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Self-Esteem Is Up, But 'Society Has Little to Show for It'

Oct. 22, 2001 -- The self-esteem movement in the U.S. is working. Or is it? College students do appear to be living happier, healthier lives, but a new study shows that the country isn't benefiting from our blissful youth.

Previous studies have shown that people with high self-esteem are more satisfied with life, experience more positive emotions, and are less likely to be depressed and anxious, according to lead researcher Jean Twenge, PhD.

But while higher self-esteem seems to be a good thing, it hasn't produced the societal boons we might have expected.

"College students' self-esteem has increased substantially, but this happened at the same time that SAT scores declined and anxiety increased," says Twenge in a news release. "Thus college students' high self-esteem seems to be built on a foundation of sand."

Twenge and colleague Keith Campbell, PhD, looked at college students over a 26-year period and found that self-esteem decreased from 1965 to 1979, then rose from 1980 to 1993.

"The emphasis of the educational system on self-esteem really got kicked off around 1980," says Campbell in a news release, "and it elevated child self-esteem somewhat. It seemed like an easy fix -- that if people felt good about themselves they would perform better. Unfortunately, the self-esteem movement might have increased self-esteem, but it didn't increase competency in anything. If anything, it decreased such things."

Moreover, Campbell says that products of the movement intended to boost self-esteem -- such as games in which no one loses and classes structured to avoid hurting any feelings -- are at best misguided and at worst harmful.

Campbell says that there are a few problems with the study that could make the findings, which appear in the October issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review, hard to interpret.

For one, the researchers used two different tests to assess self-esteem and got somewhat different results from each. Clearly, they say, there is no single way to measure self-esteem in everyone.

Even so, Campbell maintains that the rise in self-esteem holds no clear societal benefit. "We as individuals may think more highly of ourselves, but we as a society apparently have little to show for it."