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 therefore it is 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.
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.
Index
- What is self esteem?
- High Self Esteem: Definition
- Low self-esteem: definition
- Types of self-esteem according to the authors
- Stable high self-esteem
- Unstable high self-esteem
- Stable low self-esteem
- Unstable low self-esteem
- Inflated self esteem
What is self esteem?
Self-esteem refers to the assessment, both positive and negative, that one makes about himself. In self-esteem comes into play
Self-esteem: definition
It is the sum of the confidence, the respect towards oneself and the value that we attribute to our competence, which ends up leading to value judgment we make about our person. In short, it is the love that each one feels for himself.
Self-esteem: test
To know if your self-esteem is high or low, if it is adequate or not, you can perform the Rosenberg self-esteem test. 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 about ourselves, while self-esteem refers to how we value those characteristics. In this article you can find the difference between self-esteem and self-concept.
High self-esteem: definition.
The people who have high self-esteem, they feel satisfied with themselves, accepting themselves as they are, in its strengths and weaknesses. Their defects or limitations do not cause them to be belittled, because they feel loved just as they are, knowing how to identify what it is. what they do best and what they need to improve on, without feeling uncomfortable talking about their failures or 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 copenew situations or challenges.
In addition, at a relational level, they do not feel the need to overcome others and they feel comfortable receiving and giving compliments. Forever they will defend their position in front of the rest, expressing their opinion, showing them more sincere in front of their thoughts and feelings, because they are not afraid to be and show who they are. Therefore, high self-esteem helps to establish healthy relationships, because respect and value towards oneself is very important in social relationships.
High self-esteem stimulates autonomy, independence, since self-confidence allows the person to find and feel comfortable in her identity, trying to achieve the objectives that are proposed and assuming responsibility for himself.
Faced with the appearance of feelings of insecurity, the person is less likely to feel overwhelmed by them and if they do, they will have a greater capacity to overcome them.
Low self-esteem: definition.
What is low self esteem? The people with 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. Contrary to people with high self-esteem, they tend to give great importance to their flaws, superimposing them over their virtues and magnifying their presence. In addition to this, their focus on their defects causes them not to 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, defeatist attitude, perfectionist and with a lack of spontaneity.
Faced with constant self-criticism, they tend to overreact to mistakes, with great frustration intoleranceTherefore, they tend to act on the known and do not take risks, since an error in a certain fact is generalized in a criticism of their entire person.
Just as in high self-esteem independence predominates, in low self-esteem there is a predominance of dependence, where the person afraid of feeling rejected and for this reason, he hides his thoughts and feelings when he thinks that they will not be the same as those of the rest. The person is constantly indecisive about fear of making a mistake and he is very afraid of making a fool of himself. All of this leads to them establishing dependency relationships, thereby avoiding exposing oneself 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: the low and the 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 can be found. 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 a high self-esteem and also stable, maintains all the previously mentioned characteristics of a high self-esteem. It shows as a self-confident person, who is confident in their abilities. The term stable implies that external factors, such as the opinion of others or the negative circumstances that they may encounter, will not condition the value that is given to them themselves. Therefore, they do not need to defend their person 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 their self-esteemThat is, if everything around them is fine, they feel good about themselves, but in the face of failure they collapse and stop trusting them. For this reason, it is very difficult to accept criticism. 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 behaviors 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 way and the external factors that may appear do not condition this negative perception they have about them themselves. People with this type of self-esteem they tend to be always indecisive and they are not 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 trust very little 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 a depression, anxiety or very high levels of stress.
4. Unstable low self-esteem.
Unlike stable low self-esteem, this type of self-esteem looks 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 has led to that achievement 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 meets, 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 a high self-esteem, being very sensitive to external factors.
5. Inflated self-esteem.
This type of self-esteem can at first be mistaken for high self-esteem. However, the person does not show himself to others as a confident person who loves and respects himself, but rather shows a arrogant attitude, even feeling superior to others. The people with inflated self-esteem need to highlight their achievements and virtues, in order to gain recognition and they seek to be right in everything they do and say, always considering the opinion of others as the wrong one. They tend 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 show themselves to others with a superiority complex, these attitudes seek hide your insecurities and low self-esteem.
This article is merely informative, in 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.
If you want to read more articles similar to The 5 types of self-esteem and their characteristics, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.
Bibliography
- Branden, N. (1996). The six pillars of self esteem. Barcelona: Paidós.
- González, M.T. (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 the life of the person and an essential issue in the educational process. Research News in Education, 7, 1-27.
- Ortega, P., Mínguez, R & Rodes, M. (2000). TOutoestima: a new concept and its measure. Theor. educ, 12, 45-66.
