Self-Esteem Research, Theory, and Practice Toward a Positive ...

Self-Esteem Research Problems and Issues 39population, then the normative samples must also be sensitive to age,gender, culture, and so on.Unfortunately, individual researchers develop most self-esteem testsfor specific purposes rather than for general use by major research facilitiesor clinicians (Wells & Marwell, 1976). This situation usually resultsin tests that are normed on relatively small numbers of subjects.Consequently, even well-known self-esteem tests are normalized againstno more than a thousand participants and the majority use many less.Yet, a small number of subjects cannot hope to provide good norms forthe major social, ethnic, economic, or other socially based variables thataffect self-esteem. Similarly, developmental factors affecting self-esteempose a normative challenge. For example, Pope, McHale, and Craighead(1988) and Harter (1999) pointed out that developmental age is a factorthat needs to be included in normalizing a self-esteem test, especially inregard to younger people. For instance, it is likely that a 6-year-old hasdifferent self-esteem issues than a 12-year-old and using the same set ofnorms to evaluate both individuals is simply inappropriate. The problemof normalization is compounded by the fact that many self-esteem testsdo not even report how, and sometimes even whether, they were standardizedin relation to any particular criteria (Sappington, 1989). Theresult is that most of the instruments are nearly useless.Self-Report ProblemsThe problem with most psychological tests is that they are subjective inthat we must use an individual’s report of his or her own experience,behavior, or characteristics to draw conclusions about that person. Theresponses of even the most well-meaning subjects are going to be filteredby all kinds of factors usually involved in self-perception, not to mentionthe additional problems that can occur when an individual is anxious,angry, suspicious, or mentally ill. Even under the best circumstances, forinstance, self-esteem tests are vulnerable to the “ceiling effect,” or thetendency to see oneself in a positive light when reporting about oneself.The most common problem that arises from this factor is that mostpeople tend to rate themselves more favorably on positive qualities andless unfavorably on negative ones than they are likely to actually meritwhen compared with external standards (Wells & Marwell, 1976).In addition, self-esteem tests are also vulnerable to what social psychologistscall the “social desirability” effect (Baumeister, Campbell,Krueger & Vohs, 2003). In regard to self-esteem, however, such an effectis extremely important because it can generate “false positives” in additionto simply elevating scores in general (Greenier, Kernis & Waschull,1995). That is, some people, particularly those who suffer some from