Adequacy of self-esteem. Article. Self-love and self-acceptance. Self-knowledge.ru

Self-Esteem Functions

Material prepared by: Natalya Priymachenko, psychologist. In the process of self-knowledge, a person develops a certain emotional attitude towards himself. Combined with objective knowledge about oneself, this attitude forms the essence of self-esteem.

The essence of self-esteem

Self-awareness and self-esteem are the result of examining and comparing oneself with other people or with an ideal self-image.
The essence of self-esteem lies in a person’s attitude to his own qualities, behavior, capabilities, abilities and position in society. Self-assessment of behavior is carried out on the basis of social and moral norms, traditions and customs accepted in society. According to K. Rogers, high self-esteem, “looking ahead” of a person’s real capabilities, is necessary for personal growth.

It is with high self-esteem that a real understanding of the situation, oneself and the people around you is possible. The behavior of such a person is distinguished by the correspondence between the subjective and the real.

Advertising Thus, self-esteem is the main structural element of a person’s self-awareness. It plays a decisive role in self-regulation and self-education.

The role of self-esteem

It is difficult to overestimate the role of a person’s self-esteem in matters of his success and failure, his ability to realize himself in his personal life, work and society.
The way a person perceives his own “I”, evaluates his own capabilities, mental and physical strength, directly affects his life and the perception of him by others. Self-control and self-esteem are the regulator of human actions. Self-criticism, self-demandingness, one’s own attitude towards personal victories and defeats are the components that make up self-esteem.

Self-assessment performs the following main functions:

Self-knowledge is essentially the answer to the question “what am I worthy of?”, as well as the degree of self-esteem and a person’s idea of his own worth;
Predictive – the answer to the question “what can I do?” It is with this function of self-esteem that the level of aspirations, as well as the idea of self-efficacy, is most closely associated;
Protective – present only in the presence of adequate or inflated self-esteem and helps to survive failure with minimal consequences, without devaluing past achievements and one’s personality as a whole. It should be borne in mind that with low self-esteem this function is absent;
Regulatory – “what should I do, how should I behave.” This function reflects the relationship between self-esteem and human behavior aimed at achieving success.

This is precisely the main purpose of self-esteem: to most effectively regulate the behavior and activities of an individual. The highest form of self-esteem mechanisms consists in a creative attitude towards one’s own personality - the desire to change and improve oneself. The result of the formation of adequate self-esteem is the individual’s self-respect, his belief in his own strengths and capabilities. This is a self-assessment of life in general, not related to any specific area of life and expressing a person’s respectful attitude towards himself. Adequate self-esteem is self-acceptance, self-love.

Self-awareness and self-esteem

Self-esteem reflects the result of what a person learns in the process of self-knowledge and communication with other people, as well as his own activity aimed at realizing his actions and personal qualities.
Self-awareness is historically the most recent and fragile product of the development of the human psyche. Self-awareness involves awareness of one’s “I” in all the diversity of individual characteristics, separating oneself from the surrounding world and imagining oneself in comparison with other people. Self-awareness helps a person preserve himself and his “I”, as well as regulate the entire complex system of the internal mental world.

Self-awareness includes three main components: self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-education. Self-knowledge occurs through the process of comparing oneself with others. Self-analysis and self-esteem on the principle of “me and the other person” are retained by a person throughout his life and are based on his assessment of other people, as well as on the opinions of other people about him. This type of self-knowledge is very unstable, situational and can serve as a source of conflict situations, especially when a person imagines that he is always better than others.

A higher level of self-knowledge begins when a person moves to another manifestation of self-esteem: comparing himself not with other people, but only with himself, according to the “me and me” type.

A person learns to self-assess his emotional and personal qualities, actions, to compare what he was like yesterday and what he is like today. Self-assessment of mental states is impossible without developed skills of introspection and introspection. Adequate, constructive self-criticism is conducted not at the level of “me and the other person,” but at the level of “me and I.”

As a result of self-knowledge, a certain emotional and value-based attitude towards oneself is formed, i.e. self-esteem. It reflects a person’s idea of his abilities, qualities and actions, life goals and possibilities for achieving them, as well as his place in society.

Determination methods

You can determine your level of self-esteem using tests. Almost all self-esteem tests can be taken online for free. Most modern tests are little different and are based on existing ones. But there are more or less classic questionnaires that we have listed. If you are worried about the correctness of the results, go through 2-3 pieces.

Self-esteem tests for adults

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The oldest and simplest self-esteem test. Many psychologists create their tests based on it. On the Internet it is often called the “self-esteem scale”
Budassi self-esteem test. Sometimes used in the work of personnel managers, the test is based on a method for ranking qualities and exploring the relationship between the ideal self and the real self.
Sonersen test. A simple test of 50 questions, similar to the Rosenberg scale, but in a more advanced version
Cohen and Willianson Self-Assessment Test of Stress Resilience. Gives an assessment of your resistance to external stimuli and other people's behavior.
Cattell's 16-factor personality questionnaire. One of the most famous psychological tests. HR managers often use it or parts of it during interviews and employee evaluations.
Determining Kovalev's level of self-esteem. A simple self-judgment test.
Self-Esteem Stability Scale (SESS)
Instability of Self-Esteem Scale (ISES)

Self-esteem tests for children

The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Esteem Scale is a personality questionnaire for the study of self-judgments.
Demo-Rubenstein (Dembo) personality self-assessment test. A simple test that is often used in the post-Soviet space to evaluate schoolchildren.
The McDaniel-Pierce Scale is a reliable and popular instrument that is best suited for children ages 6 to 9 years.
Behavioral Academic Self-Assessment Scale - Useful as a teacher accountability tool.
The Martinek-Zajczkowski Self-Esteem Scale for Children is a self-assessment tool using pictures. It measures global self-esteem in grades 1-8.

Levels of self-esteem

Heightened self-esteem

People with high self-esteem think that they are always better than others in everything, that they are always right, and that they understand everything better than anyone else . This often makes it difficult to establish close, healthy relationships. Both friendly and more intimate. They always compete with someone, they always want to be in front, in sight, to be appreciated. For people with high self-esteem, happiness lies in achieving success, but the fact is that they do not achieve happiness by treating others this way. And they don’t always succeed in their careers, since one of the important elements of success is emotional intelligence, which is poorly developed in them.

People with high self-esteem do not work well in teams, do not listen to others, do not tolerate criticism of themselves, and are unable to criticize themselves. Therefore, they find it difficult to admit and correct their own mistakes. Therefore, a person with high self-esteem often blames others for his failures. .

These people find it very difficult to establish healthy relationships with others. They always look at everyone as competition.

But all this manifests itself if self-esteem is greatly inflated; slightly inflated self-esteem makes a person more positive, with a good sense of competition.

Adequate (normal) self-esteem

People with this type of self-esteem accept and value themselves. Read more about how to accept and love yourself. Such self-esteem allows a person to be satisfied with his life and himself. Does this mean that there will be no barriers? No, but self-confidence, the courage to take on any new endeavors and solve problems, makes everything much easier.

People with adequate self-esteem do not need to put themselves above others; they do not constantly seek to prove their worth by comparing themselves to a standard. “Their joy is in being who they are, not in being better than others.” - Nathaniel Branden

Believing in yourself and believing in who you are is what characterizes people who have normal self-esteem. It doesn't make them arrogant and they don't feel better than anyone else. They just need to provide security so that negative circumstances and events throw them off balance.

Low self-esteem

People with low self-esteem are the exact opposite of those with high self-esteem. They do not value themselves, do not believe in their capabilities, they are shy. And the uncertainty they may feel is present in almost every situation. Fear of failure is what plagues them and holds people with low self-esteem back. They are the epitome of unhappy people. They often play the role of lifelong victims. Read more about why we love to play victims and I am the victim.

The need to talk badly about others indicates low self-esteem. This means: “I feel so depressed that instead of getting up, I have to hurt others.” - Pope Francis. Those. criticism (unconstructive criticism) of other people allows a person to temporarily rise in his own eyes. But this doesn’t help for long, so you have to do it all the time. People with low self-esteem have moments of euphoria when everything is going well, but when things go badly, their self-esteem falls very quickly . These are sensitive people who are easily influenced and tend to express their opinions, but not defend them .

There are people with low self-esteem who are not so unstable; their problem is rather one of indecision. They have very little self-confidence, underestimate themselves, and are so afraid of screwing up that they constantly believe that they are not up to the circumstances.

In addition to gossip, low self-esteem among people in organizations and teams is often compensated by constant help to everyone or a large amount of social work. Low self-esteem is temporarily improved when a person is praised. But by following this path, a person takes on too many responsibilities and often fails to cope. Which makes his self-esteem drop even lower. People cannot ignore the opinions of other people, but the strong dependence of your self-esteem on other people's opinions indicates that it is low.