Self-Esteem Based on Popular Psychology Perspective

While it is not really the same thing, self esteem is often considered as self confidence where both terms signify how an individual value and evaluate himself.

High self esteem indicated by positive perspective of self-assessment, while low self esteem indicated by negative perspective of self-assessment. It is believed that self esteem level is significantly impact our quality of life in many areas - with the assumption that the higher level of self-esteem we have, the better quality of life we get.


However, facts show us that it 'adjusts' perception rather than reality, and the majority belief (about self esteem) is mostly based around anecdotal evidence, not based on solid scientific studies

What Makes The Hype

Just like many kinds of pseudo science, the public interest is mainly driven by authorities. In 1986, California legislature gave enormous amount of money for the purpose of increasing self esteem level of California citizens. The authority believed that there are many California citizen that has low self esteem level, with assumption that low level of self esteem contributes to many social problem just like crime, welfare dependency, schoold failure etc.


Nevertheless, classic psychological researches have demonstrated that cognitive and motivational processes (including self esteem) are highly related with self-serving bias - a condition where we connecting our achievements to personal factors, yet connecting failures to external conditions.

Empirical Evidence

An extensive research has been conducted by American Psychological Society to assess the correlation between self esteem level and its contribution to quality of life. It shows a different result than what most people expected:

Achievement produces self esteem, but there's no sign that high level of self esteem contributes neither to achievement nor quality of life. 

In a smaller scale, researchers also found that most American have high level of self esteem, and consider themselves better than others despite their race, sex or even social condition.

How about social problems such as crimes or bullies? It still doesn't make any difference. In fact, studies show that criminals, in many times, have higher level of self esteem compared to the victims. This means, a high level of self esteem can stimulate criminal behavior, rather than suppress it.

Further Reading:
Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., and Vohs, K. D. “Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness,or Healthier Lifestyles?” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4(1) (2003).