Subject: 
            Re: [evol-psych] Re: The Trouble With Self-Esteem
       Date: 
            Tue, 26 Feb 2002 12:12:09 -0500
      From: 
            "Phil Roberts, Jr." 
        To: 
            Walter Foddis 
        CC: 
            [email protected]
 References: 
            1





Walter Foddis wrote:
> 
> I agree with Héctor Pauchard-Hafemann that if we want to discuss
> self-esteem we need to be on the same conceptual page. Otherwise, we
> might be talking about apples and oranges. In this case, I see the
> apple as being "defensive" self-esteem and the orange is "secure" or
> "genuine" self-esteem.
> 

I think the traditional term has been, 'insecurity'.  

I think it is all too easy to confuse self-confidence with regard to
a skill with self-esteem.  For example, the
verbally abused house wife might get momentary boosts of self-esteem
from doing something she takes pride in, keeping the house in order,
and might repeatedly do this as a means to the end of attempting to 
get her spouse to appreciate her more.  But in the end, it may simply
be a completely ineffectual vehicle for achieving that end.  In a 
similar fashion, a violent person might get momentary rushes of self-
esteem from being superior in the art of altering other peoples facial
features, but in the end, its an ineffectual, and even counter-productive
vehicle for establishing long term self-esteem.


> What I see as the real trouble with self-esteem is the issue of
> measurement. So the teasing apart of defensive from genuine
> self-esteem has been difficult with how self-esteem has been measured
> tradtionally, namely, using the questionnaire format. Fortunately,
> things are changing on this methodological front.
> 

I think that rather depends on whether one's primary objective is
to do technology, or to do science.  If one's primary objective is
to fix broken minds, then I suspect measurement might be more crucial.
If, however, one's objective is to do science, i.e., to understand  
our species' volatility in self-esteem from an evolutionary perspective, 
then different techniques such as stratification, abstraction,
generalization, etc. are often of more importance.  

For example,
for me the most important "measure" has always been the fact that 
the species on the planet in which reasoning is most developed is
also the one having the most difficulty with a volatility in 
self-esteem, suggesting a causal relationship.  But this is at a 
considerably more abstract level than what a clinical psychologist
is going to want to know in attempting to help one of his patients.

Then too, my first hand experiences with self-esteem, in which 
I have found a significant disconnect between my need for status 
and my need for esteem, are also of crucial importance to me for
the purposes of understanding self-esteem volatility IN A SPECIES 
(not in an individual, as with a technologist), in that it suggests
something a good deal deeper and more interesting than a superficial
adaptive explanation in which esteem is merely an adaptive vehicle
for maximizing status:


   "Discussions of scientific method have tended to stress 
   problems of testability, while neglecting...those
   aspects of the universe which in some sense are most central
   and significant for the area of reality with which the
   science deals." "It has been frequently assumed that only 
   those events which in principle can be simultaneously observed
   by multiple observers ... are to be accepted as constituting a
   legitimate observational basis for science." "I am suggesting
   that the more general and, to me, acceptable, objective intended
   by the criterion of interobserver agreement would be...the criterion
   of repeatability....a more general trust in one's own experience" 
   ...and the abandonment of "a corresponding uncritical acceptance 
   of the significance of verbal reports."  (Karl Zener)


[snipped]

> 
> Given all this, the proposed evolutionary argument that "high"
> self-esteem is part-and-parcel of aggressive behavior does not fit
> with this research. Sure, being confident and assertive is a social
> advantage, but that is very different from aggressive and hostile. I
> think we can differentiate between "aggressive" and "assertive"
> behavior based on these research findings. That is, the research
> suggests that aggressive behavior is more related to defensive
> self-esteem (with narcissism being an extreme form of defensive
> self-esteem) and assertive behavior to be more associated with secure
> or genuinely high self-esteem.
> 

Yes.  I suggested the open wound analogy, if you will recall.

Phil Roberts, Jr.