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In sociology and psychology, self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs (for example, "I am competent," "I am worthy") and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) defined it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it." Self-esteem is attractive as a social psychological construct because researchers have conceptualized it as an influential predictor of certain outcomes, such as academic achievement, happiness , satisfaction in marriage and relationships , and criminal behavior. Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension (for example, "I believe I am a good writer and I feel happy about that") or a global extent (for example, "I believe I am a bad person, and feel bad about myself in general"). Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality characteristic ("trait" self-esteem), though normal, short-term variations ("state" self-esteem) also exist. Synonyms or near-synonyms of self-esteem include: self-worth ,self-regard, self-respect  , and self-integrity.

History
The identification of self-esteem as a distinct psychological construct is thought to have its origins in the work of William James (1892). James identified multiple dimensions of the self, with two levels of hierarchy: processes of knowing (called the 'I-self') and the resulting knowledge about the self (the `Me-self'). Observation and storage by the I-self create three types of knowledge, which collectively account for the Me-self, according to James. These are the material self, social self, and spiritual self. The social self comes closest to self-esteem, comprising all characteristics recognized by others. The material self consists of representations of the body and possessions, and the spiritual self of descriptive representations and evaluative dispositions regarding the self. This view of self-esteem as the collection of an individual's attitudes toward oneself remains today.

In the mid-1960s, sociologist Morris Rosenberg defined self-esteem as a feeling of self-worth and developed the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES), which became the most-widely used scale to measure self-esteem in the social sciences.

In the early 20th century, the behaviorist movement minimized introspective study of mental processes, emotions and feelings, which was replaced by objective study through experiments on behaviors observed in relation with environment. Behaviorism placed the human being as an animal subject to reinforcements, and suggested placing psychology as an experimental science, similar to chemistry or biology. As a consequence, clinical trials on self-esteem were overlooked, since behaviorists considered the idea less liable to rigorous measurement hypothesis. In the mid-20th century, the rise of phenomenology and humanistic psychotherapy led to renewed interest in self-esteem. Self-esteem took a central role in personal self-actualization and in the treatment of psychic disorders. Psychologists started to consider the relationship between psychotherapy and the personal satisfaction of a person with high self-esteem as useful to the field. This was able to lead to new elements being introduced to the concept of self-esteem. This included things such as helping to understand the reasons why people tend to feel less worthy. Other elements added to the concept of self-esteem were understanding why people become discouraged or unable to understand challenges by themselves.

Currently, the core self-evaluations approach includes self-esteem as one of four dimensions that comprise one's fundamental appraisal of oneself, along with locus of control, neuroticism, and self-efficacy. The concept of core self-evaluations as first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997), has since proven to have the ability to predict several work outcomes, specifically, job satisfaction and job performance. . Self-esteem may, in fact, be one of the most essential core self-evaluation dimensions because it is the overall value one feels about oneself as a person.

Effect on Public Policy
The importance of self-esteem has gained endorsement from some government and non-government groups starting around the 1970s, such that one can speak of a self-esteem movement. This movement can be used as an example of promising evidence that psychological research can have an effect on forming public policy. The underlying idea of the movement was that low self-esteem was the root of the problem for individuals, making it the root of societal problems and dysfunctions. A leading figure of the movement was Nathaniel Branden who was quoted as saying, “[I] cannot think of a single psychological problem – from anxiety and depression, to fear of intimacy or of success, to spouse battery or child molestation – that is not traced back to the problem of low self-esteem”. .

Self-esteem was believed to be a cultural phenomenon of Western individualistic societies since low self-esteem was not occurring in collectivist countries such as Japan. The idea of low self-esteem and its many negative consequences led California assemblyman John Vasconcellos to work to create and fund the Task Force on Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility in Califronia in 1986. Vasconcellos argued that this task force could combat many of the state’s problems from crime and teen pregnancy to school underachievement and pollution. He compared increasing self-esteem to giving out a vaccine for a disease: it could help protect people from being overwhelmed by life’s challenges. The task force created committees in many California counties and compiled a committee of scholars to review the available literature on self-esteem. This committee found very small associations between low self-esteem and its assumed consequences, ultimately showing that low self-esteem is not the root of all societal problems and not as important as the committee had originally thought. However, the authors of the paper that summarized the review of the literature still believe that self-esteem is an independent variable that affects major social problems. The task force disbanded in 1995, and the National Council for Self-Esteem and later the National Association for Self-Esteem (NACE) was established taking on the task force’s mission. Vasconcellos and Jack Canfield were a part of its advisory board in 2003, and members of its Masters’ Coalition included Anthony Robbins, Bernie Siegel, and Gloria Steinem

Theories
Many early theories suggested that self-esteem is a basic human need or motivation. American psychologist Abraham Maslow included self-esteem in his hierarchy of human needs. He described two different forms of “esteem”: the need for respect from others in the form of recognition, success, and admiration, and the need for self-respect in the form of self-love, self-confidence, skill, or aptitude. Respect from others was believed to be more fragile and easily lost than inner self-esteem. According to Maslow, without the fulfillment of the self-esteem need, individuals will be driven to seek it and unable to grow and obtain self-actualization. Maslow also states that the healthiest expression of self-esteem is the one we take deserve from others. It is more than just renown or flattery. Modern theories of self-esteem explore the reasons humans are motivated to maintain a high regard for themselves. Sociometer theory maintains that self-esteem evolved to check one's level of status and acceptance in ones' social group. According to Terror Management Theory, self-esteem serves a protective function and reduces anxiety about life and death.

Self-esteem is important because it shows ourselves how we view the way we are and the sense of our personal value. Thus, it affects the way we are and act in the world and the way we are related to everybody else.

Carl Rogers (1902-1987), an advocate of humanistic psychology, theorized the origin of many people’s problems to be that they despise themselves and consider themselves worthless and incapable of being loved. This is why Rogers believed in the importance of giving unconditional acceptance to a client and when this was done it could improve the client’s self-esteem. In his therapy sessions with clients, he offered positive regard no matter what. Indeed, the concept of self-esteem is approached since then in humanistic psychology as an inalienable right for every person, summarized in the following sentence:

Every human being, with no exception, for the mere fact to be it, is worthy of unconditional respect of everybody else; he deserves to esteem himself and to be esteemed.

Measurement
Self-esteem is typically assessed using self-report inventories.

One of the most widely used instruments, the RSES (Rosenberg, 1965) is a 10-item self-esteem scale scores that requires participants to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements about themselves. An alternative measure, The Coopersmith Inventory uses a 50-question battery over a variety of topics and asks subjects whether they rate someone as similar or dissimilar to themselves. If a subject's answers demonstrate solid self-regard, the scale regards them as well adjusted. If those answers reveal some inner shame, it considers them to be prone to social deviance.

Implicit measures of self-esteem began to be used in the 1980s. These rely on indirect measures of cognitive processing thought to be linked to implicit self-esteem, including the Name Letter Task. Such indirect measures are designed to reduce awareness of the process of assessment. When used to assess implicit self-esteem, psychologists feature self-relevant stimuli to the participant and then measure how quickly a person identifies positive or negative stimuli. For example if a woman was given the self-relevant stimuli of female and mother, psychologists would measure how quickly she identified the negative word, evil, or the positive word, kind.

Development Across Lifespan
Experiences in a person's life are a major source of how self-esteem develops. In the early years of a child's life, parents have a significant influence on self-esteem and can be considered a main source of positive and negative experiences a child will have. Unconditional love from parents helps a child develop a stable sense of being cared for and respected. These feelings translate into later effects of self-esteem as the child grows older. Students in elementary school who have high self-esteem tend to have authoritative parents who are caring, supportive adults who set clear standards for their child and allow them to voice their opinion in decision making.

Although studies thus far have reported only a correlation of warm, supportive parenting styles (mainly authoritative and permissive) and children having high self-esteem, these parenting styles could easily be thought of as having some causal effect in self-esteem development. Childhood experiences that contribute to healthy self-esteem include being listened to, being spoken to respectfully, receiving appropriate attention and affection and having accomplishments recognized and mistakes or failures acknowledged and accepted. Experiences that contribute to low self-esteem include being harshly criticized, being physically, sexually or emotionally abused, being ignored, ridiculed or teased or being expected to be "perfect" all the time.

During school-aged years, academic achievement is a significant contributor to self-esteem development. A student consistently achieving success or consistently failing will have a strong academic effect on their individual self-esteem. Social experiences are another important contributor to self-esteem. As children go through school, they begin to understand and recognize differences between themselves and their classmates. Using social comparisons, children assess whether they did better or worse than classmates in different activities. These comparisons play an important role in shaping the child's self-esteem and influence the positive or negative feelings they have about themselves. As children go through adolescence, peer influence becomes much more important. Adolescents make appraisals of themselves based on their relationships with close friends. Successful relationships among friends are very important to the development of high self-esteem for children. Social acceptance brings about confidence and produces high self-esteem, whereas rejection from peers and loneliness brings about self-doubts and produces low self-esteem.

Adolescence shows an increase in self-esteem that continues to increase in young adulthood and middle age. A decrease is seen from middle age to old age with varying findings on whether it is a small or large decrease. Reasons for the variability could be because of differences in health, cognitive ability, and socioeconomic status in old age. No differences have been found between males and females in their development of self-esteem. Multiple cohort studies show that there is not a difference in the life-span trajectory of self-esteem between generations due to societal changes such as grade inflation in education or the presence of social media.

High levels of mastery, low risk taking, and better health are ways to predict higher self-esteem. In terms of personality, emotionally stable, extroverted, and conscientious individuals experience higher self-esteem. These predictors have shown us that self-esteem has trait-like qualities by remaining stable over time like personality and intelligence. Although, this does not mean it can not be changed. Hispanic adolescents have a slightly lower self-esteem than blacks and white but then slightly higher levels by age 30. African Americans have a sharper increase in self-esteem in adolescence and young adulthood compared to Whites. However during old age, they experience a more rapid decline in self-esteem.

Shame
Shame can be a contributor to those with problems of low self-esteem. Feelings of shame usually occur because of a situation where the social self is devalued, such as a socially evaluated poor performance. A poor performance leads to higher responses of psychological states that indicate a threat to the social self namely a decrease in social self-esteem and an increase in shame. This increase in shame can be helped with self-compassion.

Real Self, Ideal Self, and Dreaded Self
There are four levels of self-evaluation development in relation to the Real Self, Ideal Self, and the Dreaded Self. The Real, Ideal, and Dreaded Selves develop in children in a sequential pattern on cognitive levels.

This development brings with it increasingly complicated and encompassing moral demands. Level 3 is where individuals’ self-esteem can suffer because they do not feel as though they are living up to certain expectations. This feeling will moderately affect one’s self-esteem with an even larger effect seen when individuals believe they are becoming their Dreaded Self
 * 1) Moral Judgment Stages: Individuals describe their Real, Ideal, and Dreaded Selves with stereotypical labels, such as "nice" or "bad". Individuals describe their Ideal and Real Selves in terms of disposition for action or as behavioral habits. The Dreaded Self is often described as being unsuccessful or as having bad habits.
 * 2) Ego Development Stages: Individuals describe their Ideal and Real Selves in terms of traits that are based in attitudes as well as actions. The Dreaded Self are often described as have failed to meet social expectations or as self-centered.
 * 3) Self-Understanding Stages: Individuals describe their Ideal and Real Selves as having a unified identity or character. Descriptions of the Dreaded Self focus on a failure to live up to one's ideals or role expectations often because of real world problems.