The Costly Pursuit of Self-Esteem

“Moreover, given that it is generally agreed that the capacity to master new skills is critical in order for humans to flourish (see Crocker and Park 2004 for a review), it is perhaps unsurprising to note it has been argued that many efforts to improve self-esteem should be abandoned (e.g., Crocker…”

“When boosting self-esteem or avoiding drops in self-esteem takes priority over other important goals, pursuing self-esteem can have costs for learning, self-regulation, relationships, and psychological well-being (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“, academics, appearance, others’ approval, competition, and friendship), which would lead to more self-esteem instability (greater fluctuations in self-esteem), is associated with greater depressive symptoms (Crocker and Park, 2004; Crocker and Knight, 2005; Cambron et al., 2010; Wouters et al., 2013a).”

“…is inspired by research on self-evaluation, where individual narcissism – an inflated view of oneself that requires continual external validation (Crocker & Park, 2004; Emmons, 1987) is differentiated from secure self-esteem – a real pride people take in their strengths (e.g., Kernis, 2003;…”

“When individuals have low levels of self-esteem, they often exhibit a lack of goals or engage in self-destructive behaviors, whereas those with high self-esteem tend to have clear and specific goals [34].”

“Individuals having an insecure Attachment style are more likely to base their self-esteem on others’ evaluations; in contrast, secure Attachment provides alternative means to be happy, apart from the need for increases in collective self-esteem (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“…(see Sowislo & Orth, 2013) and theoretical accounts.3 Several theories suggest that higher self-esteem serves as a buffer against anxiety (see Crocker & Park 2004), and the cognitive theory of depression (Beck, 1967) suggests that negative beliefs about the self (particularly relating to…”

“At the interpersonal level, pursuing self-esteem has been proposed to interfere with establishing and maintaining mutually supportive relationships, given that highly contingent people become focused on themselves at the expense of others’ needs and feelings (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Such studies can be seen to accord with the argument of Crocker and Park (2004) that people are motivated to achieve goals important to them so as to avoid a drop in state self-esteem which would have negative emotional consequences.”

“Despite this suggestion, the existing literature has mainly focused on the negative and harmful effects of contingent self-esteem on an individuals' well-being in contingent domains.(58,59) This article contributes to the current literature on contingent self-esteem by identifying and discussing the mediating role of…”

“More specifically, individuals often direct their time and effort toward the pursuit of success in those domains that serve as the basis for their self-esteem (e.g., Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001).”

“In contrast to this perspective, other researchers maintain that “self-esteem is of enormous importance in people’s lives” (Crocker et al. 2004:174) and argue that presuming that self-esteem is without consequence would be premature.”

“The contingent self-esteem model posits that individuals base their self-worth on their experiences in personally relevant domains of functioning (Crocker & Park, 2004; James, 1890).”

“The importance of self-esteem in fostering children’s development has recently been challenged because of unresolved questions as to whether high self-esteem facilitates positive or negative development (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003; Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“The relationship between self-esteem and anxiety has rarely been studied, and it is thought that self-esteem may have an intermediary effect on anxiety (22).”

“…to be detrimental because people feel controlled in their motivational orientation; they do not feel free to decide what behaviors or activities to pursue because they feel compelled, first and foremost, to achieve success in domains of contingency (Crocker et al., 2006; Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“…2007), offer cues that improve perceptions of meaningfulness in their work (Wrzesniewski, Dutton, & Debebe, 2003), and increase the likelihood they will consider criticism or negative feedback as opportunities for learning and improvement rather than failure (Crocker & Park, 2004; Roberts, 2007).”

“Indeed, HSEs are particularly concerned about proving themselves to others, especially in domains central to self-worth (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Central to fulfilling esteem needs are experiences of achievement, competence, accomplishment, social reputation, recognition, or appreciation (Crocker and Park 2004; Leary and Downs 1995).”

“However, the challenge reached a peak when a series of research (e.g., Crocker & Park, 2004; Freis, Brown, & Arkin, 2015; Lee, 2014; Neff, 2011) came up with data documenting the negative consequences of making immoderate effort to enhance self-esteem and self-care; with frustration, aggression,…”

“The pursuit of self-esteem can incur costs as well as benefits (Crocker and Park, 2004).”

“This is because people are motivated to bolster their self-worth in domains on which their self-worth is staked (Crocker & Knight, 2005; Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Thus, evaluations in a contingent domain will exert a greater impact on the person than those in a noncontingent domain (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“In the present research, we used self-esteem as a global proxy measure of the past personal experiences, given that there are associations between these two variables (Ross & Wilson, 2002; Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“[73,74] However, Crocker and Park [75] argue that self-esteem, self-worth and success are often tied together such that self-esteem and self-worth are derived from and, therefore, dependent on success in valued domains (e.g. academics).”

“Although psychologists extolled the benefits of self-esteem for decades, recent research has exposed potential costs associated with the pursuit of high self-esteem [14], including characteristics of narcissism [15], false self-perceptions [16], prejudice and violence toward those who threaten the ego [15].”

“On the other hand, improvement, maintenance and protection of selfesteem are necessary so the individual can to deal effectively with certain episodes of anxiety and stress (Berjot et al., 2008; Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“…a student’s willingness to spend effort on learning mathematics, I argue that math anxiety may negatively affect a student’s psychological health and social interpersonal relationships in school (Crocker & Park, 2004), which further impacts the student’s sense of belonging in school (Ma, 2003).”

“For example, Crocker and Park (2004) suggest that self-esteem striving is inherently harmful.”

“Considering the particularly maladaptive effects of high contingency in this domain (e.g., Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Crocker & Park, 2004), it is all the more important to understand if and how social contingency can be reduced.”

“Of note, although research typically examines levels of self-esteem, the ways in which an individual strives for self-esteem may be more consequential than the individual’s absolute level of self-esteem [43].”

“…Schwinger 2 (self-esteem of persons who make it largely dependent on their academic competence depends on failure and success in academic contexts; Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker & Wolfe, 2001), and self-control (resisting temptations, breaking habits, being self-disciplined; Tangney et al., 2004).”

“Indeed, research on contingencies of self-worth suggests that while the pursuit of self-esteem is motivating, it often interferes with fulfilling basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Thus, the short-term pursuit of self-esteem represents a severe limitation on effective goal striving (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Contingent self-esteem is a rather stable orientation, and studies have demonstrated quite negative consequences from having high contingent self-esteem in terms of learning, autonomy and health (Crocker & Park, 2004 ; Dweck, 1999 ; Dykman, 1998 ).”

“pay attention to the potentially dangerous association between academic validation and self-worth [52].”

“An inherent sense of self-worth free from the attachments to social status, success and failures may avoid a costly pursuit of self-esteem that has been shown to have a detrimental impact on the individual (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“Crocker and Park (2004) examined the benefits of self-esteem and argues that the pursuit of self-esteem outweighs long-term costs.”

“Unlike self-compassion, self-esteem has been linked with numerous maladaptive qualities (e.g., narcissism and bullying) and can fluctuate in accordance with performance outcomes (Baumeister, Bushman, & Campbell, 2000; Crocker and Park 2004).”

“Because people whose self-concept is focused on a single life domain are highly motivated to succeed in that domain (Crocker & Park, 2004), we expected a link between the focused self-concept (stemming from perfectionism) and disordered behaviors (e.g., disordered gambling), especially among people…”

“…expectations of success, emotional reactions to failure in self-relevant domains, and sensitivity to others’ opinions (for a review, see Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton, 1989 and Crocker & Park, 2004) which can increase perceptions of threat and trigger self-protection and self-enhancement strategies.”

“narcissism, the individual desire for external validation of one’s inflated self-view [26], may be related to aggression via belief in the hedonistic function of revenge.”

“While it is worth evaluating self-esteem in absolute terms, theoretical work has highlighted the importance of the correlated dimension of self-esteem striving (Crocker & Park, 2004).”

“50 The self-esteem theory proposed by Crocker et al 51 suggests that self-esteem can be influenced by life events during an individual’s socialization, such as the attitudes and judgments of others.”

“…general, failure in self-relevant domains has been shown to diminish state self-esteem, whereas success in such domains has been shown to increase state self-esteem (e.g., Crocker, Karpinski, Quinn, & Chase, 2003; Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002; Dittes, 1969).”

“However, this assumption could be challenged based on the fact that the concept of autonomy has frequently been theoretically confounded with that of independence (Crocker & Park, 2004), and this misconception may have led to the previous conclusion.”