Something of a follow-up to the semi-outrageous article about Chinese Tiger Mothers, the results of a couple recent studies at Ohio State concluding, surprise surprise, that “Young Adults Are Obsessed With Self-Esteem.” As it’s wisely been pointed out, the self-esteem movement is a losing game, regardless of how it’s played – human need is a bottomless pit. To paraphrase Gerhard Forde, who was paraphrasing Martin Luther, the thirst for glory needs to be extinguished rather than sated. If only knowledge alone were enough to get us to detach… And I don’t know about you, but the very idea of narcissism scale frightens me (ht SZ):
Ohio State University scientists found that college students valued boosts to their self-esteem more than any other pleasant activity they were asked about, including sex, favorite foods, drinking alcohol, seeing a best friend or receiving a paycheck. “It is somewhat surprising how this desire to feel worthy and valuable trumps almost any other pleasant activity you can imagine,” said Brad Bushman, Ph.D., lead author of the research… “We found that self-esteem trumped all other rewards in the minds of these college students,” Bushman said.
Bushman said there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-esteem. But the results of this study suggest many young people may be a little too focused on pumping up their self-esteem. Here’s why: For all the pleasant activities examined in this study, participants were asked to rate both how much they liked the activity and how much they wanted it.
Both questions were asked because addiction research suggests that addicts tend to report they “want” the object of their addiction (drugs, alcohol, gambling) more than they actually “like” it, Bushman said. “The liking-wanting distinction has occupied an important place in addiction research for nearly two decades,” Moeller said. “But we believe it has great potential to inform other areas of psychology as well.”
In this study, participants liked all the pleasant activities more than they wanted them, which is healthy, Bushman said. But the difference between liking and wanting was smallest when it came to self-esteem. “It wouldn’t be correct to say that the study participants were addicted to self-esteem,” Bushman said. “But they were closer to being addicted to self-esteem than they were to being addicted to any other activity we studied.”
American society seems to believe that self-esteem is the cure all for every social ill, from bad grades to teen pregnancies to violence,” he said. “But there has been no evidence that boosting self-esteem actually helps with these problems. We may be too focused on increasing self-esteem.”
Study co-author Crocker added,“The problem isn’t with having high self-esteem; it’s how much people are driven to boost their self-esteem. When people highly value self-esteem, they may avoid doing things such as acknowledging a wrong they did. Admitting you were wrong may be uncomfortable for self-esteem at the moment, but ultimately it could lead to better learning, relationships, growth, and even future self-esteem.”
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4 responses to “The Liking-Wanting Distinction and Self-Esteem Addiction”
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Somebody in A.A. told me, early on, that "the way to have self-esteem is to do estimable things." And it is certainly true that "self"-esteem can't be obtained, by definition, from anybody else. Also it seems to me that it can't be a purely mental exercise, which would be nothing but a kind of boosterism inside one's own mind (always a dangerous place to stay for any length of time, IMO!).
So then, if it has to come from within, and it can't be simple mental cheerleading, that leads to the conclusion that "self-esteem" has something to do with what we do, over time – so perhaps the above formulation is correct. Anyway it did stick with me – and it can't be denied that the A.A. program does involve huge changes of behavior (and attitude) in many and various ways.
Of course, another conclusion is that "self-esteem" is not the prize we think it is – that, better, "it is by self-forgetting that one finds…."
I think this is the higher prize, honestly. But perhaps it's necessarily subsequent to the first….
“It is somewhat surprising how this desire to feel worthy and valuable trumps almost any other pleasant activity you can imagine,” said Brad Bushman, Ph.D., lead author of the research… “We found that self-esteem trumped all other rewards in the minds of these college students,” Bushman said.
Sheesh! I don't find it one whit surprising. These college kids (and I know them, I have two college-age sons) spent their entire grade- and middle-school careers having their little self-esteems stoked by their public or private school teachers, often without having done anything more esteem-worthy than having tried to perform whatever action was up for the day. ("Good try, buddy!!") I never understood what good would come of it, and I still don't.
This reminds me of the day my daughter (then 7) got into the car after "field day" at school with a Seventh Place ribbon in her hand (for the 50 yard dash). I asked, "How many kids were in the race?" Her sheepish reply: "Eight." Even at that tender age, my daughter knew it was LAME to receive an award for coming in next-to-last. Instead of praising her and making a big deal about the ribbon, we both just laughed about the situation, and I said, "Who cares about the 50 yard dash, anyway?! Your sport is gymnastics!" Was this the right approach? I honestly have no idea.