Is high self-esteem beneficial? Revisiting a classic question.
Is high self-esteem beneficial? Revisiting a classic question.
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DOI：
10.1037/amp0000922
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发表时间：
2022-01
影响因子：
16.4
通讯作者：
Robins, Richard W
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Orth, Ulrich;Robins, Richard W
关于自尊假定的益处的争论在科学文献和大众媒体中都已经持续了数十年。尽管许多研究人员和非专业人士都认为高自尊有助于个体在各种生活领域中适应并取得成功，但对于这一说法存在广泛的怀疑。本文重新审视了大量研究（包括几项元分析），这些研究考察了自尊对几个重要生活领域的影响：人际关系、学校、工作、心理健康、身体健康和反社会行为。总体而言，研究结果表明自尊在所有这些领域都是有益的，而且这些益处不受年龄、性别、种族/民族的影响，并且在控制了预测结果的先前水平以及潜在的第三变量混杂因素后仍然成立。自尊效应的元分析估计值（在各个领域平均为0.10）在大小上与其他假设的因果因素（如自我效能感、积极情绪性、依恋安全性和成长型思维模式）的估计值相当，并且大于一些普遍接受的药物干预措施。讨论集中在对评估研究结果至关重要的几个问题上，包括进行因果推断的证据强度、效应的大小、区分自尊和自恋的重要性以及结果的普遍性。总之，目前的研究结果支持将自尊视为一种对健康的调整和适应具有广泛影响的适应性特质的理论概念，并表明旨在提高自尊的干预措施如果设计和实施得当，可能会使个人和整个社会受益。
Debates about the presumed benefits of self-esteem have persisted for decades, both in the scientific literature and in the popular press. Although many researchers and lay people have argued that high self-esteem helps individuals adapt to and succeed in a variety of life domains, there is widespread skepticism about this claim. The present article takes a new look at the voluminous body of research (including several meta-analyses) examining the consequences of self-esteem for several important life domains: relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and antisocial behavior. Overall, the findings suggest that self-esteem is beneficial in all these domains, and that these benefits hold across age, gender, and race/ethnicity, and controlling for prior levels of the predicted outcomes and potential third variable confounds. The meta-analytic estimates of self-esteem effects (which average .10 across domains) are comparable in size to estimates for other hypothesized causal factors such as self-efficacy, positive emotionality, attachment security, and growth mindset, and larger than some generally accepted pharmaceutical interventions. Discussion focuses on several issues that are critical for evaluating the findings, including the strength of the evidence for making causal inferences, the magnitude of the effects, the importance of distinguishing between self-esteem and narcissism, and the generalizability of the results. In sum, the present findings support theoretical conceptions of self-esteem as an adaptive trait that has wide-ranging influences on healthy adjustment and adaptation, and suggest that interventions aimed at boosting self-esteem might, if properly designed and implemented, benefit individuals and society as a whole.