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

110 SELF-ESTEEM RESEARCH, THEORY, AND PRACTICEoffers many advantages. Foremost among them is that social science hasat its ready disposal various means of measuring attitudes and their formation,meaning that it should be possible to apply the same techniquesto understanding ourselves. For example, there are many similaritiesbetween external attitudes and internal attitudes in terms of such thingsas content (what the attitude is about), direction (the positive or negativevalue of the attitude), intensity (the affective strength of an attitude orhow strongly it is held), and stability (how durable or long lasting an attitudeis). In his words,If we can characterize the individual’s self-picture in terms of each ofthese dimensions, then we would have a good, if still incomplete,description of the structure of the self-image. And the same would betrue of any other object in the world. (1965, pp. 7–8)Of course, Rosenberg was also aware that studying self-esteem thisway presents its own problems. One is the reflexivity of the self, whichmeans that self-valuations are more complex than evaluations of externalobjects because the self is involved in evaluating itself, something thatmight be analogous to the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty in physics.Another problem is that self-attitudes involve a certain motivationalquality that constitutes a powerful bias not usually found with attitudestoward other things: We are inclined to have a positive attitude towardourselves.Another important dimension of Rosenberg’s view of self-esteem isthat this attitude concerning one’s worthiness as a person is seen as a“pivotal variable” (1965, p. 15) in behavior because it works for oragainst us in any situation.High self-esteem, as reflected in our scale items, expresses the feelingthat one is “good enough.” The individual simply feels that he is aperson of worth; he respects himself for what he is, but does not standin awe of himself nor expect others to stand in awe of him. . . . Lowself-esteem, on the other hand, implies self-rejection, self-dissatisfaction,self-contempt. The individual lacks respect for the self he observes. Thepicture is disagreeable, and he wishes it were otherwise. (p. 31)In short, the presence or absence of such perceived worthiness disposesone toward positive or negative experience and behavior.Rosenberg went on to explore the way in which self-esteem (or thelack of it) is created: It results from a process of comparison involvingvalues and discrepancies. According to this view, individuals have selfesteemto the degree they perceive themselves as matching up to a set ofcentral self-values. These core values concern what individuals have