Better than Self-Esteem Is Reality-Esteem

From FEE.org:

Since 1966, the American Freshman Survey has tracked the attitudes of first-year college students. Over time, there has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of freshman seeing themselves as above average or even gifted, even as measured abilities have gone down. Students’ self-reported “drive to succeed” has gone up, as the time students spend studying has gone down.

Among students, narcissism has increased while performance has declined.

Researchers, led by famed psychologist Roy Baumeister, conducted an extensive review of scholarly literature to examine links between self-esteem and academic and job performance. Little evidence was found to support the idea that increasing self-esteem is the pathway to success.

Are interpersonal relationships strengthened by higher levels of self-esteem? Again researchers say no:

People with high self-esteem claim to be more popular and socially skilled than others, but objective measures generally fail to confirm this and in some cases point in the opposite direction… People who have elevated or inflated views of themselves tend to alienate others.

Have we put the cart before the horse? To accomplish almost all worthwhile goals, we need more than our “boldest self.” We need the cooperation of others. Without a vibrant society, we can achieve little on our own. What we seem to lack these days is not self-esteem but esteem for liberty that promotes human cooperation.

A focus on self-esteem does not lead to healthy individualism. In his essay“Individualism: True and False,” F.A. Hayek warned against “rationalistic pseudo-individualism” which holds that everything can be controlled by a perfectible human mind. True individualism, on the other hand, Hayek writes, “is a product of an acute consciousness of the limitations of the individual mind which induces an attitude of humility toward the impersonal and anonymous social processes by which individuals help to create things greater than they know.”  [read more]

The author says we should seek self-respect rather than self-esteem. Good advice. A lot of dictators have great self-esteem. But how many of those respected? Probably not very many.