Self-esteem: its types, formation and impact on a person

Types of self-esteem

Self-esteem is the determination of a person’s ability to correctly perceive himself, his attitude and actions in relation to others. Among the components of self-esteem, the following elements can be distinguished: self-criticism, demands on oneself, attitude towards personal achievements and failures.

Types of self-esteem

When talking about types of self-analysis, psychologists do not limit themselves to simple concepts of “good” or “bad.” They give a more detailed definition, based on the following criteria:

relevance - determines the level of self-analysis based on the results that a person has already achieved;
partiality is achievements in a particular type of activity;
potential - determined by the innate inclinations, talents or abilities of a person.

And also among the common definitions of self-esteem according to its types are the following:

understated;
correct;
overpriced.

Each of these types has its own characteristics and characteristics.

Low level

Low self-esteem is formed based on various factors. This could be an assessment of a person’s skills and successes by close relatives, the level of psychological health, the person’s status in the social sphere, various genetic deficiencies, etc.

The parameters of self-esteem are the following characteristics:

the person becomes too self-critical and expresses frequent dissatisfaction;
criticism from others causes negative emotions in a person (resentment, irritation, anger), it seems to him that they are being unnecessarily nagging at him;
a person becomes very indecisive because he is afraid of making a mistake and being ridiculed;
constant desire to please, even if this happens to one’s detriment;
the desire to idealize excessively, while suffering without achieving the ideal;
incorrect perception of guilt and mistakes made;
the person is constantly hostile, without any reasoned reasons;
pessimism with all its negative aspects;
a person with low self-esteem perceives his temporary failures and defeats as permanent.

These people are very susceptible and dependent on public opinion. It is very important for them to receive recognition from others; they believe that the positive opinion of others directly depends on the success achieved. That is, they sincerely believe that good grades at school, promotions, and success in relationships will immediately lead to recognition in society.

An excessively reduced level of self-analysis can lead to various complexes and unrealized individual potential.

Adequate self-perception

This type of self-perception is expressed in the individual’s ability to indicate an objective and correct assessment of his capabilities and potential. It makes it possible to treat one’s actions with optimal criticality, which does not interfere with the normal realization of personal potential and allows others to correctly evaluate the personality.

A person with adequate self-esteem achieves good heights in his career and success in all aspects of life. Such a person is quite confident in himself and his ambitions, and is able to cope with any setbacks in life.

Psychologists identify two motivating factors for people with the right level of self-analysis:

The desire to achieve success . Individuals with such motivation are more optimistic. They do not get hung up on various obstacles and failures. The opinions of others are not very important to them.
Avoiding difficulties in every possible way . People of this type avoid risk and are more cautious. The path to achieving goals for such individuals is thorny and complicated, with a large number of different obstacles.

Heightened self-esteem

This level of self-perception indicates that a person is unable to correctly assess the level of his capabilities and himself in particular. Such people have many complaints about the people around them and situations that arise. It is difficult for them to build normal relationships with others, which often contributes to the loss of normal personal contact.

This type of self-esteem is characteristic of arrogant and proud people who have their own opinion on everything, which differs significantly from the opinions of others.

It is very easy to reduce high self-esteem. If something doesn’t work out for a person with high self-esteem, or doesn’t work out as it should, he begins to oppress himself and his self-esteem drops to low. Moreover, this may be accompanied by deep depression or the acquisition of harmful addictions (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs).

One of the reasons for high self-esteem is perfectionism - this is the desire to achieve the maximum level of perfection in various areas of human activity. The problem with this personal quality is that achieving the ideal everywhere is very difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, perfectionism can have a negative impact on the development of correct self-perception.

Protection from conviction

When thinking about whether self-esteem influences a person’s behavior, it is worth noting that people with low self-esteem react very painfully to any criticism and disapproval. They try in every possible way to protect themselves from condemnation. Experts identify four main methods of removal.

Accusation. If this method is used, a person constantly looks for someone to blame and, naturally, finds one. He finds fault with little things and is always dissatisfied with everything.
Ingratiation. In this case, an insecure person is ready to do literally anything for others just to be satisfied with him. He never argues and always waits for instructions.
Calculation. By choosing this path, people completely block their emotions and never show what they feel. They speak in a monotone voice and their words are often abstract.
Suspension. A person never reacts to what others do. He talks on neutral topics and does not answer questions. With his entire appearance, the person demonstrates that he does not hear anything, and in general he is not here.

All these types may have different variations, but the goal is the same: to protect yourself from attacks and criticism.

Self-Esteem Functions

Any self-analysis performs many functions, which are described in detail below.

Regulatory . This function helps the individual in making right decisions and defining tasks.
Protective . Provides the individual with independence and stability.
Developmental function . Helps a person to improve and develop.
Signal , or as it is also called reflective. Enables the individual to understand the correct attitude towards oneself, personal qualities and actions.
Emotional . Gives the individual a feeling of satisfaction from his actions and personal qualities.
Adaptive . Regulates the individual’s ability to adapt to the social and surrounding realities.
Prognostic . Helps a person regulate his activity level at the beginning of an activity.
Corrective . Allows you to properly control the process of performing an action.
Retrospective . Helps you realistically evaluate your behavior during the period of completion of your action.
Motivating . Pushes a person to take some action to gain approval from others and gain pride, develop self-esteem and satisfaction.
Terminal . If a person feels that his actions cause a high level of introspection and self-criticism, then this function forces him to stop the action, or change its course.

Self-realization

As a rule, we do not know how to love ourselves just like that. We love ourselves for something. If we have not achieved anything significant in life, our self-esteem is zero. Have you ever thought that maybe THAT’S WHY we haven’t achieved anything in life because we don’t love ourselves.

After all, if you love yourself, it means making yourself happy. Do what brings you pleasure. Eat what you want. Rest where your soul asks.

A happy, self-loving person is full of energy to do what he loves. And what we love a priori brings success and fulfills us.

Based on this, you first need to love yourself, increase your self-esteem, and then engage in your realization.

The widespread belief that women have low self-esteem and misconceptions about themselves creates for all of us. To women, a prophetic but false installation. When things go wrong for us: problems in our personal lives or at work, we come to the conclusion that it is because there is something wrong with our self-esteem and personality. Stop self-absorbed - start loving yourself and everything will be fine!

Formation of self-perception

Self-esteem is in psychology the definition of a person’s attitude towards himself, his actions and personal strengths and weaknesses. The formation of self-esteem mainly occurs in childhood, during the period of learning about the world around us and all its aspects. Practice shows that self-esteem is a fickle phenomenon that can change depending on various circumstances. New assessment criteria may affect those already learned. There are three main factors that play an important role in the formation of self-esteem:

A person’s comparison of his achievements in reality with the achievements of the “ideal”. If personal qualities and actions are the same as an ideal personality, in a person’s opinion, should be, then this will have a positive effect on self-analysis. If the individual is far from his ideal, then the level of self-esteem will be low.
Another factor is that a person gives himself the same assessment that, in his opinion, others give him.
The last factor reveals what assessment a person gives to his actions and actions. In other words, he feels special pleasure because he has chosen a particular activity and is good at it.

It is worth noting that self-analysis, regardless of all these factors, is always an exclusively subjective assessment.

Showing insecurity

Two main criteria for their behavior will help identify people with low self-esteem.

Reaction to criticism. Insecure people are very sensitive to even constructive criticism, and take all comments personally. Low self-esteem does not allow a person to adequately assess the situation, admit and correct his own mistakes.
Use of masks. People who put on various masks consider themselves worse than everyone else and try to play someone else's role. Thinking about the question: “Low self-esteem and its impact on a person’s life,” they try to hide their true feelings and demonstrate self-confidence. This can be expressed through boasting, loud laughter, or familiarity.

Stages of development

Self-esteem develops in a person from early childhood until the end of his life.

Early childhood

Close relatives play an important role in the development of self-analysis. Even in the earliest years, a child, when performing any actions, already independently reacts to personal failures and achievements, thus gradually forming his self-esteem. But excessive criticism and enthusiasm from parents can push her in one direction or another. For example, a baby draws well, and enthusiastic parents tirelessly repeat how great he is and that no one else is better than him. can't do that. In the future, this may cause inadequately high self-esteem .

Or, conversely, a child, upon entering kindergarten, will be faced with the fact that he will be evaluated like everyone else, without any elevation. This will inevitably lead to oppression and further low self-esteem. And also overly critical parents, who constantly repeat to the child that he can’t do anything or that he can’t do anything, deliberately underestimate his self-analysis.

Middle preschool age

By this age, the child can already objectively evaluate his actions, personal victories and failures, as well as his personality in general. During this age period, parents have a special impact on the psychological development of the child. Moreover, those who have a trusting relationship with the child have a more active influence on his psychological growth. Therefore, the main task of parents is to help the child correctly form his self-esteem.

Child 5−6 years old

For children of this age group, the assessment of the adults around them plays a rather important role. He does not wait for her easily, but achieves her in every possible way. Such children simply need approval and praise . This means that the child is already at the age when various vital properties begin to form, which in adult life will affect the success of all types of chosen activities.

Beginning schoolchildren

The main problem of this age is a strong trust in all adults, especially teachers. They take their cues from them, try to imitate them, and fully accept their assessments. Even when such a child gives himself self-esteem, he simply retells the words of his teacher in his own way.

This means that it is teachers during primary school who help the child correctly set the level of his self-analysis. At this age, it is important for children that the positive characteristics of their personality are generally recognized.

Teenage years

Among the main differences of this age we can safely note a high level of introspection. Along with this, the teenager has a need to evaluate his capabilities and use them correctly. And there is also a need to develop and shape the abilities of one’s personality to the level that is characteristic of an adult.

For teenagers, a key factor in developing the right level of self-awareness is the opinions of peers and friends. Before the age of 11, many teenagers tend to give a negative assessment of themselves and their actions. This perception remains further, by the age of 13, however, it is accompanied by good changes in the form of increased self-esteem.

As a teenager matures, he begins to more soberly evaluate himself as a person. At the same time, at the beginning of this period, a teenager tends to be aware of only certain actions in specific situations, then character traits are learned, and at the very end - the characteristics of his own personality.

Factors influencing the formation of self-esteem

The reasons for low self-esteem lie in childhood and are influenced by a number of factors.

Social

Even from infancy, the first inclinations of future self-esteem appear. Sometimes children grow up in an environment that does not meet the requirements of pedagogy and psychology. During upbringing in families and educational institutions, little attention is paid to individual and age-related characteristics, and they do not take into account that the child must make his own assessment of the world.

Ideas in society are distorted, so it is impossible to achieve full cultural and social development.

If a person's self-esteem is influenced by the attitude of other people, then his position in society will also influence it. It is assessed not based on the achievements of a particular person, but by looking at the status of the family. Therefore, at a young age, in order to establish one’s own value, it matters what relatives, friends and neighbors think about him.

Personal

In forming an opinion about himself, a person is guided by his own behavior, internal standards and values. The more discrepancies with the standard view of the world, the lower the self-esteem.

Although people evaluate themselves and other people according to the same criteria, they are more strict with themselves. The formation of self-esteem involves internal experiences that others do not have access to.

Serious changes in personality self-esteem are observed in adolescence. Children begin to pay more attention to appearance and listen to the opinions of others. They begin to be critical of themselves, noticing the slightest shortcomings and highlighting their strengths. Age-related characteristics prevent you from adequately assessing yourself and drawing the right conclusions. A self-esteem test for teenagers will help detect problems with self-esteem. Parents and teachers must take measures of psychological influence to prevent the teenager from becoming an insecure and uninitiative person.

Life depends on your attitude towards yourself. When underestimating one's abilities, a person is prone to passivity, is less popular, constantly seeks confirmation of his own inferiority, and becomes dependent on outside opinions. Such people do not believe compliments and often remain lonely. Diagnosing the problem will help you select methods and technologies to solve it.

Family

Self-esteem is formed in the family.

Psychologists are convinced that the structure of personality is formed during the first five years of life.

At this time, the child feels vulnerable and emotionally attached to the family. Therefore, parents must provide help and understand what consequences are possible if they mistreat their child.

Low self-esteem arises if they demand obedience, teach you to adapt to other people and be neat, and interact with others without conflict. If a child is prohibited from doing many things and his right to his own opinion is not taken into account, then this causes an inadequate assessment. If parents say that he won’t succeed, that he is not educated enough and similar things, then gradually the child will think that this is so, because who knows better than his mother what is right.

Such communication with children, an attempt to put them in a subordinate position leads to psychological breakdown. This destroys the child’s trust; he perceives the world around him with hostility and does not consider himself valuable to it. To raise self-esteem, parents should demand less from their children, and support more and allow them to make their own decisions.

Average self-esteem is formed if parents take a condescending and patronizing position towards the child. They are tolerant of children's behavior, but do not allow them to act and make decisions on their own, as this causes anxiety. The child is prevented from gaining independent experience and opening up outside the home.

Next on the scale is high self-esteem. It appears if the child lives in a close-knit and solidary family, where they support and respect each other. In the child’s eyes, the parents are successful, the mother has a positive attitude towards herself and her husband. In such families, children readily follow the patterns of behavior given to them and feel confident in their abilities. They are not exposed to stress, are friendly, live by the principle of a realistic assessment of themselves, and cultivate strengths and weaknesses.

Children who tend to overestimate their self-esteem only go forward, they set goals and try to achieve them by any means. Those who are accustomed to underestimating their capabilities prefer modest goals and are not confident that they will achieve them.

To avoid low self-esteem syndromes and provide the child with self-confidence, parents must be willing to perceive him as he is, but objectively, without excessive condescension. Discipline should be built on the principles of justice, establish clear and achievable standards of behavior for the child, and provide him with a value system that will allow him to become an individual with reliable guidelines, capable of differentiating successful actions from unsuccessful ones.

In education, you need to use general principles, and not give scattered instructions that are confusing. In the future, this will provide confidence in actions and create favorable conditions for forming an opinion about yourself.

If parents provide external control at the proper level, this will form the ability to control their actions. The social environment for the child will be orderly, and he will feel comfortable in the world and will trust others. This will teach you how to regulate relationships with other individuals.

But when social reinforcement is vague and inconsistent, self-esteem is damaged.

If you outline the images and rules of behavior, this method will allow you to create a self-image in a child. Research shows that already in the early stages of his development, a person learns to understand the difference between himself and other people, understands how desires differ from reality.

Parental demands demonstrate parental concern for well-being. Therefore, if you tell him: “Do whatever you want, just leave me alone,” this shows that he is not worth caring for.

Self-esteem tests help identify its level. Tests are carried out in adolescence, since during this period deviations in personality formation are more pronounced.

How to change your self-esteem

There are several ways to influence your self-esteem at any age. The method should be chosen based on personal qualities and needs. The most common methods for raising self-esteem are described below .

On a piece of paper or in a diary on the first page, you need to write down all your positive and negative qualities. At the moment when any failure has occurred and self-esteem has been shaken, you just need to get this list and re-read it. This method helps you always remain confident in yourself and your abilities.
Another popular method is to keep a diary in which you record only the successful moments of the day. This will not only help maintain your self-esteem, but will also ensure a positive attitude and desire to improve the next day.
To achieve some new goals, you need to draw up a clear action plan and strictly follow it. This will make it possible to ignore obstacles and minor failures.

It is worth noting that women are more often influenced by public opinion. Therefore, they are recommended to listen more to their inner voice, family and friends. This will prevent you from falling into despair with every comment.

What does inner self-confidence give?

A person who is confident in himself, has his own position and knows how to defend it. He relies only on himself, although he is not afraid to entrust certain matters to others. A confident person is not afraid of change and always tries to improve his life. Unlike people who are dissatisfied with themselves, he takes responsibility for all his words and actions.

People with positive self-esteem usually have a fairly clear understanding of what they want. Goals and plans are clearly outlined, and the person confidently moves towards their implementation. People who are insecure can rarely describe specifically what they would like to change, and their goals are often incredibly inflated. They fail to achieve them, and their self-esteem drops even lower.

Naturally, high self-esteem will not save you from life’s difficulties and adversities, but it will be much easier to overcome them. A person who is confident in his abilities finds new methods to solve problems and perceives difficulties as a routine. People with low self-esteem prefer to hide from their sorrows. For them, any experience of failure is very painful and unsettles them for a long time. Therefore, they pretend that everything is fine with them and avoid making a decision.