Research fails to support link between high self-esteem, positive behavior

Brown's Joachim Krueger served on a task force that reviewed two decades of objective research on the topic at the invitation of the American Psychological Society.

by Kristen Cole

Many of the positive outcomes attributed to high self-esteem are not substantiated by research, according to Brown psychologist Joachim I. Krueger.

Krueger, associate professor of psychology, and faculty from three other universities formed that conclusion after reviewing more than two decades of objective research studies on self-esteem at the invitation of the American Psychological Society. Their report appears in this month’s issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a supplement to Psychological Science.

Across most measures – school and job performance, violence and crime, and health – there were few consistent links between the level of self-esteem and the quality of outcomes, said Krueger.

High self-esteem does not prevent children from smoking, drinking, taking drugs or engaging in early sex, the task force reported. If anything, high self-esteem fosters experimentation, which may increase early sexual activity or drinking. The exception was a connection between high self-esteem and reduced chances of the eating disorder bulimia in females.

In adults, according to the task force, occupational success may boost self-esteem rather than the reverse. And neither high nor low self-esteem is a direct cause of violence.

But although high self-esteem may not lead to a higher salary or better test scores in school, it is its own reward. “Everything else being equal, would you rather feel lousy or good about yourself?” said Krueger. “That’s a no-brainer.”

In fact, pleasant feelings and enhanced initiative were the two benefits of high self-esteem found by the task force within the body of research. High self-esteem has a strong relationship to happiness and low self-esteem is more likely than high to lead to depression under some circumstances. Those with high self-esteem were also found to exhibit more persistence at tasks.

“More often than not if you find a link between self-esteem and behavior, self-esteem is the effect and not the cause,” said Krueger, whose own research seeks to understand the interplay between people's views of themselves and their social beliefs. “Success causes a boost to self-esteem.”

Yet the task force also noted that there are basically two types of high self-esteem – that which is realistic, and that which is out of touch with reality. People who fall into the former category accept their good qualities. Those in the latter are characterized as narcissistic, defensive or conceited individuals. In some studies, narcissism led to some negative qualities such as increased aggression in retaliation for wounded pride.

The task force’s review of research on self-esteem was a massive undertaking, given that 15,000 articles fell into that category. “The self-esteem research base is enormous,” said Krueger, “perhaps because self-esteem is not only a scientific concept, but also a folk concept.”

The self-esteem movement began in California during the 1980s with the idea that many of society’s problems were related to low self-esteem. The California legislature financed a task force to increase self-esteem in an effort to reduce welfare dependency, unwanted pregnancy, school failure, crime, drug addiction and other problems, with the goal of saving taxpayer dollars, according to the task force.

Since then, there has been a nationwide proliferation of techniques to raise self-esteem – particularly in schools – and a proliferation of books marketed to people helping themselves.

Yet, “after a quarter of a century of research, the high hopes of the self-esteem movement have not been realized, and customers of the self-help industry should not look to heightened self-esteem as a panacea,” said Krueger.

His colleagues on the task force included Roy F. Baumeister, Francis Eppes Professor of Psychology at Florida State University; Jennifer D. Campbell, professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver; and Kathleen D. Vohs, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah.