Having high self-esteem means you respect yourself, feel overall content with yourself, and accept your flaws and mistakes. Self-esteem is the value you place on yourself. It’s how you feel about yourself and your abilities.
In this article we explore types of self-esteem, benefits it’s linked with, causes of low self-esteem, and how you can improve it. We also look at self-esteem versus self-compassion, and look at why self-compassion is an important part of the equation.
Types of self-esteem
Researchers have outlined two basic types of self-esteem:
- Contingent self-esteem: This goes up and down depending on what’s going on around you and how much support and validation you experience from others. It’s based on extrinsic motivation — rewards or punishments from outside yourself.
- True self-esteem, also called trait self-esteem: This stays the same because it’s based on a stable sense of self that doesn’t fluctuate much throughout your life. It’s linked with intrinsic motivation — you feel good when your actions reflect your personal values and needs.
Researchers have also suggested that a person has different domains of self-esteem, reflecting how they feel about themselves in different environments or aspects of their life. Together these make up general self-esteem.
For example, if you feel good about your abilities and performance in school, you may have high academic self-esteem.
Other domains may include your self-esteem about physical attractiveness, performance at work, social skills, and athletic ability.
Benefits of high self-esteem
The connection between self-esteem and these benefits is complicated, and we don’t fully understand the cause-effect relationships involved. Many of these so-called benefits may also improve self-esteem levels, or both may be affected by other factors.
More research is needed to understand self-esteem and how it relates to our thoughts, behavior, and relationships. Here are a few things we know so far.
Greater life satisfaction
Higher self-esteem is linked to greater well-being.
One study in 31,000 college students across 31 countries found that people with higher self-esteem also had greater life satisfaction.
When the research participants were happier with themselves, they were more satisfied with their lives overall.
Better mental health
A lot of research has found that people with higher self-esteem tend to have better psychological well-being, lower symptoms of depression and other mental health conditions.
On the other hand, lower self-esteem is linked with many mental health issues, like higher anxiety, eating disorders, and more.
Grit
Having higher self-esteem is also linked with a stronger ability to get back up and continue toward your goals in the face of adversity, also known as grit.
When you have high self-esteem, you’re able to keep working toward your long-term goals, even when there’s a risk of failure. Researchers have suggested that grit may also power self-esteem, because persisting toward your goals can make you feel proud of yourself.
One Chinese study found that adults who had grit also tended to have more self-esteem, self-control, and self-efficacy, and they were less self-conscious. Those who had more grit and self-esteem also reported higher life satisfaction.
Helping others
High self-esteem is also related to more prosocial behavior, like having a positive attitude toward others and helping other people or doing things for society without expecting anything in return.
Studies have shown that people with higher self-esteem tend to engage in more altruistic acts and daily prosocial behavior.
Self-esteem and prosocial behavior are both complex concepts affected by many factors. More research is needed to understand how they interact, and what other factors may be involved.
Still, a little chivalry never hurt anyone. Try holding the door open for someone next time you’re out and about and see how it makes you feel.
Feeling good around others
Research participants with higher self-esteem in one study reported feeling less envy, which helped them be more open and giving with others.
Some academic experts on self-esteem have suggested that self-esteem serves an important social purpose as a barometer of how well they’re doing in their relationships.
The idea is that when you’re well-regarded by others, it feels good and reinforces you to keep having positive interactions with people.
On the other hand, the theory goes, when you feel your value to others is at risk, this may cause a dip in your self-esteem that drives you to behave in ways that repair or restore your relationships.
Causes
What causes low or high self-esteem? A million-dollar question with an unsatisfying answer: It’s complicated and researchers are still finding the answers.
Research has found that people who had more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), like physical or emotional abuse, have a higher risk of having low self-esteem later in life.
Poverty in childhood is also associated with low self-esteem, with the effect getting stronger as children get older.
Being repeatedly criticized, teased, or ridiculed can lead to low self-esteem, as can having caregivers that are authoritarian, overprotective, or expect you to be perfect, says the University of Toronto Scarborough Health & Wellness Centre.
Many other environmental and social factors may play a role. One study in 6,522 adolescents in the United States between 12 and 16 years old found that being female, Hispanic, being overweight or having obesity, and watching TV daily were associated with lower self-esteem.
On the other hand, being Black, having parents who were more responsive and demanding, being involved in sports teams, and good school performance were associated with higher self-esteem in the same study.
It’s important to remember these studies only show how self-esteem is related to other factors. We can’t know what causes low or high self-esteem from these observational studies directly.
How to improve self-esteem
There are many effective methods to improve self-esteem, but it depends on whether you’re treating a child or an adult.
Research has found that different factors affect children’s self-esteem than adults’, so interventions that work in one age group may not work in the other.
In adults
A comprehensive analysis of 119 studies found that many different therapies may boost self-esteem in adults.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): You learn to consciously challenge negative self-beliefs (like “I am unloveable”), which often come from negative experiences in childhood. One meta-analysis found CBT led to improvements in self-esteem that lasted 3 months or longer after therapy.
- Reminiscence-based therapy: You recall painful past memories about yourself and reevaluate them, as well as recalling and reinforcing positive memories.
- Support groups: You discuss your thoughts and feelings in a group, which may or may not be facilitated by a therapist. Interestingly, research has found that helping others in a support group can help improve self-esteem.
- Art therapy: You use creative expression, such as painting, theatre, music, or dance, to reflect on, process, and transform your thoughts and feelings.
- Compassion-based interventions: You use techniques like letter writing, meditation, imagery, and role playing to boost your courage and wisdom, and develop your ability to self-soothe in response to self-criticism.
- Evaluative conditioning: You’re asked to watch a screen where stimuli about the self (“I” or your name) are paired with positive words or images.
In children
Therapies that have been shown to create the best improvements in self-esteem in children use a few key techniques:
- Attributional feedback: When a caregiver links the child’s performance on tasks to specific causes the child can control, such as pointing out that they scored a goal because they made a big effort, or they lost a point because they made a specific mistake
- Contingent praise: When a caregiver praises the child’s abilities or efforts, but doesn’t praise their traits, like their intelligence (which may have the opposite effect, undermining self-worth)
- Goal feedback: When a caregiver gives the child specific feedback on how well they’re progressing toward a goal
- Skills training plus praise or feedback: When children receive training on skills and then get praise or feedback on their performance
Self-compassion vs. self-esteem
Self-compassion and self-esteem are strongly related. They share many of the same characteristics, but researchers have found they aren’t the same thing.
Both help protect mental health and overall well-being, and they both promote prosocial behavior.
Self-compassion is how you treat yourself when you experience difficulties in your life. It means having a caring attitude toward yourself in times of stress, failure, or suffering.
Self-compassion is made up of three parts, according to one widely used definition by the compassion researcher Kristin Neff: mindfulness or awareness of your discomfort, understanding you’re not alone and other suffer with you, and self-kindness.
There are a few differences between self-compassion and self-esteem. While self-esteem is seeing yourself positively compared with others, self-compassion is taking a positive attitude toward yourself without making comparisons.
Self-compassion also has self-soothing built in. Practicing self-compassion means using cognitive strategies like positive self-talk and cognitive reappraisal to cope with suffering. Self-esteem doesn’t do this.
Some evidence shows that self-compassion may activate the soothing parasympathetic nervous system to cope with stress, whereas self-esteem may be associated with activity in the “fight-or-flight” sympathetic nervous system, potentially in sensing the threat of being inferior to others.
Self-acceptance, which is closely related to self-compassion, is linked with having higher self-esteem.
Read our interview with self-compassion expert Kristin Neff on how self-compassion affects relationships and how you can use it to make your relationships better.
Frequently asked questions
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about self-esteem.
Is self-esteem the same as narcissism?
No. Self-esteem and narcissism are weakly correlated, but they aren’t the same thing.
And in many ways they can be opposite. People with narcissism tend to have a fragile self-esteem and sense of self-worth, which may be a driver of narcissistic thoughts and behaviors.
People with narcissism also have thoughts of being better than others, grandiosity, entitlement, and a lack of empathy. These may seem like self-esteem on the outside, but they’re propelled by the lack of it.
On the other hand, your self-esteem is your own evaluation of your value and competence as a human, including self-respect and self-acceptance. Research shows self-esteem is not feeling perfect or better than others.
While narcissism is associated with destructive social behaviors, like gaslighting and other types of manipulation, self-esteem is linked with behaviors like helping that can improve your relationships.
How does self-esteem affect romantic relationships?
Research on how self-esteem affects romantic relationships has produced mixed results, suggesting there’s not a simple, direct cause-effect relationship.
Experts exploring how self-esteem and relationships are connected have found that self-esteem may affect other factors. For example, low self-esteem may reduce trust between partners and lower reciprocal positive behaviors between partners.
Over time, the breakdown of these factors may reduce relationship satisfaction for both people in the relationship.
A complicated web of factors may be involved, and more research is needed.
Further reading
If you enjoyed this article, you might like these related articles on Relationship Smart:
- Why Self-Compassion Is Key for Your Relationships: Expert
- Why Talking to Strangers and Meeting New People Is Scary, and How to Do It Anyway
- ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences): Childhood Trauma Factors, Explained
- What Is Authoritative Parenting? Setting Boundaries with Love
Health and science writer and founder of Relationship Smart, Stephanie believes the world of our minds is real, important, and studyable, and that our social relationships are core to our well-being — much more than we give them credit for. She created Relationship Smart to explore the endless ways our relationships affect us, and to answer all your burning questions about them with scientific rigor and sensitivity.