Gaining Self Esteem
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Self esteem is a person’s confidence and feelings about themselves. It refers to your feeling good about yourself and how you perceive yourself in comparison with others. It helps you understand your strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities in order to feel worthy of love, respect, and happiness. In many ways there are two types of self-esteem: personal self-esteem is how we perceive ourselves personally, whereas social self-esteem our perceptions from the perspective of the people around us. Most people don’t know what their personal self-esteem is because it’s personal – it's something only you know about yourself but that isn't shared with other people in society. The problem with this is that it can lead to problems, such as social phobia, where a person is so scared of being around other people that they avoid public places.
Self-esteem is a fairly recent construct. If we look at the old midwife who comes to visit us in the past and present we would say she had lots of self-esteem, she was respected by everybody, especially children. But in the present time if you see her or talk to her about your child she will keep on saying ‘what have you done to him or her?’ ‘Why does he do like this?’ ‘She doesn’t listen to me.’ ‘She doesn’t listen to me.’ This is because self-esteem is all about social context and how things work, and the midwife has gone back to the past and thinks that she was universally admired by everybody. The problem is of course she wasn’t universally admired; she just thought that everybody liked her.
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In the mid-20th century many social scientists were puzzled about why there is a significant amount of unhappiness in our society. Some researchers suggested that there was something wrong with people themselves, but others thought that it was something wrong with society or culture. Then in the 1960s people were introduced to a new idea called social learning theory. This theory, developed by Karen Horney, suggested that we have an inborn need to be part of a group. In order to feel like part of a group, individuals who feel they are left out and rejected by the group will try to create the same or similar groups for themselves. If they are isolated, lonely, and unable to make groups for themselves through education or work then they may seek out groups where people do not accept them as individuals but criticise them as members of their group. These individuals are vulnerable because they are often attacked, ridiculed and rejected by their peers.
According to the popular theory of social learning theory, our self-esteem is based on the results we achieve in our interactions with others. If we receive positive feedback and reward for doing something well then we feel good about ourselves and if we receive negative feedback or punishment for not performing well or doing something wrong then we also feel bad about ourselves. This theory explains why high self-esteem is so important to individuals as it is seen as a basic need that allows us to maintain a positive self-image and enjoy a sense of well being.
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Although self-esteem is viewed as a basic need it is possible that people do not automatically look for good relationships. Some people may deliberately choose to avoid being in positive relationships with others, and instead, choose to have many negative relationships with others. These people are often referred to as those who have poor social skills because they are unable to develop positive relationships with others and achieve a high level of self-esteem. On the other hand if you look at the people who enjoy meeting new people and easily make new friends, they are more likely to be confident and therefore have a very high level of self-esteem.
Between the ages of one and two, children begin to develop social skills or what researchers refer to as a skill in the art of mutual regulation. This is an important skill because it allows us to control our response and behaviour in social situations or with other people. If we don't learn these skills then we tend to overreact, attack others, become passive, or withdraw. Sometimes we may be aware that we are not performing well but not know how to change our behaviour if we are experiencing problems such as shyness embarrassment etc. At this age we try to blame other people for our problems, but in actual fact we have the power to change how we behave in situations.
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Self-esteem is not something that you can determine because we all have different opinions about what high self-esteem means. However if you researched your personal self-esteem it would be important to find out what your parents and family think, other family members and friends, because they may be the most influential people in terms of how you feel about yourself. Other people who you may find out more about your self-esteem could be strangers, family members, friends and even strangers that you don’t know.
Whatever your social group is it is important to understand how others see you so that you feel confident in yourself and can communicate with them easily. To do this we need to assess how we are perceived by other people. This can be difficult because of the number of different roles which we have to play in our lives such as father, sister, mother, teacher etc. However the main roles are the ones which will affect your self-esteem the most: at home, with parents; at school; social groups; work; and at play.
At home, with parents: how do you feel about yourself when you are at home with your parents?
How do your feel about yourself when you are at home with your parents? How does it feel to be in the same room as them? Do you enjoy being in the same room as them t all?
Do you only want to talk to them about certain subjects or things that they like. Do they like the same subjects as you or different ones ? What is important to them and what they care most about ? If these things are not important to you then it might be a problem because of the way that we are expected to behave. It would be good if we could make a compromise and agree on something. If you change your behaviour so that it suits the way that they expect you to behave then you may find more time spent with them.
At School: how do you feel about yourself at school?
Do other people think that you are good at something when in fact it is something else ? Do you think that other people treat you differently because of this ?
Are there certain things and subjects which you hate? You could say that these are not as important as others but it is important to find out what people secretly think about them. It is important to know how society views these things and how we can make a compromise where our interests are not ignored or ignored out of spite.
Conclusion:
The analysis above shows how we can improve the way that we feel about ourselves. If we can identify our self-esteem from the different roles that we play and the effect that these roles have on us then we are going to be able to adjust our behaviour so that it is more realistic and acceptable in different situations. We will be able to identify and deal with a lot of social problems that affect our lives, so if we have poor relationships with others then we can begin to make plans for dealing with these problems.
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Gaining Self Esteem