Dr. Jim Taylor, Ph.D., Psychology and adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco claims that our entire nation has self-esteem issues.
The issue, he argues, lies therein the fact that for the past 40 years, we’ve spent so much time stepping around everyone’s feelings that we’ve fostered a culture who has high self-esteem based on zero merit.
In a Huffington Post article penned by Taylor, he writes that “Self-esteem is commonly thought of as how we feel about ourselves, our appraisal of our own self-worth. But real self-esteem is a complex attribute that has become one of the most misunderstood and misused psychological characteristics of the last 40 years.”
Taylor continues to write, “America's self-esteem problem began because parents and other influences on self-esteem (e.g., teachers and coaches) got the wrong messages about self-esteem from those experts. Instead of creating children with true self-esteem, our country has created a generation of children who, for all the appearances of high self-esteem, actually have little regard for themselves (because they have little on which to base their self-esteem).”
Taylor argues that our political correctness and our fear of hurting our kids’ feelings is to blame for low self-esteem levels. While we may tell ourselves we have high self-esteem, many Americans have nothing on which to validate our esteem other than the grooming over the years of being told ‘you’re smart’, ‘you’re pretty’ or ‘you’re a great athlete’.
Taylor argues we’ve all got issues, while a research team from Switzerland unearths a few more specifics regarding self-esteem in America.
Researchers from the University of Basel in Switzerland analyzed U.S. data on self-esteem and found differentiation of self-esteem levels are based largely on race and age.
In a report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the researchers analyzed U.S. data of more than 7,000 young adults from 1994 to 2008, ranging in ages from 14 to 30 years old. Over the course of 14 years, the study's authors examined how five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) effected the youth's self-esteem.
The Switzerland researchers found that Hispanics have lower self-esteem than blacks or whites in the teen years, but by age 30, Hispanics’ self-esteem has actually increased and surpassed whites’ self esteem. Furthermore, in both adolescence and young adulthood, blacks have higher self-esteem than whites.
"We tested for factors that we thought would have an impact on how self-esteem develops," the study's lead author, Ruth Yasemin Erol, said in a news release from the American Psychological Association. "Understanding the trajectory of self-esteem is important to pinpointing and timing interventions that could improve people's self-esteem."
While the authors from Switzerland don’t provide much analysis as to why the self-esteem levels of the different races change over time, looking at Taylor’s argument may provide insight.
If children are less coddled in childhood – i.e. not told ‘you’re beautiful’, you’re smart’ on a continual basis – then they would self report as to having lower self-esteem growing up. But as people age and are able to reflect on the hardships of adolescence devoid in self-esteem, they are able to see that overcoming obstacles and persevering actually give oneself more self-value, self-worth and ultimately, self-esteem.
Self-Esteem Levels Vary by Age, Race, Study Finds
http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=654898
America's Self-Esteem Problem
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jim-taylor/americas-self-esteem-prob_b_607718.html
Reviewed July 18, 2011
by Michele Blacksberg R.N.
Edited by Shannon Koehle
Bailey Mosier is a freelance journalist living in Orlando, Florida. She received a Masters of Journalism from Arizona State University, played D-I golf, has been editor of a Scottsdale-based golf magazine and currently contributes to GolfChannel.com. She aims to live an active, healthy lifestyle full of sunshine and smiles.