A person’s self-esteem as the most important component of his “I-concept.” What is self-esteem, its meaning and how to determine it

determines the level of his social adaptation and directly depends on his self-esteem and the degree of development of his individuality. There are many factors that can determine how high a person's self-esteem is. To evaluate, aspects such as morality are usually analyzed, as well as an analysis of his actions and abilities.

Formation of personal self-esteem

The development of personal self-esteem occurs directly under the influence of the surrounding community. The degree of influence of society on its development is difficult to overestimate. The opinion of surrounding people plays one of the most important roles in how and how highly a person evaluates himself and his own position in society.

It occurs under the influence not only of a person’s social assessment, but also from his own view of himself, his position and the quality of his actions. The individual himself knows better than others about his strengths and weaknesses. About what actions and with what motivation were performed.

Personal self-esteem is an extremely stable characteristic of a person. Its formation occurs in the early stages of development. It is directly influenced by life’s ups and downs and a number of congenital characteristics. Being largely a social feeling, self-esteem is formed under the influence of the opinions of other people and, therefore, directly depends on the constant comparison of ourselves with those individuals with whom we interact from birth. In order to increase your self-esteem, first of all, you need to analyze it properly. Take a sober and brave look at your real attitude towards yourself. Find out your character traits and evaluate your temperament. Without this, it is impossible to correct your attitude towards yourself.

Study of personality self-esteem

Personal self-esteem exists for three purposes:
1. To implement personal choice.
2. To protect personal independence, as well as stability.
3. For self-development

Studying personality self-esteem for each person can play a very important role. So, such a pastime is very necessary in order to periodically cleanse the consciousness of the slag and garbage that has accumulated there. This can help solve many problems and find answers to a number of questions.

The formation of self-esteem directly affects the development of an individual’s self-awareness. A person is able to evaluate himself and his qualities through introspection, contemplation of his actions and thoughts, as well as constant self-control. It is common for individuals to compare themselves and their actions with those around them.

Self-contemplation is not a simple and idle “soul-searching” that leads to nothing other than deepening one’s complexes. Self-contemplation and self-esteem claim to be a deeper and more important aspect of human behavior, namely self-development and the desire for continuous improvement of one’s qualities and skills.

By assessing yourself and your successes, you can not only find your true “I” and analyze your past, but also find the keys to solving internal problems and ways to achieve your goals in the future. When analyzing your self-esteem, you can find the core of your complexes and learn the pros and cons of your personality. Having recognized himself, a person is transformed, because he learns the ins and outs of himself and can correctly distribute his efforts for self-development.

There is a cognitive and emotional component to self-esteem. The first determines the information that a person learned about himself from. The second forms a sensory assessment of oneself and the qualities of one’s personality.

Self-esteem and level of personality aspirations

William James developed a formula that calculates the conditional level of self-esteem. It can be reduced to the following equation:
Self-esteem = success/level of aspiration.
Based on this, it can be noted that self-esteem and the level of a person’s aspirations are inversely proportional. In other words, with an equal degree of success, the higher the aspirations of the individual, the lower the self-esteem. This concept is quite logical. After all, the higher our demands for fulfillment in life, the more difficult it is to reach the level when the degree of personal success covers the level of aspirations sufficiently to satisfy our self-esteem.
Thus, to increase your own self-esteem, you need to either “lower the bar” or increase your results in achieving certain successes.

There are 3 types of self-esteem, namely inflated and normal. The latter is optimal for a person, since too much deviation in one direction or another causes internal conflicts, which entail discomfort, sometimes mistakenly associated with the influence of external factors, and not with problems with self-esteem.

When self-esteem is excessively high, a person loses “feedback.” He ceases to adequately assess the level of his successes, blaming the people around him for all failures. Personal failures are simply ignored in order to maintain one's “high standards.” Such a person, instead of overcoming his weaknesses, presents them as strengths. And he is no longer an unrestrained and rude person with uncontrollable aggression, but a “decisive personality.” Such people stop listening to the opinions of people around them, believing that any criticism is intended only to undermine their self-confidence or is a manifestation of excessive pickiness. And any kind of failure is correlated with the “machinations of ill-wishers.”

Inflated self-esteem contributes to the development of a nervous nature and even hysterical behavior. Often such a person believes that he deserves much more than he actually has. This kind of individual can be recognized by his straight posture and “turned up nose.” When addressing other people, they use a commanding tone of voice and make direct eye contact.

With low self-esteem, a person becomes indecisive and too shy. The approval of the people around him is very important to him. Such people are very easily influenced by “public opinion” or specific individuals with a powerful character. They often suffer from an inferiority complex. It is very important for them to find any ways to assert themselves. With low self-esteem, a person sets lower goals than he can actually achieve. He exaggerates his failures, immersing himself in them and always trying to “catch up.” These people are extremely demanding of others. Often a person with low self-esteem is envious and vindictive, which makes him somewhat dangerous to his environment. You can recognize such people by their unsteady gait and averting their eyes to the side during direct communication.

With adequate self-esteem, there is a balance between the protective and cognitive processes of the individual. If the cognitive process looks for possible flaws in one's personality in order to achieve an adequate assessment of oneself, then the defense mechanism exists in order to find self-justifications. This process exists to protect one’s own internal comfort.

Levels of personality self-esteem

There is a method that helps determine the levels of self-esteem of an individual. This technique is proposed to determine this parameter in schoolchildren. In front of them is a staircase with ten numbered steps. They depict the degree of “correctness” of a person’s behavior, from one (very bad) to ten (very good, kind and correct). The child must draw a little man at the level at which he sees himself.

An adequate assessment is considered to be placing oneself on steps numbered 4, 5, 6 and 7. If a child rated himself on steps lower, it means that self-esteem is underestimated; if it is higher, then it is, accordingly, overestimated.
A low level indicates a strongly constrained personality. Her lack of self-confidence and inability to self-realization.

The average level indicates . Such children really look at their skills and talents. Inflated self-esteem entails idealization of oneself, which disrupts the “feedback” with other people and contributes to the fact that a person stops assessing himself adequately and does not recognize that his personal failures are associated with problems of his personal behavior.

Both low and high self-esteem are obstacles to achieving desired goals. They often manifest themselves as problems communicating with other people.

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Self-esteem, according to psychologists, is the quality that allows us to reach unprecedented heights and self-satisfaction or turn us into a worthless being without any pretensions.

Definition of self-esteem

The definition of self-esteem is as follows: self-esteem is the process and result of a person’s assessment of his own qualities and merits.

Thus, self-esteem consists of two subtypes:

• self-esteem of a person - how a person evaluates himself and his position in life;
• Specific situational self-esteem is how a person evaluates himself in a specific situation.

The subject of interest of psychologists in everyday life is most often the first type—personal self-esteem.

Level of self-esteem

A person with a fairly high level of self-esteem is confident in himself, does not get lost in a difficult situation and is not afraid to set himself some complex and difficult goals. And most often he succeeds.

Low levels of self-esteem, on the contrary, prevent us from achieving our desires and goals.

What’s interesting is that a person’s level of self-esteem may not correspond at all to his actual qualities and capabilities. This happens primarily because self-esteem is influenced by many factors:

• the opinions and attitudes of other people;
• degree of success;
• the level of self-esteem that a person strives to achieve (aspirations);
• a person's opinion about himself;
• emotional condition;
• degree of self-confidence;
• Confidence or uncertainty in one’s own ability to respond adequately in a difficult situation.

Sometimes you may realize yourself that you rate yourself too low. But if you are too shy or have been constantly convinced (or even still are convinced) that you are not capable of anything, then most likely you do not even have the thought of doubting the assessment of others. In such cases, you need the help of a specialist. After all, correction started on time, with your great desire, of course, can bring wonderful results.

People who decide to meet with a psychologist learn to look at their actions, successes and failures from the other side, and treat themselves with greater respect and trust.

First, the psychologist will determine your level of self-esteem. You will be offered special tables with the help of which the psychologist finds out the characteristics of a person’s self-esteem, determines its adequacy and gives recommendations for correction.

Adequate self-esteem

Adequate self-esteem can be high, low or average. If we are talking about high or low self-esteem, it means that it does not fit the definition of adequate.

Adequate self-esteem in this case means a correct assessment of one’s capabilities, abilities and position in life.

The adequacy of self-esteem is determined by a psychologist by analyzing the real and desired (ideal) aspirations and capabilities of a person. A high level of self-esteem is usually characteristic of successful, self-confident people who set realistic goals and have enough strength and ability to achieve them

Low self-esteem is formed in people who are too shy, trying to avoid difficult situations and decisive actions. However, both examples relate to adequate self-esteem.

However, it happens that a person values ​​himself and his capabilities too highly, unjustifiably elevates himself above the people around him, or vice versa. Such people fall under the definition of individuals with inadequately high or low self-esteem.

Features of self-esteem

A person’s level of self-esteem is formed from childhood. Parents who indulge their child in everything and praise him for literally any insignificant reason are unlikely to do the right thing, as they risk raising a person with high self-esteem, which can have a very bad effect on him in the future.

Psychologists, studying the characteristics of self-esteem, have found that this factor may depend on age and even gender.

In this regard, many studies have been written about the characteristics of self-esteem in children of primary school age, the characteristics of self-esteem in adolescents, and so on.

Different features of self-esteem may also manifest themselves in different situations. For example, the same person is capable of treating himself differently and defining his capabilities in the workplace, surrounded by friends or in everyday private life.

Woman's self-esteem

A woman’s self-esteem may also have some peculiarities. Today, for example, one of the most studied topics is the self-esteem of women suffering from infertility.

A woman's self-esteem is generally different from the self-esteem of men. The main reason, psychologists believe, is that the modern woman, although she has more opportunities, still consciously denies herself some claims.

For example, only a small number of representatives of the fair sex allow themselves to aspire to a high leadership position or a bright political career. Often, as already mentioned, a woman denies herself this of her own free will, guided by the fact that these desires are characteristic of men and are approved by society as purely male claims.

Of course, this factor does not have the most favorable effect on a woman’s self-esteem, especially if she has enough strength and opportunity to achieve her goal.

Self-esteem test

As already mentioned, determining self-esteem is the job of a psychologist. However, if you are interested in this topic, you can try to determine your level of self-esteem using popular self-esteem tests adapted for the general public.

For these purposes, I chose a simple self-assessment test that you can analyze on your own.

You are presented with a series of questions to which you need to answer from the options presented. Each answer corresponds to a certain number of points, which you will need to calculate after passing the test.

Answer options

• Almost always - 4
• Often - 3
• It happens - 2
• Occasionally - 1
• Never — 0

Self-esteem test questions

1. I am subject to unnecessary worries.
2. I need the support of friends.
3. I'm afraid to seem stupider than I am.
4. I'm not sure about my future.
5. I look worse than others.
6. I often get upset that people don't understand me
7. I feel insecure if I have to talk to other people
8. I don't live up to other people's expectations
9. I often feel stiff.
10. I'm always expecting trouble.
11. I feel like I depend on people's opinions.
12. It seems to me that people talk about me as soon as I leave the room.
13. I'm not sure of my own safety.
14. There is no one to whom I can tell what I'm thinking.
15. When I do something successfully, other people don't give it enough credit.

Analysis of the self-esteem test

Your score is less than 10 points . Unfortunately, you have signs of high self-esteem and have some work to do. You often get involved in conflicts that arose at your own initiative. People are put off by your arrogance, which is why it is so difficult for you to form friendships and close relationships. Try to correctly determine the reality of the level of your capabilities and aspirations.

Your score is more than 30 points. There is something to work on here too - in contrast to the example given above, you clearly have low self-esteem. Try to treat yourself with more respect and faith in your abilities. Trust people and they will help you increase your self-esteem.

Your result is between 10 and 30 points. Congratulations to you - your adequacy and level of self-esteem are in perfect order. In a difficult situation, you are quite capable of coping with yourself and even helping those who are not so confident in themselves.

This self-esteem test, of course, cannot be considered an accurate diagnosis of your level, however, it will allow you to understand by what criteria self-esteem is determined.

I would like to add on my own behalf - believe in yourself and your strengths. Don't let other people's opinions and circumstances get the best of you. If you doubt the adequacy of your own self-esteem or want to increase its level, it is best to contact a specialist who will give individual recommendations and help you cope with the situation.

Remember: often the reason for our failures is not the inability to achieve what we want, but lack of confidence in our abilities.

Self-esteem as a component of self-awareness, it represents how a person evaluates himself, his capabilities and his place among other people. A person is not born with ready-made self-esteem; it is formed in the process of socialization thanks to the mechanisms of internalization (incorporating other people’s assessments of one’s own personality into the internal plan, using them as self-esteem) and identification (putting oneself in the place of another person, assessing one’s personality from the position of this person).

Self-esteem can be highly adequate; average; overpriced; understated; low. The level of self-esteem of a child depends on the conditions of family upbringing. Formation conditions low self-esteem a child in the family: unfriendly relationship between father and son; the requirement from the child of unconditional obedience and constant accuracy, conflict-free relationship with peers; lack of independence of the child. High adequate self-esteem is formed in the child, if the father serves as the head of the family; the family has a democratic style of communication; parents are successful people and children know about their achievements; parents have high expectations for their children (R. Burns, 1986).

There is evidence that self-esteem is higher, as a rule, in the first child in the family. Average self-esteem is formed with a liberal upbringing in the family. Strict demands placed on the child in the family, with respect for his personality, contribute to the early formation of his self-regulation skills and high adequate self-esteem (R. Burns, 1986).

Self-esteem can be optimal and suboptimal. The optimal one is high adequate self-esteem. Having such self-esteem, a person respects himself, is satisfied with himself, and strives for self-improvement. Such a person tries not to overestimate himself, but is also not very critical. If self-esteem inadequately inflated, then a person develops an idealized image of his own personality . When experiencing failure, he emotionally rejects objective assessments of results and fair comments, which violates his self-image in order to maintain high self-esteem. Self-esteem can be inadequately underestimated. In this case, the person shows uncertainty, does not set difficult goals for himself, and is too critical of himself. Too high or low self-esteem can lead to conflicts . When self-esteem is high, they arise due to the fact that a person treats other people with disdain; when self-esteem is low, - A person who is demanding of himself is even more demanding of those around him.

Self-esteem is related to the level of a person’s aspirations. Level of aspiration - This is the desired level of self-esteem of an individual, manifested in the degree of difficulty of the goals that the individual sets for himself. The level of aspirations is formed under the influence of successes and failures in a person’s life path. With an adequate level of aspirations a person sets goals that he can actually achieve. A high adequate level of aspiration is characterized by the fact that a person sets high goals, which with hard work are quite achievable. A moderate level of aspiration is characterized by the fact that a person successfully solves a range of tasks of average complexity and does not strive to improve his achievements. At he has an inflated level of aspirations takes on impossible tasks and fails. Understated and low level claims are characterized by the fact that a person chooses simple goals, which is explained by low self-esteem or “social cunning.” In the latter case, having high self-esteem, a person avoids responsibility.

Every person should look inside themselves, if only because it is there, inside, that the solutions to most current problems are found. Only by “digging” into oneself can a person resolutely throw away the garbage that is there, just as is done when thoroughly cleaning an apartment on New Year’s Eve. At the same time, he places necessary, useful things closer, and hides things that are not for prying eyes.

Self-esteem is part of those processes that form self-awareness. With self-esteem, a person tries to evaluate his qualities, properties and capabilities. This is done through introspection, introspection, self-report, and also through continuous comparison of oneself with other people with whom one has to be in direct contact. Self-esteem is not a simple satisfaction of genetically determined curiosity, so characteristic of our distant ancestor (according to Darwin). The driving motive here is the motive of self-improvement, a healthy sense of self-esteem and the desire for success. After all, human life is not a blitz tournament. It is rather a protracted struggle with oneself and for the self, the will and utmost sincerity towards oneself.

Self-esteem not only makes it possible to see the present “I”, but also to link it with your past and future. After all, on the one hand, the formation of self-esteem takes place in the early years. On the other hand, self-esteem belongs to the most stable personality characteristics. Therefore, it allows a person to consider the roots of his weaknesses and strengths, make sure of their objectivity and find more adequate models of his behavior in various everyday situations. According to T. Mann, a person who knows himself becomes a different person.

The structure of self-esteem has two components:
- cognitive, reflecting everything that an individual has learned about himself from various sources of information;
- emotional, expressing one’s own attitude towards various aspects of one’s personality (character traits, behavior, habits, etc.).

Self-esteem- the procedure is impartial. For those who have not given up on themselves, self-assessment has the opportunity to reflect on the most unidentified object on the planet - about themselves. Here is what the French poet F. Villon wrote:
I know how flies land on honey,
I know death that prowls, destroying everything,
I know books, truths and rumors,
I know EVERYTHING! But NOT YOURSELF!

Why should we be surprised if in the structure of the human brain nature allocated less than 10% of the total area to areas oriented toward displeasure? So a person is inclined to flatter himself. Flattery is the food of fools, said D. Swift, but meanwhile how many smart people are ready, from time to time, to taste at least a sip of this food.

American psychologist W. James suggested formula for self-esteem: Self-esteem = Success / Level of aspiration

The level of aspiration is the level that an individual strives to achieve in various spheres of life (career, status, well-being, etc.), the ideal goal of his future actions. Success is the fact of achieving certain results, fulfilling a certain program of actions that reflect the level of aspirations. The formula shows that self-esteem can be increased either by reducing the level of aspirations or by increasing the effectiveness of one’s actions.

Self-esteem can be adequate, overestimated or underestimated. With strong deviations from adequate self-esteem, a person may experience psychological discomfort and internal conflicts. The saddest thing is that the person himself often does not realize the true causes of these phenomena and looks for reasons outside himself.

With clearly inflated self-esteem, a person:
- acquires a superiority complex (“I’m the most correct”), or a 2-year-old complex (“I’m the best”);
- has an idealized idea: about himself, about his abilities and capabilities, about his significance for the business and for the people around him (trying to live according to this ideal “I”, often gives rise to unjustified friction with other people; after all, as F. La Rochefoucauld said , there is no better way to get into trouble in life than to consider yourself better than others);
- ignores his failures for the sake of maintaining his psychological comfort, maintaining his usual high self-esteem; repels everything that interferes with the existing image of you;
- interprets his weaknesses as strengths, passing off ordinary aggressiveness and stubbornness as will and determination;
- becomes inaccessible to others, “mentally deaf”, loses feedback from others, does not listen to other people’s opinions;
- external, connects his failure with external factors, other people’s machinations, intrigues, circumstances - with anything, but not with his own mistakes;
- treats critical assessment of oneself by others with obvious distrust, attributing all this to nagging and envy;
- as a rule, sets impossible goals for himself;
- has a level of aspirations that exceeds his real capabilities;
- easily acquires such traits as arrogance, arrogance, striving for superiority, rudeness, aggressiveness, rigidity, quarrelsomeness;
- behaves in an emphatically independent manner, which is perceived by others as arrogance and disdain (hence the hidden or obvious negative attitude towards him);
- subject to the persecution of neurotic and even hysterical manifestations (“I am more capable, smarter, more practical, more beautiful, kinder than most people; but I am the most unfortunate and unlucky”);
- we predict, has stable standards of his behavior;
- has a characteristic appearance: straight posture, high head position, direct and long gaze, commanding notes in the voice.

With clearly low self-esteem, a person:
- has a predominantly anxious, stuck, pedantic type of character accentuation, which constitutes the psychological basis of such self-esteem;
- as a rule, not self-confident, shy, indecisive, overly cautious;
- more urgently needs the support and approval of others, depends on them;
- conformist, easily influenced by other people, thoughtlessly follows their lead;
- suffering from an inferiority complex, he strives to assert himself, to realize himself (sometimes at any cost, which leads him to being indiscriminate in the means of achieving his goals), feverishly to make up for lost time, to prove to everyone (and above all to himself) his importance, that he is worth something;
- sets lower goals than he can achieve;
- often goes into his troubles and failures, exaggerating their role in his life;
- is too demanding of himself and others, excessively self-critical, which often leads to isolation, envy, suspicion, vindictiveness and even cruelty;
- often becomes a bore, annoying others with little things, causing conflicts both in the family and at work;
- has a characteristic appearance: the head is slightly pulled into the shoulders, the gait is hesitant, as if insinuating, and when speaking, the eyes often look away to the side.

The adequacy of self-esteem is determined by the relationship between two anti-sexual mental processes in a person:
- cognitive, promoting adequacy;
- protective, acting in the opposite direction to reality.

The defensive process is explained by the fact that any person has a sense of self-preservation, which in situations of self-esteem acts in the direction of self-justification of one’s behavior and self-defense of one’s internal psychological comfort. This happens even when a person is left alone with himself. It is difficult for a person to recognize the chaos within himself. By the way, according to statistics collected by psychologists, only 40% of managers at different job levels evaluate themselves objectively. There is also this figure: only 15% of people have self-esteem that coincides with the one they received from their marriage partner. So our internal “morality police” are not up to par.

The mechanism of self-defense functioning can be considered using a psychoanalytic understanding of the psychological structure of personality. According to 3. Freud, as is known, in the world of the human psyche there are three “kingdoms”:
“It” is an unconscious system driven by the pleasure principle. It is based on biological and emotional needs and uncontrollable passions.
“I” is a conscious system that regulates the process of interaction with the outside world. This is a stronghold of prudence and sober judgment.
The “super-ego” is a kind of internal “morality police”, moral censorship. Its charter consists of the norms and prohibitions of society accepted by the individual.

There is always a relationship of contradictions between “I” and “It”. The poor “I” always finds himself between three “tyrants”: the outside world, the “Super-Ego” and the “It”. The regulation of contradictions is carried out with the help of human psychological defense mechanisms, which are techniques for achieving mental balance. The range of such techniques is quite large: reducing the level of aspirations, aggression, self-isolation, transferring one’s emotional states to another person, switching unwanted attractions, etc.

Self-esteem is one of the most stable psychological characteristics of the human personality.. It's hard to change. It develops in early childhood and depends on both congenital factors and life circumstances. The greatest influence on an individual's self-esteem is the attitude of others. After all, self-esteem is formed through continuous comparison of oneself with other people. To learn to overcome yourself, you need to:
- take a bold and sober look inside yourself;
- study your character, temperament and a number of other psychological properties, especially those that are important for interaction with other people;
- constantly delve into yourself, look for “psychological garbage,” trying to either throw it away (volitional overcoming) or hide it behind a façade (formation of your positive image).

Self-esteem is also related to self-esteem. You can’t run away from yourself and you can’t hide, so each of us must see ourselves from the outside: who am I; what others expect from me; where our interests coincide and diverge. Self-respecting people also have their own line of behavior: they are more balanced, less aggressive, and more independent.

A person is part of society, and the attitude of others, the assessment of his qualities and attractiveness are important to him. But no less important for us is self-esteem, the attitude towards oneself that is formed in a person throughout his life. The place we occupy in society and the degree of social activity largely depend on the level of our own assessment of our strengths and weaknesses.

In psychology, self-esteem is considered as a complex of a person’s ideas about himself, which were formed on the basis of comparing himself with others. These ideas play an important role in the formation of the image of one’s own “I” or.

Consciously or unconsciously, we always compare ourselves with others and evaluate ourselves from the position of “better”, “worse” or “the same as everyone else”. Important qualities that are significant for society are assessed first. For example, for a young man of the noble class in the first quarter of the 19th century, it was normal to talk about whether he danced the mazurka better or worse than Lieutenant Rzhevsky. But for a modern person this quality does not matter, and therefore is not appreciated.

Thus, self-esteem is based on socially significant values, without which it is impossible to recognize oneself as worthy of respect in a given society and at a given time.

It is clear that we can evaluate ourselves in different ways, especially since there are situations when we are satisfied with ourselves and like ourselves, but at other times some action makes us experience acute dissatisfaction, and we engage in self-flagellation. But self-esteem as a part of the personality is a stable formation; although it can change, it does not depend on the situational attitude towards oneself. On the contrary, self-esteem corrects this relationship:

• A person with a high opinion of himself will say: “How could I do this, it’s completely out of character for me,” and will try to forget about the mistake.
• And the one who has low self-esteem, on the contrary, focuses on his mistakes, will reproach himself for them for a long time, and will think that “in life he is a crooked loser who really doesn’t know how to do anything.”

Types and levels of self-esteem

In psychology, there are two types of self-esteem: adequate and inadequate. Sometimes they also talk about optimal and suboptimal self-esteem, thereby emphasizing that many people tend to evaluate themselves slightly above average, and this is more the norm than a deviation. Another thing is how highly we value ourselves.

Adequate self-esteem

Adequate self-esteem, to one degree or another, correctly reflects the abilities and qualities of an individual, that is, it is a person’s idea of ​​himself, which corresponds to the real state of affairs. Such ideas can be either with a + or a − sign, because people are not ideal. For example, when a person says that a bear stepped on his ear, this may not be a belittlement of his own abilities in music, but an adequate assessment of them.

Self-esteem influences all human behavior and his attitude towards himself and towards other people. Thus, with adequate self-esteem an individual:

• correctly assesses the relationship between his desires and abilities;
• sets realistic goals that he can achieve;
• able to look at oneself critically from the outside;
• tries to foresee the results of his actions.

In general, for a person with adequate self-esteem, the people around him are important. But he also evaluates their opinion adequately, focusing more on his own ideas about the benefits or harm of his actions.

Inadequate self-esteem

Inadequate self-esteem comes in two forms: low and high. The degree of inadequacy comes at different levels. Self-esteem at a level slightly above or slightly below average is a fairly common phenomenon, and they almost do not manifest themselves in an individual’s behavior and do not interfere with his life and interaction with others. The deviation in this case can only be determined using special psychological tests. And self-esteem that is slightly above average does not even need correction, since a person can quite deservedly respect and value himself, and self-esteem has never bothered anyone.

But it happens (and often) that self-esteem is far from optimal and significantly above or below the average level. In this case, it has a serious impact on a person’s actions and can lead to inappropriate behavior with others.

Individual characteristics of people with high self-esteem

People with excessively high self-esteem can be quickly noticed in any team - they strive to be visible, advise everyone, lead everyone and dominate everywhere. Such people are characterized by the following characteristics:

• they estimate their capabilities and their importance too highly;
• they do not accept criticism, and they are irritated by other people’s opinions that do not coincide with their own;
• often have a superiority complex, considering themselves to be right in everything;
• emphatically independent and even arrogant;
• reject the help and support of others;
• blame other people or circumstances for their failures and problems;
• do not notice their weaknesses or pass them off as strengths, for example, stubbornness as perseverance, and arrogance as determination;
• are often distinguished by a demonstrative type of behavior, they like to perform actions for show;
• have a tendency to treat others with disdain.

There is an opinion that it is better to have high self-esteem than low self-esteem. But here it all depends on the level - people who value themselves too highly can be very unpleasant.

Low self-esteem

People with a level of self-esteem significantly below average cannot always be immediately noticed, especially in a team. They do not strive to be visible and seem simply modest. But in the process of communicating with them, their far from pleasant qualities are revealed:

• indecisiveness and excessive caution;
• dependence on the opinions of other people and the constant need for their support;
• the desire to shift responsibility, including for one’s actions, onto the shoulders of others;
• inferiority complex and, as a consequence of it, excessive vulnerability, quarrelsomeness;
• excessive demands on oneself and others, perfectionism;
• pettiness, vindictiveness and envy;
• Suffering from low self-esteem, they nevertheless try to prove to everyone that they are “cool” and commit inappropriate actions.

Low self-esteem also makes people selfish, only this is a different kind of selfishness. They are so immersed in their failures and obsessed with self-pity that they do not notice the problems of their loved ones. Very often, those who have too low a level of self-esteem do not know how to respect or love.

Self-esteem structure

In the structure of self-esteem, psychologists distinguish two components: cognitive and emotional:

• The cognitive component (from the Latin cognition - knowledge) includes a person’s knowledge about himself, his abilities, skills, capabilities, weaknesses and strengths. This component is formed in the process of self-knowledge and largely affects the level of self-esteem. Inadequate self-esteem, as a rule, is associated either with ideas about one’s own “I” that do not correspond to reality, or with their unformedness.
• The emotional component is the individual’s attitude towards himself and various manifestations of his own personality. The feelings we feel for ourselves are very contradictory: approval and disapproval, self-respect or lack thereof, .

The differences between these two components are purely theoretical; in real life they coexist in inextricable unity - our knowledge about our qualities is always emotionally charged.

Factors influencing the formation of self-esteem

Inadequate self-esteem is always bad; it creates discomfort and problems for both the person himself and his environment. But can an individual be blamed for having a wrong self-image? Under the influence of what is self-esteem formed?

Social factors

The foundations of self-esteem are laid in childhood, from the moment when the baby becomes aware of his “I” and begins to compare himself with other children and adults. But in preschool, and even at primary school age, children cannot yet adequately analyze their qualities and their behavior, therefore the evaluative sphere is formed entirely under the influence of adults. Remember how V. Mayakovsky wrote: “The little son came to his father, and the little one asked: - What is good? And what is bad?

People with a sensitive psyche worry more about their failures and about the assessments of others than those who are less emotional.

• A person whose melancholic traits predominate tends to get upset even over a minor random remark and remember it for a long time.
• A phlegmatic person may not even pay attention to the remark.
• Closed and unsociable people worry less about the assessments of others than sociable extroverts. On the other hand, due to their tendency to demonstrate behavior, they often suffer from inflated self-esteem. But people who avoid people and prefer solitude often consider themselves superior to others and despise those around them who are unworthy of communicating with them.

That is, individual personality characteristics certainly influence the formation of self-esteem, but its vector is determined primarily by the social environment. There is another important factor related to a person’s assessment of his own “I”.

Level of aspiration

We all strive for something in life, we set goals for ourselves. And these goals are different: some want to earn money for a new apartment, some want to create their own thriving company, and for others a trip to the sea is the ultimate dream. The degree of complexity, difficulty of a goal or task that a person defines for himself is the level of his aspirations.

Just like self-esteem, the level of aspirations can be adequate or inadequate. Adequate is one where goals correspond to human capabilities. If a school graduate with poor knowledge and low Unified State Exam grades decides to apply to a prestigious metropolitan university, then he clearly has an inadequate, inflated level of aspirations. And when a good student refuses to enroll in a higher education institution because he is afraid of failure, then his level of aspiration is too low. Both are bad.

The level of aspirations is formed under the influence of successes and failures that accompany a person on the path of life, and, in turn, affects the formation of self-esteem. After all, an athlete, constantly setting a bar for himself that he cannot jump over, will very quickly become disappointed in his abilities and in the ability to achieve success. And a low level of aspirations does not contribute to the development of self-esteem and self-confidence.

But psychologists still believe that a low level is worse than a high level and has a bad effect on the formation of personality and its position in society. It makes a person a socially passive loser who does not strive for success.

Self-esteem correction

The possibility of changing one's self-esteem towards a more adequate one worries many people. This is especially typical for mature and seemingly accomplished individuals, when a person realizes that an incorrect assessment of his strengths and capabilities prevents him from achieving success and has a negative impact on relationships with others.

Self-esteem can be corrected even independently, although in particularly advanced cases the help of a psychotherapist or psychological consultant is required. But it is easier to increase self-esteem than to reduce inadequately inflated ones. More precisely, there are conditions under which self-esteem decreases, but most often they are unpleasant and even...

If an individual realized that he had an inadequately inflated self-esteem, it means that he was able to look at himself critically, and therefore, his self-esteem is not so inflated. In any case, he is already on the right track.

There are many tips for increasing self-esteem. But first you should figure out in what area you underestimate yourself. What don't you like most about yourself or what do you need to increase your self-esteem? Write down on a separate sheet in a column the main areas in which a person is realized:

• relationships with people;
• professional activity (or choice of profession);
• appearance;
• knowledge level, ;
• hobbies;
• family.

You can add something important to you yourself. Now rate your success in these areas on a 10-point scale. If the scores are slightly higher than 5 points, then your self-esteem is within the normal range, but you can improve it. And if it is significantly below 5, then you should pay attention to this area Special attention.

Think about why you think you are unsuccessful in this area? What do you need to feel more confident, begin to respect yourself and even admire yourself? Write down on a separate sheet what you are missing. And start working to eliminate these shortcomings.

As you can see, nothing complicated. And if you would like a “magic pill” or a ready-made recipe, there are none. People are all different, our problems are also different. But you can give some general tips to increase self-esteem:

• Stop comparing yourself to others. Remember, every person is unique, not better or worse, just different. And your advantage is that you are different from others.
• Look around and try to see all the good and bright things. Stop, consolidate this feeling in your head and try not to allow negative thoughts anymore - they attract failures.
• When starting any business, focus on success; defeat comes to those who wait for it.
• Smile. A smile is a powerful tool that adjusts our state to positivity. But it is no less important that it motivates the people around us to appreciate us more highly.
• Write down all your strengths on a piece of paper and re-read them often, especially when you feel insecure and afraid of failure.
• Be more open. Don't hesitate to ask people for help and support.

To increase self-esteem, the approval and praise of others is very important. Therefore, find yourself a hobby or hobbies in which you can succeed, and do not be shy to demonstrate these successes. Draw, knit, cross-stitch, assemble pictures from plastic corks or photograph unusual clouds. And share your successes, seek praise. Nowadays, with the development of communication on social networks, this is not difficult to do.