Self-esteem is one of the most relevant factors of our personality, as it allows us to value and love ourselves, accepting and discovering our defects and our virtues. Self-esteem is directly related to personal well-being and is therefore very important to be able to lead a healthy, full and happy life, also allowing us to relate to the environment in a healthy and positive way.
There are five types of self-esteem that oscillate between the polarities of high or low self-esteem. Which one do you identify with? Keep reading this Psychology-Online article if you want to know the five types of self-esteem and their characteristics.
What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem refers to the assessment, both positive and negative, that one makes of themselves. Self-esteem comes into play trust and respect that we have about ourselves, as well as the feeling about our own competition. This is considered one of the most important aspects of our personality, since our self-esteem will influence our behaviors, decisions, the choice of our goals and their planning, as well as our entire way of being and doing.
Self-esteem: definition
It is the sum of the confidence, self-respect and value that we attribute to our competence, which ends up leading to value judgment that we make about ourselves. In short, it is the love that each person feels for themselves.
Self-esteem: test
To know if your self-esteem is high or low, if it is adequate or not, you can take the . It will help you reflect and get to know yourself better.
Self-esteem and self-concept
Self-esteem and self-concept, are they the same? No. Self-concept refers to the characteristics we see of ourselves while self-esteem refers to how we value these characteristics. In this article you can find the.
High self-esteem: definition
The women feel satisfied with themselves, accepting themselves as they are, in its virtues and defects. Their defects or limitations do not cause them to belittle themselves, because they feel loved just as they are, knowing how to identify what they are best at and what they should improve, without feeling uncomfortable talking about their failures or their achievements and having a more open attitude towards criticism, with a greater flexibility to accept their mistakes, which leads them to learn from these mistakes, keeps them in a more open attitude to new experiences and they have easier to cope new situations or challenges.
In addition, on a relational level, they do not feel the need to surpass others and feel comfortable receiving and giving compliments. Always They will defend their position in front of the rest, expressing their opinion, showing their thoughts and feelings more sincerely, because they are not afraid to be and show who they are. Therefore, high self-esteem helps establish healthy relationshipsbecause respect and value towards oneself is very important in social relationships.
High self-esteem stimulates autonomy, independencesince self-confidence allows the person to find and feel comfortable in their identity, trying to achieve the goals they set and assuming responsibility for themselves.
When feelings of insecurity appear, the person is less likely to feel overwhelmed by them and if they do, they will have a greater ability to overcome them.
Low self-esteem: definition
What is low self-esteem? They feel a constant feeling of dissatisfaction with themselves and lack of confidence or courage, thereby creating a excessive self-criticism that maintains the state of dissatisfaction. Unlike people with high self-esteem, they tend to give a lot of importance to their defects, superimposing them on their virtues and magnifying their presence. In addition, their focus on their defects causes them to not recognize who they are and what their virtues are, which would lead them to value themselves. Faced with this, they tend to present themselves with a sadder, more defeatist attitude, and with a lack of spontaneity.
Faced with constant self-criticism, they tend to react excessively to mistakes, with great frustration intolerancefor this reason they tend to act on what is known and do not take risks, since an error in a specific fact generalizes into a criticism of their entire person.
Just as independence predominates in high self-esteem, in low self-esteem there is a predominance of dependence, where the person fears feeling rejected and therefore, he hides his thoughts and feelings when he believes that they will not be the same as those of the rest. The person is constantly indecisive because fear of making a mistake and he is very afraid of making a fool of himself. All of this leads to them establishing, thereby avoiding exposing themselves to error or criticism.
Types of self-esteem according to the authors
When we talk about self-esteem we tend to place ourselves in front of the two opposite poles or levels of self-esteem: low and high. However, like everything in life, there are different tints, not everything is black and white. For this reason, different authors have developed a classification that includes 5 types of self-esteem, which more easily encompass the position in which a person may find themselves. Within these 5 types of self-esteem we find:
- Stable high self-esteem
- Unstable high self-esteem
- Stable low self-esteem
- Unstable low self-esteem
- inflated self-esteem
1. Stable high self-esteem
The person who maintains high self-esteem and is also stable, maintains all the previously mentioned characteristics of high self-esteem. It is shown as a self-confident person, who trusts in his abilities. The term stable implies that external factors, such as the opinions of others or the negative circumstances they may encounter, will not condition the value they give to themselves. Therefore, they do not need to defend themselves and can express their opinion without destabilizing themselves.
2. Unstable high self-esteem
In this category, the person will maintain the characteristics of high self-esteem, but unlike stable high self-esteem, in this case External factors condition your self-esteemThat is, if everything around them is good, they feel good about themselves, but when faced with failure they collapse and stop trusting themselves. For this reason, it is . Faced with this, they respond with little tolerance for failure, perceiving it as a threat and for this reason, they tend to react with more aggressive behavior and with a certain superiority. The importance they attribute to mistakes and criticism causes them to feel insecure and invalid, causing fluctuations in self-esteem and hence their instability.
3. Stable low self-esteem
People with this type of self-esteem maintain the characteristics of low self-esteem in a stable manner and the external factors that may appear do not condition this negative perception they have about themselves. People with this type of self-esteem They tend to always be indecisive and they do not see themselves able to defend their opinion, because they are afraid of not being enough for others and of being rejected. They constantly think that they will not be able to achieve what they set out to do, because they have very little confidence in their abilities. In this type of self-esteem, pessimistic and negative feelings tend to predominate.
This type of self-esteem tends to manifest itself in various psychiatric disorders, such as high levels of stress.
4. Unstable low self-esteem
Unlike stable low self-esteem, this type of self-esteem is seen conditioned by external factors. The person usually maintains low levels of self-esteem, but in the face of achievements or successes, his self-esteem rises. However, when the emotion that this achievement brought about ends, his self-esteem drops again.
So this type of self-esteem is characterized by its fluctuation and instability, which leads to the person being highly vulnerable to events to those he encounters, although from the outside they may seem irrelevant. So, when the person feels that things are working well, his self-esteem improves, without being considered high self-esteem, being very sensitive to external factors.
5. Inflated self-esteem
This type of self-esteem can at first be confused with high self-esteem. However, the person does not show himself to others as a secure person who is loved and respected, but rather shows a arrogant attitude, even feeling superior to others. They need to highlight their achievements and virtues, with the aim of obtaining recognition and they seek to be right in everything they do and say, always considering the opinion of others as the wrong one. They have a tendency to consider themselves better than the rest in everything they do and it is difficult for them to recognize mistakes and criticism, so they choose to blame the rest of them. However, although they appear to others with a superiority complex, these attitudes seek hide your insecurities and low self-esteem.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Branden, N. (1996). The six pillars of self esteem . Barcelona: Paidós.
- González, MT (1999). Something about self-esteem. What it is and how it is expressed. Classroom, 11, 217-232.
- Naranjo, M. (2007). Self-esteem: a relevant factor in a person’s life and an essential theme of the educational process. Research News in Education, 7, 1-27.
- Ortega, P., Mínguez, R & Rodes, M. (2000). TOSelf-esteem: a new concept and its measurement. Theor. educ, 12, 45-66.