage and causes them to question the values that linked them to
their families.
We saw earlier that identity deficits can be an emotional roller coaster,
with both exhilarating and depressing phases. Identity conflicts do not appear
to have these fluctuations, for there is little that is positive or pleasant about
identity conflict. People having such crises tend to suffer, to feel that they are
being traitors who are betraying some important part of themselves and
others as well. They do not tend to show the openness to new ideas or the ex-
ploration and experimentation typical of identity deficits. Also, unlike the
effect of identity deficits, there is nothing to suggest that identity conflicts are
good for you.
274 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

Resolving an identity conflict is a difficult matter. Sometimes people simply

have to renounce some important part of themselves. In other cases, there are
various compromise solutions. The person may choose one of the conflicting
parts of identity but find some way of retaining something of the loser of
this inner struggle. Some people compartmentalizethat is, try to keep two
rigidly separate spheres of their lives, to prevent the two parts of their identity
from coming into open conflict.
Identity crises, whether deficit or conflict, are difficult periods in life.
They involve changing the self to adapt to new circumstances. Although they
may be depressing and even painful, most people apparently come through
them quite well in the end. In many cases, the person is better off for having
had the crisis.

SUMMARY
The self is a large, complex structure. Self-concept refers to how the person
thinks of himself or herself, that is, the persons own beliefs and ideas about this
self. Self-esteem refers to the evaluative dimension of the self-conceptthat is,
how good a person one is. Identity refers to definitions of the self that are cre-
ated jointly by the individual, relatives and acquaintances, and society.
Childrens self-concepts begin with awareness of their bodies and with
knowing that they are male or female children belonging to a particular fam-
ily. Around age 2, self-concept begins to be heavily based on knowledge of
what the child can and cannot do. The emphasis on competency and control
grows steadily through the later phase of childhood and increasingly involves
comparing ones own abilities against those of other children. Older children
also gradually begin to develop a notion of the self as something inner, includ-
ing thoughts and feelings.
The quest for self-knowledge is dominated by three main motives: the de-
sire to learn accurate information about oneself, the desire to confirm what one
already knows about oneself, and the desire to hear favorable, flattering things
about oneself. The first (self-assessment) of these motive is seemingly the most
adaptive, because it should yield the most useful information. Nonetheless, the
last (self-enhancement) motive seems to be the most powerful.
Self-knowledge does not seem to be all integrated into a single, unified
structure. Rather, people have a great deal of knowledge and information about
the self that is only loosely interrelated. At various times, different aspects of
self-knowledge take center stage in awareness, often in response to the imme-
diate situation or context, so people may regard themselves differently in dif-
ferent situations. Rather than speaking of a single self-concept, it seems more
appropriate to speak of a collection of self-schemas. These include ideas about
what sort of person one is, as well as ideas about how one might possibly be-
come or would want to avoid being.
Once people form ideas about themselves, these are often strongly resistant
to change. Self-concept change can occur, however, especially when people in-
ternalize their own actions or new ways of looking at themselves. The social
network of interpersonal interactions seems to play a strong role in facilitating
versus preventing change in the self-concept.
 Chapter 9: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Identity 275

Self-esteem is a very important and influential aspect of the self-concept.

Most people think well of themselves and desire to increase their esteem (self-
enhancement) and desire to avoid loss of esteem (self-protection). In general,
people with high self-esteem are oriented toward self-enhancement, whereas
those with low self-esteem lean toward self-protection. Low self-esteem is asso-
ciated with greater vulnerability or susceptibility to influence, confusion in self-
knowledge, unpleasant and fluctuating emotional states, greater difficulty in
bouncing back after adversity, and less prejudice toward members of other
groups. High self-esteem appears to have the benefits of bringing a stock of
good feelings that can be a valuable resource (such as in times of stress) and
supporting greater initiative by the person.
Self-esteem does not seem to be as valuable or beneficial as is widely sup-
posed, and indeed high self-esteem (such as in a conceited person) can have sig-
nificant drawbacks and dangers. Nonetheless, people have a strong desire to
maintain self-esteem and think well of themselves. There are competing theo-
ries about why people are so concerned with self-esteem, including the view
that it helps them cope with misfortune, that it shields them from fear of death,
or that it keeps track of their social standing with regard to getting along with
other people. People pursue and protect their self-esteem with a broad variety
of strategies, many of which involve stretching or distorting the truth so as to
make themselves look and feel better.
Three main patterns of parenting seem to be associated with strong, high
self-esteem in children. These include showing unconditional love for the child,
setting firm rules and expectations, and giving the child approval and freedom
when the childs behavior stays within the prescribed limits.
Identity consists of a set of partial definitions of the self, each of which is
one answer to the question Who are you? Identity is defined according to
continuity across time and differentiation from others. It has three functional
aspects: an interpersonal aspect (social roles and reputation), a potentiality as-
pect, and a values aspect.
Not everyone has identity crises, but many people do. The two main types
of crisis include identity deficit, in which an inner vacuum is created when the
person rejects some important parts of the self, and identity conflict, in which
two or more parts of the self disagree about the best course of action. Identity
deficits occur most commonly at adolescence and midlife; they appear to have
beneficial effects on males, and perhaps for females as well. Identity conflicts
can occur at any point in life. They are difficult to resolve and seem to have lit-
tle positive value for the individual.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. When people tell you about themselves, how much can you believe them?
What factors might prevent them from giving accurate answers?
2. Should American schools try to increase self-esteem among pupils?
3. Is self-esteem as important in other cultures as it is in modern North
America?
4. Do you think an identity crisis is a beneficial experience for most people?
What people might benefit most and least from it?
276 Part 2: Topics in Personality Research

5. Do you think people are born with a certain level of self-esteem, or is self-
esteem entirely the result of experiences?
6. Why do you think people are so interested in learning about themselves
yet so willing to hear biased or distorted or unreliable information (such as
in horoscopes)?

SUGGESTED READINGS
Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. T. Gilbert, Kagan, J. (1981) The second year: The emergence of
S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social self-awareness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
psychology (4th ed., pp. 680740). New York: Press. An eminent child psychologist describes in a
McGraw-Hill. This is a thorough coverage of what vivid and entertaining manner how children learn to
personality and social psychologists have learned know themselves.
about the self. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and
Emler, N. (2001). Self-esteem: The costs and conse- well-being: A social psychological perspective on
quences of low self-worth. York, England: York mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103,
Publishing Services. A recent and easy-to-read sum- 193210. One of the most heavily cited articles on
mary of research on self-esteem, presenting a bal- the self of all time, this review of multiple studies
anced view of what high self-esteem does and does shows how self-concepts are systematically dis-
not contribute to desirable outcomes. tortedand argues that such distortions are not
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New only normal but even healthy and desirable.
York: Norton. This is one of the classic works on
identity, in which Erikson explains his seminal the-
ory of identity based on clinical observations.

SUGGESTED WEB SITES

http://www.psych.neu.edu/ISSI/ http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/
This is the official site of the International Society selfandidentity.html
for Self and Identity, which as the title indicates is an This web site is devoted to the scientific journal Self
international organization of experts and researchers and Identity, which publishes cutting-edge new re-
on the topic. The site reports the doings of the or- search on those topics. Log on to learn the latest
ganization and useful new information in the study findings by leaders in the field.
of self and identity.

INFOTRAC COLLEGE EDITION SEARCH TOPICS

Self-concept Self-esteem Identity crisis
Self-knowledge Identity

REFERENCES
Aberson, C. L., Healy, M., & Romero, V. (2000). In- Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1979). Judgment of
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