Self Esteem

SELF ESTEEM

Self-esteem is the personal value, self-respect and self -worth that an individul places on themselves

1. Definition

“Self Esteem is the satisfaction or dissatis-faction with oneself ” (James – 1980)

“Self-esteem is the judgment or opinion we hold about ourselves. It’s the extent to which we perceive ourselves to be worthwhile and capable human beings.” (Coopersmith, 1967)

2. Factors influencing Self Esteem

Self esteem or self image of adolescents is based on six domains as shown in figure 2.

Family Environment

Family is the first school for an individ-ual. A childs life is mainly influenced by the family environment; it is the primary source of social development. Each family is different from the other, as it is com-posed of different members. Each varies in its social and economic conditions with different background

Achievement

Academic achievement and achievement of one’s goals related to their hobbies play a crucial role in forming a positive, healthy view of the self.

Physical Appearance

Physical characteristics such as hair, fig-ure, height weight, skin colour may also influence the self-esteem of an individual

Self Belief

A person who has high confidence levels may learn things quickly, trust that they can complete tasks to a good standard and this subsequently may boost their self esteem.

Task Proficiency

This includes the skills required for per-forming tasks and the ability to complete the task. Task proficiency influences the personality of an individual 

Feedback Friends and others

Positive & Negative messages and feedback from friends and others may boost or break an individual’s self-esteem.

3. Types of Self-Esteem

High Self-Esteem – Feeling positively about yourself, your actions and your future.

Low Self-Esteem – Feeling negatively about yourself, your actions and your future.

4. Motivation

The Word motivation comes from the Latin word ‘motum’ which means ‘move’, ‘motor’, and ‘motion’. That is ‘to put into action or to move’.

Definition

Motivation is defined as “Acts that arouse, sustain and direct behaviour.

·           It helps to sustain the attention in one’s efforts or task

·           Restlessness to achieve the goal stops after the goal is reached

A continuous flow in shape of a cycle named motivational cycle is explained in figure 3.

Need

A need is lack or deficit of some neces-sity. It’s a state of physical deprivation that causes tension. 

The tension caused when the person is deprived of basic neces-sities of life as food, water, and sleep, causes imbalance. For any goal directed behavior, need is the first condition or stimulating factor.

Drive

Need leads to drive, which is the second step towards achieving goal. Drive can be defined as the state of tension or arousal produced by need. It is the state of height-ened tension leading to restless activity and preparatory behaviour. For instance, when person is hungry and/or thirsty, he seeks to reduce this drive by eating and/or drinking.

Incentive

Environment that activates, directs, and maintains behaviour is called incentive. It can be anything as long as it has either positive or negative value in motivating behaviour. For example: behaviour like eating food is an incentive that reduces the drive of the person caused by the need to fulfill his hunger. The reduction of behav-iour then cuts off and restores balance in an organism.

Goal

The reduction of tension in the body can be considered as the goal of any motivated behaviour. Let’s go back to the example of a hungry man. A hungry man eats food, and his body restores to a balanced condition. This then reduces the tension. This reduc-tion of tension as a result of an energized activity is called goal. Once the goal has been completed, the organism is again ready for another goal-motivated behaviour.

Principles of Motivation

Maslow’s Theory of Motivation

Maslow describes how motivation devel-ops stage by stage from purely physiolog-ical drives to complex social purpose, as described in the figure presented below:

Physiological needs: The basic physi-ological desires are food, water, shelter, etc., They are the most basic and fun-damental human needs.

Safety Needs: It arises on account of future expectations. For example, in-surance against future, keeping a bank balance, investing in LIC.

Love and Belongingness Needs: Need for affection, praise, warmth, accep-tance, approval, affiliation.

Self-Esteem Needs: Need for achieve-ment, status, self-respect, self-confidence, feelings of strength and adequacy.

Achievement Needs: Needs for un-derstanding implies knowledge of re-lationships, process, the integration of knowledge into broad structure etc. thus achievement needs are related to intellectual domination and cognitive competencies.

Aesthetic needs: This is concerned with appreciation of order and beauty. One whose lower order needs are ful-ly satisfied or known that he need not bother about them, derives pleasure in beauty and nature.

Self-Actualization Needs: Need for self-fulfillment, self-expression, ful-fillment of potentialities, working out one’s own mental personality.