Rise and Fall of Self-Esteem, The

Muse, Feb 2005 by Stephenson, Frank, Lindley, David

"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."