Self-concept

Self-esteem is how high or low a person himself evaluates his personal qualities and capabilities.

Self-esteem indicators are not obvious. A person’s self-esteem can be judged on the basis of what a person thinks about himself (“I understand this” — or “I’m a sucker in this”, “I’m known and respected here” — or “I’m nobody here”) that a person about feels himself (pride or desire to fall through the ground) and how a person behaves, how he holds himself (confidently and timidly, with dignity or stewed). See →

Sometimes self-assessment is referred to as an assessment process, but more often self-assessment refers to the result of an assessment, the final living opinion or a person’s feeling about himself.

With all the closeness of concepts, self-esteem should be distinguished from self-attitude: relationship to oneself, which includes self-love and self-respect, exactingness towards oneself and self-acceptance, elements of self-admiration and self-accusation.

A person may have high self-esteem: “I am talented!” and at the same time low self-esteem: «Talented, and at the same time a decent beast.»

The simplest type of self-esteem is the assessment of one’s ability to do something, to cope with something. “I can jump over puddles” in a child or “Mastered speed reading” in an adult — this is all a person’s self-assessment of their abilities. Another type of self-esteem is personal self-esteem: how a person as a whole evaluates himself as a person and his character, his place among others and his place in life.

“You know, I have a bad character”, “I am not a leader, I am always second” or “I have difficulty with discipline, I don’t know how to organize myself!” — all these are variants of various personal self-assessments.

This includes a vision of one’s status, and important social roles for a person, and a vision of life tasks that a person evaluates as «I can do it.» Personal self-esteem is usually more a feeling than knowledge, more often a lifestyle and behavior than clear formulations — this self-esteem is more difficult to formulate and less internally differentiated than self-esteem of abilities.

Personal self-esteem and self-esteem of abilities within one person can vary greatly. “I feel great about people, I’m a talented musician and I draw well, but I’m a slob by nature, I’m not sure of myself, I’m suspicious and I don’t understand what I want” — a positive self-assessment of abilities and at the same time a negative personal self-assessment.

Personal self-esteem is stable, little dependent on the success of a person in certain specific situations: for example, an impoverished countess can still feel like a noblewoman and behave accordingly, even if today she has to work as a waitress. Other people have self-esteem floating, depending on the current mood and situational success or failure.

So, many talented creative people suddenly decide: “If the public didn’t understand this work of mine, then I’m nobody at all!”

The two main types of self-assessment are general and situational. At the same time, self-esteem can be adequate (high, medium, low) and inadequate: underestimated or overestimated. It can be floating or stable, real and «supposedly» …

The self-esteem of the child is usually determined by the parents of their attitude towards him. More broadly, a child’s self-esteem is formed in connection with relationships in the family, since the family itself is the world of the child. An active child selects for himself the self-esteem that best solves his problems (this can be both overestimated and low self-esteem), the self-esteem of a passive child is a direct reflection of parental suggestions. Self-esteem is usually higher in the first and only children, as well as in children in a special position (for example, a son born after several daughters). The better the atmosphere in the family, the more calm and joyful the mother, and the more authoritative and demanding the father, the higher the self-esteem of the child. If you praise a child, this is useful for self-esteem, but it is important to be able to praise correctly. See →

The main factors that determine the self-esteem of an adult are status and competence. In addition, the opinions of others, the experience of success or failure, and the person’s attitude towards himself usually also influence. And most importantly, a person can determine his self-esteem himself — after all, this is a “self-assessment”. Personal choice is always possible here. Someone arbitrarily overestimates their self-esteem, someone underestimates.

What affects self-esteem? On its own, nothing. Self-esteem is only a tool in the hands of a particular person, and how a person uses this tool is a separate question … One person with low self-esteem will give up, another will start working on himself. Your choice?

In order to raise your self-esteem, you must first develop your real skills, increase your objective value for people and life. However, there are many simple chips that will solve the issue at least situationally.

Self esteem and confidence

High self-esteem is almost the same as a high sense of self-confidence. Low self-esteem is almost the same as a lack of self-confidence.

Any self-assessment can be combined with varying degrees of confidence in statements and different confidence in behavior.

“I am sure that I will not be able to cope with this: my qualifications are clearly insufficient” — high confidence and low self-esteem.

“Well, I don’t know … But it seems to me that I can succeed, but I’m always lucky!” low confidence and high self-esteem.