"I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!" Once upon a time, American children heard bedtime stories about a little engine that could. The message: You can overcome obstacles in life if you work hard and try your best. By the mid-1990s, children were hearing another message: You are a superstar! Special in every way!
In classrooms from California to Maine, pre-K through high school, American schoolchildren were learning that feeling good about themselves was very important. Kids found colorful signs hanging from school bathroom mirrors proclaiming: "LOOK! HERE IS A VERY SPECIAL STUDENT!" Teachers showed up in class every day wearing large buttons with such cheerful messages as: "I teach the best students in the world!" and "Have I told you how wonderful you are?"
But even as the self-esteem movement took off, researchers were finding that self-esteem wasn't all it was cracked up to be. By 2000, a spate of popular books declared that a heightened sense of self-worth does not better prepare kids for their lessons in reading, math, and science. Conservative commentator Charles Sykes-in his book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, A Write, or Add-cited research showing that the higher a student's opinion of himself, the worse his performance tended to be. He wrote: "American students who rank last in international comparisons of math abilities, for instance, rank first when they're asked how they feel about their math abilities."
Nevertheless, sales of books such as Today I Am Lovable: 365 Positive Activities for Kids by Diane Loomans continued apace. Among the book's recommended "activities" is the daily recitation of self-congratulatory phrases, such as "I am more amazing than I thought!" and "Today I will remind myself that I am a marvel."
So What's the Truth?
To get a solid grip on what's real and what's fantasy in self-esteem theory, the American Psychological Society decided to review the entire catalog of scientific studies on the topic. What the organization was proposing was the largest analysis of self-esteem research ever attempted.
The society asked a psychologist at Florida State University, Roy Baumeister, to lead the effort. As a graduate student Baumeister had accepted claims for the benefits of self-esteem uncritically. But his attitude changed in 1984, when he attended a scientific meeting at Stanford University. A sociologist turned to him at the meeting and asked: "What's wrong with self-esteem? How come it never does any good, never predicts anything?" Flummoxed, Baumeister set out to answer the sociologist's question, ultimately publishing several even-handed appraisals of self-esteem science that led to his selection to lead the American Psychological Society review.
In May 2003, Baumeister and his team published a 44-page synthesis of their findings. It was called "Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness, or Healthier Lifestyles?" Their conclusion: Self-esteem makes you feel good-but that's about it.
Does High Self-Esteem Lead to Higher Grades?
Of all the outcomes studied by Baumeister and his team, school performance was given the most attention. Much of the energy that has driven the self-esteem movement has come from a widely held belief that kids with high self-esteem make better grades.
Some of the best evidence reveals that it works the other way around-that kids with better grades go on to have higher senses of self-esteem. In a 1990 study of 600 Norwegian third- and sixth-graders, researchers tested kids who made good grades in a given school year. They found that, in the following year, those children's self-esteem had risen substantially.
Most of the studies showed little, if any, evidence that high self-esteem played any role in children's future success in the classroom. One of the more compelling studies, a 1986 investigation by two University of Michigan psychologists, Jerald Bachman and Patrick O'Malley, showed that such things as family income, IQ, and early school grades are far better predictors of children's academic success than their levels of self-esteem.
Does Low Self-Esteem Lead to Aggression?
Traditionally, bullies and other "toughs" have been profiled by psychologists as people with hidden feelings of inadequacy, a low self-esteem masked by a nasty, even vicious, exterior.
Norway's Dan Olweus was among the first psychologists to show that bullies typically have less anxiety and more confidence in themselves than the average person. In his 1997 book, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, Baumeister cites his and others' research showing that aggressive people typically have favorable-even dramatically inflated-views of themselves.
The upshot of all the best research done on the subject of aggression and self-esteem is that the relationship is nothing remotely like what so many have assumed for so long. "Generally speaking, people with low self-esteem tend to be shy, modest, self-effacing, reluctant to take risks, unsure about themselves, and likely to blame themselves for failure," Baumeister wrote. "Aggressive, violent people are not like that."
Does Low Self-Esteem Lead to Self-Destructive Behavior?
Can a better sense of self-worth keep us healthier? Keep us from smoking, abusing alcohol, and other drugs, from getting pregnant at 16? If we accept the standard code of today's self-help industry, the answer to all of the above is an unqualified "yes." Poor self-regard is the root of many social ills, we're told.
Baumeister's analysis of the data offers little support for such beliefs. Do people with high self-esteem have better relationships? The old saw that you have to love yourself before you can expect others to love you simply doesn't wash, says Baumeister. Studies show that people with high self-esteem often don't see the world around them as it really is. They think they're widely accepted socially, even loved, when in fact they're self-deluded. And science confirms that conceit is a big turnoff. "People who have elevated or inflated views of themselves tend to alienate others," the report states.
High self-esteem also does not prevent children from smoking, drinking, taking drugs, or engaging in early sex. For decades, psychologists studying smoking and drug addiction among youth have tried to pinpoint the psychological source of such damaging habits.
There are mountains of studies on the topic of teen smoking and its ties to self-esteem. The results are contradictory. At least three large studies done in Canada and in the U.S. found that smoking is indeed associated with low self-esteem. A 2001 North Carolina survey of 1200 10- to 15-year-olds living in the heart of the state's tobacco-producing region found a gender distinction. Girl smokers were far more likely to have lower opinions of themselves than boys who smoked.
But a number of other large studies found no link at all between self-esteem and smoking. What seems clear is that, in general, low self-esteem-at least by itself-does not cause kids to light up. "Most studies show that low self-esteem accounts for less than 1 percent [in a person's decision] to smoke or not," Baumeister said. The same holds for drinking and using drugs. "Whatever the causes of alcohol abuse and drug addiction," says Baumeister, "low self-esteem per se does not appear to be one of them."
But low self-esteem does play a substantial role in eating disorders, a big problem, particularly for young women. Today's teen- and college-aged women face a national epidemic of anorexia and bulimia, two closely associated emotional disorders that can be fatal if not treated. A great deal of evidence indicates that feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing-low self-esteem-are in fact risk factors in disordered eating, Baumeister's report noted. Work by Kathleen Vohs, one of the report's authors, for example, found that bulimia is strongly associated with low self-esteem.
What's Wrong with Feeling Good?
So, if there's no good evidence that self-esteem can reliably help students do better in school, stay out of trouble, get along better together, or act more responsibly when it comes to sex and use of alcohol and drugs-aside from keeping young girls from starving themselves-what good is it?
One of the things the research shows is that high self-esteem can make people more resilient, make them keep on plugging after initially failing at something. That attribute can plausibly contribute to what the research says is the number-one benefit for developing a good self-image. "The main thing self-esteem does for us, apparently, is to make us happier people," Baumeister said. "It makes us feel good, at least for a while."
Feeling good about oneself can be a fine thing, he said, particularly when troubles arise, as they inevitably do in all our lives. A genuine sense of self-esteem can give people a stock of positive attitudes that can help them cope with life's trials. People who don't have this handy psychological care-package are likely to be more vulnerable to stress and depression, he said.
Is the pursuit of happiness alone ample justification for keeping the self-esteem enterprise going? Baumeister and his co-authors don't think so. Ultimately, kids who are brought up in an environment where there's no clear link between personal accomplishment and self-worth pay a hefty emotional and even physical price down the road, they argue. Sudden doses of reality come as a real shock to students who lack the emotional fortitude for dealing effectively with failure or challenges to their lofty opinions of themselves. Such rude awakenings might drive kids to violence-even Columbine-level violence-when confronted with rejection or proof of their own inadequacies.
Or so says Martin Seligman, an outspoken critic of the self-esteem movement. Seligman considers self-esteem exercises a menace to society and would like to see school-based self-esteem programs shut down. "What I think has gone wrong," Seligman says, "is that we now think we should inject self-esteem directly into our young people, as opposed to producing warranted self-esteem, which I believe comes from doing well with the people you love, doing well in sports, [and] doing well in school."
© 2005 Carus Publishing Company Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Source: Muse
