Andrew Sullivan discusses why a lack of self-esteem may not necessarily be a bad thing. Most, if not all of us, grew up being taught that having high self-esteem was the ticket to success, riches, and happiness. Well, that might not be quite so true after all.
You know what self-esteem is: according to decades of psychological and educational theory, it's the essential building block for a successful life. A few generations of children, especially minority kids, have been educated according to the theory that they lack self-esteem, that this deficiency is central to any problems they may have in making their way in the world and that the worst thing you can ever do to a child is to tell her that she isn't all that.
Well, guess what? Self-esteem isn't all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, as a brief recounting of Bob Torricelli's career would usefully illustrate, it can be a huge part of the problem. New research has found that self-esteem can be just as high among D students, drunk drivers and former Presidents from Arkansas as it is among Nobel laureates, nuns and New York City fire fighters. In fact, according to research performed by Brad Bushman of Iowa State University and Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University, people with high self-esteem can engage in far more antisocial behavior than those with low self-worth. "I think we had a great deal of optimism that high self-esteem would cause all sorts of positive consequences and that if we raised self-esteem, people would do better in life," Baumeister told the Times. "Mostly, the data have not borne that out." Racists, street thugs and school bullies all polled high on the self-esteem charts. And you can see why. If you think you're God's gift, you're particularly offended if other people don't treat you that way. So you lash out or commit crimes or cut ethical corners to reassert your pre-eminence. After all, who are your moral inferiors to suggest that you could be doing something, er, wrong? What do they know?
Self-esteem can also be an educational boomerang. Friends of mine who teach today's college students are constantly complaining about the high self-esteem of their students. When the kids have been told from Day One that they can do no wrong, when every grade in high school is assessed so as to make the kid feel good rather than to give an accurate measure of his work, the student can develop self-worth dangerously unrelated to the objective truth. He can then get deeply offended when he's told he is getting a C grade in college and become demoralized or extremely angry. Weak professors give in to the pressure — hence, grade inflation. Tough professors merely get exhausted trying to bring their students into vague touch with reality.
Once this concept sinks in, it does begin to make sense. Perhaps those of us (like myself, f'rinstance) who were not blessed with an overabundance of self-esteem will do things like, oh, I don't know...work harder? Fear of failure, one of the byproducts of low self-esteem, can be turned into a positive thing. You just might see some other benefits as well: greater self-control and impulse control, people taking responsibility for themselves and the well-being of others, perhaps even a diminshed self-centeredness. Those are things that would be welcome changes. I just never thought that lower self-esteem would be viewed as a contributing factor.
