Effort More Important than Self-esteem?

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Effort More Important than Self-esteem?

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | Science |

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.

Dweck and Blackwell’s work is part of a larger academic challenge to one of the self-esteem movement’s key tenets: that praise, self-esteem, and performance rise and fall together. From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything—from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.

New research shows much more positive results from praising a child’s efforts rather than their innate ability or smarts and emphasizing the role of effort in developing and improving ability.

Thanks to Marty for the link.

1 Comment to Effort More Important than Self-esteem?

Sailorcurt
February 21, 2007

They needed 40 years and 15,000 studies and articles to reach that conclusion?

Any of my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles or myself personally could have told them that.

Self-esteem is not something given, it is something earned.

As a good friend (relatively uneducated, but possessing of extraordinary wisdom) used to say: “Those scientists were just educated all the way up to stupid now weren’t they?”

“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”
–Gilbert Keith Chesterton