Too Much Self-Esteem Is Worse Than Too Little, Researchers Say

Too much self-esteem - not too little - can be a key factor in determining aggressive and violent behavior.

That’s the message from three researchers who analyzed more than 150 studies in psychology and criminology, then published their findings in this month’s edition of the scientific journal, Psychological Review.

“The societal pursuit of high self-esteem for everyone may literally end up doing considerable harm,” the researchers say in the journal, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

They found aggressive people have unusually high self-esteem - defined as “a favorable global evaluation of oneself” - especially when compared to their actual achievements.

The research was immediately challenged by self-esteem proponents who said they had seen success with their programs.

But the new study has potentially profound implications for dealing with a wide range of social problems linked to aggression, from gangs and rapists to angry, hostile Type A personalities.

“You’ve got a lot of people running around with seriously inflated egos who come crashing down to earth all the time,” said study coauthor Joseph Boden, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Virginia. “You’ve got to attach it to real, concrete accomplishments and skills.”

The study found that aggressive, violent and hostile people - such as neo-Nazis, wife-beaters and members of the Ku Klux Klan - “consistently express favorable views of themselves.”

When confronted with their weaknesses and failures, however, they lash out - typically at those who have challenged what the researchers call their “threatened egotism.”

“The choice is often to take out the messenger, rather than think about the message,” said Boden.

Psychologist Charles Spielberger, a nationally recognized expert on anger and hostility at the University of South Florida, said the same principle applies to the Type A personality.

Type A aggression is used to ward off facing unpleasant facts about oneself, said Spielberger, who was not a member of the research team. “These people think, ‘You can’t hurt me because I’m going to beat your brains out before you have a chance to.”’

The research could fuel the controversy over school-based programs aimed at boosting self-esteem.

“Young black children often have very high self-esteem, but their academic performance is often very low,” said African-American writer Shelby Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. “The whole emphasis on culture and self-esteem will never work. It will just add to the grandiosity. You’re denying the real problem - which is the poor performance.”

Boosters of self-esteem aren’t backing down in the face of the research, even though they acknowledge they’ve relied on anectodal evidence, rather than data, to support their view.

“We didn’t claim to have proven it at all,” said state Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, who sponsored the legislation that created California’s Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility in 1987. “The science was not very far advanced.”

But he insisted that an underlying sense of self-esteem is important and leads to accomplishment. “Self-esteem precedes ‘doing’,” Vasconcellos said.

Linda Bosworth of the Foundation for Self Esteem, based in Culver City, said her organization has had good results. By boosting their self-esteem through government-sponsored motivational seminars, she said, people have gotten off welfare and started working, for example.

But the Psychological Review study says that programs aimed specifically at improving self-esteem could be making problems worse.

“Trying to build the self-esteem…could be counterproductive,” said study coauthor Laura Smart. “It would be better to focus on actual achievements and accomplishments, rather than simply patting them on the back and trying to raise their self-esteem.”

The study also suggests that psychotherapy aimed at raising the self-esteem of violent people could be harmful. “These people are often violent precisely because they already believe themselves to be superior beings,” the authors write. “Perhaps it would be better to try instilling modesty and humility.”