Lab Report on Self-worth
Abstract
Researchers have found that there are three major determinants of global self-esteem that is tendency to experience positive or negative states, a person’s conception of strengths and weaknesses, and the way one frame his or her own self-views. Some people though they have achieved few things in life, they still have high self -esteem and consider themselves worthy. Other people though they may be viewed as successful by other people, they may have low self-esteem and if not protected and encouraged they may commit suicide(Almon, 2002). This report seeks to respond to the fundamental questionspeople’s abilities and accomplishments to evaluations of their self- worth. One thing which sticks out in this report is that self-esteem is not simply a product of just some simple calculus rather it is a more complex cognitive formula. The main purpose of the report is to understand cognitive and those most effective foundations of self-esteem. The cognitive variables have been found to contribute to self-esteem at varying levels in a person’s live (Frey, 2009).
The report is based on a case study that was conducted among the undergraduates at the Australian Catholic University. The purpose of this study on self worth was;-
- The compare the measure used in the study with the subscales.
Ideally the study sought to examine the contribution of the three known factors to self-esteem. The three factors under consideration were; the affective states both positive and negative, people’s self-views, and the way people are framed in their views. In addition, the investigators wanted to establish whether the subjective importance of people’s views may in any way interact with other variables so that in the long run it can predict the global self-esteem.
Introduction
In social psychology, ideas that people are highly selective in their domains of self-worth by protecting, maintaining and enhancing their self-esteem have been put forward without a clear understanding and basis on which conditions and goals on which their regulatory leads to contingent self-worth. Therefore people differences and stability in self-esteem may have different conditions and events interaction which lead them to global self-worth view(Ban, 2008).
Contingencies of self-worth include domains that pose threats by either feedback or failures and thus linked to self-worth. It is obvious that people seek to pursue goals aiming at success while avoiding failure. Conclusions have been made that our feelings to great extent depend on what we entirely think who we are. However there are external and internal contingencies classified in reference to the levels of psychological well-being and dependence on other peoples for satisfaction. It is argued that people are likely to work better when their self-esteem is measure in core, abstract and unique characteristics other than superficial aspects of others and achievement of conditional regard from others (Frey, 2009).
How to measure self-esteem have posed difficulty in determining about the differences in the domains which self-esteem is based thus rendering the all process void. For instance the generality that students of black color do not identify them-selves with academics is problematic as students can base their self-esteem on some other different domains outside school or within school that weakens the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance.Most psychological research articles on the determination of the domains underlying the contingencies of self-worth and realization of global self-esteem have faced difficulty in measurement of the levels of self-esteem, since they majorly use single-item leveling of the domains importance. This has called for scholars attempting to develop and come up with standard and consolidated ways of measuring various domains in the process of determination of self-worth dilemma (Frey, 2009).
The research in paper hypothesized seven various domains which were considered of importance in measuring the internal and external sources of self-esteem while evaluating other domains used in other researches that is academics, athletics and popularity. The seven domains include; God’s love, Gender and ethnic differentiation, Competition, Approval from generalized others, Family Support, Appearance, and Virtue
Majority of Americans confirm that they belief in Supreme Being or God which is a very rooted and important driving attitude in the lives of many. National religious counts have stipulated that 90% of American citizens are believers and religion have undisputed importance in their lives. Religious well-being is transfigured in a believers live self-esteem in the sense that he/she is wonderful and unique in the mirror of GodSavage,
Gender and ethnic differentiation
Men and women have been known differ in their approach to well-being. It has been stated that the self-esteem of men is underlined by their achievements by being separately autonomous and performing perfectly than others. For women self-esteem is achieved by being sensitive and connected when handling challenging activities and generally being interdependent to the others. This causes differences in reporting self-esteem amongst the various gender groups. Racial differences amongst the two main American races Black and White also reports difference in self-esteem manifestation(Almon, 2002).
Competition
Different people perceive success in competition differently towards their competitors. Men and Women differ in this in that men feel superior when they out do others while for women it is different all together. Class room evaluations are usually associated with global self-esteem (Ban, 2008).Approval from generalized othersThe feeling of being part of the society and that you are accepted and approved by others to be worth. This positivity raises self-esteem.
Family support
The firm support of being close and the togetherness is of importance in self-esteem. Many college students derive self-esteem from the support and love and so the research had to focus on this as the mentality is associated to global feelings.AppearanceValuation of the feminine is always based on their physical appearance
Virtue
A person moral behavior determines his/her worth of being good or bad.Method
Participants
240 men and 260 women who are doing their undergraduates degree at the Australian Catholic University, they had an aim of attaining a credit in their psychology course. Among the participants ten of them were deleted because they could not complete the questionnaires as required leaving a total of 490 participants. The participants taken were students of almost the same age and taking related degree programs but from different campuses of the University.
Overview of procedure
The participants were divided into groups of 10 to 50 individuals from which they were required to conduct their questionnaires. One of the investigators introduced the investigation that it is the study of people’s personalities, their self- perceptions, and how they view activities that they undertake. The participants were given an opportunity to fill the forms concerning background items that is Rosenberg’s, global self- esteem scale, Watson et al.’s, version of self-attributes(Leahy, 2010)
Questionnaire measures
Global self-esteem, the measure that was used in the study was Rosenberg’s 8-item scale. This scale had both positive and negative responses for instance; there was an option for one to choose that he or she considers himself or herself of equal worth as the other. On the other hand there was a provision for one may pick an option that says he or she is unworthy.
Measure of positive and negative effective, here Watson et al.’s was used to capture very important components of self-esteem. The participants were reporting in relation to their experiences on how they had experienced 8 different emotions. The experiences were relatively consistent and they included hostile, afraid, proud, and ashamed among other experiences.
Self- esteem discrepancy measureWhile conducting this measure the participants had to provide the measure of their actual and ideal self-views by rating themselves on each Self Attributable Questionnaire to see whether what they imagine to be merges what they actually are. Students from different campuses of Australian University were given questionnaires to fill.
Results
The expectation was that all the six variables considered to be important components of self- esteem would make important contribution to the self- esteem. The three items under the study were tested in detail to determine and ascertain whether there is a significant relation. Owing to the fact that one of the objectives of the study was to understand the relationship between, importance and abundance of weak or null findings on the issue it was just the same as establishing the relationship between self- esteem and importance (Almon, 2002).
The mean age of the participants was 26.7279 while the standard deviation was found to be 10. 92665. This means that the average age for the men and women who participated in the study was approximately 27 years.The gender frequency was 188 for females and 72 for males.
According to Rosenberg self-esteem scale the reliability for the study was found to be 0.278 for the 8 items selected. The self-worth convergent validity according to Rosenberg, momentary was revealed to be 0.612. Therefore, the general average for the 8 items divergent validity ranked too low to the convergent validity reliability and above the general average as it is ranked at the validity of 0.334.
Discussion
The results support the hypothesis in that the correlation is positive (+1) and therefore the discriminant is valid. Correlations with other personality lied at .30 indicating that they measure distinct variables. Similarly the validity contingencies of self-worth subscales are supported by the pattern of significant correlations. It also supports the view that contingencies of self-worth have a simple structure and is connected to the external and internal contingencies with the external contingencies negatively responding to adjustments. The studies result support the connotation that the contingencies on which people base their self-worth have implications for how they run their lives. Disagreements on measurement of contingencies of self-worth amongst college students have been solved by the seven contingencies in the research presented. Generally contingent self-worth is domain specific. However there is a limitation that the measure of contingent is not explicit and also there is high reliance on correlation and self-report methodsSavage,
Conclusion
It is the research high determination that the link between self-esteem and behavior is highly dependent on what the people stake their self-worth on and thus self-esteem derives the people’s live.There is no doubt that the three determinants of global esteem greatly contribute to a person’s self-esteem.
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