It seems to be pretty well established that it is important for a person, or for a child, to have a high self-esteem. The reason why believing in that is the norm seems to be instinctive, rather than actually based on facts. It possibly comes from a person's own feeling of satisfaction when they are in peace with themselves. However, I think that there is nothing that can prove a relation between high self-esteem and performance, or success, or productivity. Hence, having a high self-esteem is irrelevant, as the wheels of society will keep turning whether people's self-esteem is high or not. Having that in mind, it is ridiculous to make decisions or to create policy aiming at improving people's self-esteem, at the risk of compromising other more important variables, like, for example, alter schools' rules on flunking students as Memphis did: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/aug/23/mcs-alters-rule-on-flunking/
I think that we might have to define productivity and success first before we decided whether self-esteem made a difference on either. I mean, productivity and success mean different things to different people. I think a high self-esteem makes you more confident, therefore more productive in your life. If you are depressed and miserable and think you suck then you probably would rather die then be productive. But again, the most genius ppl take their own lives because they had no hope and probably no self-esteem, but were very productive and sucessful in society's eyes...just maybe not in their own eyes. I think it's ambiguous and individual. For me, having high self-esteem makes me a productive and sucessful member of society, but for others, it does appear that it doesn't matter. :shrug:
Well, since you are able to see how both the high self-esteem and the low self-esteem people manage to be productive and successful, you can't establish a relation between self-esteem and success or productivity other than what you feel for yourself. One may argue that people who are unsatisfied with themselves or with their performance may work harder to achieve better results, and that could turn up higher levels of success and productivity (regardless of their performance being higher or lower than the average). Most of you must have the experience of knowing someone that despite being extremely intelligent are always unsatisfied with their results. The "I got a 9.5 but could have gotten a 10" type of people.
Agreed. That's why I think it's an individual thing. I can only speak for myself, but in my experience it's always been the 'grass is greener on the other side' sort of thing. I have so many gorgeous, beautiful, talented, smart friends who date the biggest DOUCHEBAG guys because they think that is what they deserve. They have no self esteem no matter how beautiful they are. And I never understood that. I always thought, 'shit, if I looked like them I would be on top of the world'. Come to find out, they look at me and think the same thing. I think it comes down to how you define self esteem, what it means to you, and how you think you are successful because of it. I agree that there are many "successful" people out there who have no sel esteem at all, but then again, what are they actually "successful" at? It's how they percieve themselves and how they think others percieve them.
I agree. In my own course of education, I only caught a little of the "better self-esteem for students" policy. I have actually found it to be a burden, because what they were actually telling us is that one first has to be a good person, have high self-esteem, and only then can one proceed with doing one's homework and studying - "no point in doing your work unless you first feel good about yourself". Originally, we were trained to do our work regardless of how we felt about ourselves. I think I was actually able to do my work much better then, in comparison to later when my head was filled with ideas of how I must first feel good about myself and all that. Because it was at that point, that I started to really feel bad about myself and about my work, and my work began to suffer. I suppose this is an example of how social psychology and pedagogy have things backwards: It is true that many people tend to do better work when they feel good about themselves. So from this observation, they seem to have concluded that a person should first feel good about themselves, and then they will work well. But implementing this and observing the results, it turns out that trying to first make a person feel good about themselves so that then they would work better, does not seem to lead to the desired result.
those who don't have self-esteem commit suicide. a world in harmony within and out of self is what we should seek, otherwise death comes.
I feel like this teaching style is mostly employed in the united states. In most parts of the world you get 100 math problems for tomorrow and if you fail they put you in the labor camps. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Perhaps it is the politics of the 'feel good crowd' leeching into our society. We could just slave away and do our best, and society would progress. But does this lead to a better society, a higher quality of life? We are humans composed of many facets - intellect, feelings, emotions, etc etc... If we forced one whole facet of the human experience to be ignored, if the billions of people who were going to come after us were going to have to suffer, think about that horrible loss. If we are trained from the get-go that we are entitled to good feelings it will sooner or later take root in society and we will be a booming society where everyone is happy. Quality of life is partially dependent on the economy, but it is also very much dependent on individual's actions. By shifting our focus solely onto the economy while ignoring feelings we aren't actually improving life at all! I think its like looking at the world through two lenses. One is the economical lens, the other is the feeling lens .. If one of the lenses is stained shit brown, no matter how sparkling clean and clear the other lens is, you won't see anything but shit brown. Like I said, I think its a part of the politics of the feel-good crowd. By asserting onto society that we have to feel good, the feel-good crowd are giving it's members an edge in life. While we waste our time worrying about feeling good, the members of the feel good crowd are feeling good and doing better, perhaps giving more opportunity to the progeny of hippies.. :shrug:
I'd change that to normal self-esteem. High self-esteem makes you an arrogant asshole Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
correct. an those who are arrogant ***holes end up dead or in jail. a normal self-esteem is what we need to seek in our spirits and minds. For such is the balance of the universe. 2Pac had a high self esteem and look at em now, dead. bro is dead. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! 2Pac...:bawl:
But what exactly are these "good feelings"? How are they to be brought about? Is "feeling good" achieved the same way for every person? We could also have dopamine or some such injected regularly, and "feel good". Does feeling good really equate with happiness?
Do tell... what IS life suposed to be about.??? Screw you... i have high self esteem an i ant a arrogrnt azz-hole Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! PS Bwaahahahahah<------------- A-Man.TTT
Seeing as you have the manual what is it supposed to be, then? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But it's also not supposed to be a `feel bad' fest, either. A comfortable medium surely exists, and is necessary, in order for society to be healthier all around. For example, jessie's example of smart, talented women who date douchebags---a woman who dates/marries a loser is not living up to her potential, as people who are in relationships tend to `rub off' on one another. One such instance doesn't hamper, say, human progress, but many instances certainly will. If a smart woman marries a douchebag, what are the chances that the woman would have lived up to her potential? Another example is the class division in America. If you are born in a ghetto, raised in a ghetto, and always told that you'll never leave the ghetto, you don't seem to have a whole lot of motivation to try and get out of the ghetto. I don't expect that either of these examples is actually quantifiable, in the sense that you can't measure `self-esteem' objectively. There is probably not a way to establish a correlation between productivity and self-esteem, mostly because there is no way to measure either. The problem is further complicated by the fact that most people would say they have a high self-esteem, if you asked them, even if they have only a vague understanding of what the word means.
2Pac was not a hippie. In an ideal society we would all have things to do to make us feel good and we would want for nothing.. a soldier in the trenches may not feel good, but perhaps he is happy to protect his country. A heroin addict may feel great but is actually in a desperate struggle to find peace of mind.. If we take away their self-awareness/identities, which one would be happier in their scenario? We don't even have to take synthetic chemicals to feel good. Horses do this weird thing where they press their jaws down and breathe air fast which gives them a natural high. People do other things - exercise, hobbies, even work, can all lead to good feelings. I guess feeling good is the result of good training- you should be trained to feel good about doing the things you're good at and want to do. Why? Can't we feel good all the time?
In regards to measuring self-esteem, I guess people actually DO test it. After doing a bit of nosing around on google, I find that (source) Leave it to the social scientists to measure something like this. Things are also complicated by the fact that (as I feared in the previous post), ``self esteem'' seems to be poorly defined, even in the scientific literature. Of course, one can still try to draw some conclusions from these imperfect definitions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3640349 The conclusion of this publication is that So, it seems that there is some positive correlation between a person's self-esteem and their lifestyle. This is potentially misleading, though, as all sociology studies: does having a high self-esteem mean that people take better care of themselves, or is it vice versa? Other studies I found in a cursory search of google have conflicting results. For example, it is noted that between the 1980s and 1990s self-esteem in college students drastically improved, but that there is no correlation between this increase in self-esteem and any behavior patterns. The point of all this rambling is to point out that there is research being done on this topic, even though it is certainly soft science.
I don't see why not, but my comment was more addressed to the OP: there is a comfortable medium between promoting positive self-esteem and maintaining things like academic integrity and human progress. I agree with Varda, that positive self-esteem programs should not conflict with some things, however, there seems to be some value to society when its members are happy.
Are you kidding? Self esteem not important???? Without self esteem where would the confidence come from? Self esteem is underrated, not overrated! Without self esteem we would only have followers, with no leaders! There is already enough blind followers, we need more leaders with open eyes - and they need to have confidence in themselves! It's easy for me to know that nothing anyone says will effect me, unless I believe them. But many adults can't say the same, and many adults still doubt themselves way too much! Kids, they sometimes need reassurance from others, so bringing up self esteem is crucial if you want the children of tommorrow to strive for better days! Without self esteem - would people still try, or would they just quit? Self-esteem doesn't matter, LOL - thats the most ridiculas thing I've heard in quite some time. I guess tommorrow doesn't matter neither then, cause without self esteem, tommorrow wouldn't look too bright! And just because some people become arrogant when over confident, doesn't mean we don't want confidence!!!! Aroggance is just an easy way for some people to never allow other peoples doubts to effect them. Cause when we doubt ourselves thats when it all comes crashing down! This is why so many proffessionals with stressful jobs (doctors, cops, etc..) can become arrogant at times. Arrogance and confidence is a fine line, but a little arrogance is a small price to pay for a confident future!
I agree! :bravo: Some self esteem is needed. People with low self esteem often won't try and learn something because they are sure they will fail, thus a vicious circle starts. It's only when you start putting self esteem first that this gets stupid. If you teach people that self esteem comes first, before productivity or effort, of course they will fail.
This is pretty simple, it comes down to how you want to define success. Your underlying definition of success is that the most "important variables" are "keeping the wheels of society" turning - or in other words, being a good capitalist. If however, happiness or self-actualization is a measure of success, self-esteem is a very important component.
