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

Major Self-Esteem Theories and Programs 115CONTEMPORARY EMPIRICALLY BASED APPROACHESSeymour Epstein’s Cognitive Experiential Self-TheoryAlthough cognitive psychology has not been a part of the history of thefield for long, it has been instrumental in terms of integrating psychologicaland social influences as we saw in Chapter 3. Seymour Epstein’sCognitive Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) is one of the first cognitivetheories of self-esteem, and it still receives much attention today. It isbased on the notions of information (experience), organization (conceptformation), representation (a system of concepts arranged hierarchically),and the process of development. This view finds that human beingsorganize information and experience of the world, self, and others intowhat Epstein called “personal theories of reality.”A major assumption of the theory is that the human mind is so constitutedthat it tends to organize experience into conceptual systems.Human brains make connections between events, and, having madeconnections, they connect the connections, and so on, until they havedeveloped an organized system of higher- and lower-order constructsthat is both differentiated and integrated. Whether we like it or not,each of us, because he has a human brain, forms a theory of reality thatbrings order into what otherwise would be a chaotic world of experience.We need a theory to make sense out of the world, just as a scientistneeds a theory to make sense out of the limited body of informationhe or she wishes to understand. (1980, p. 102)These personal theories of reality include both an understanding ofthe world and others (what Epstein called a “world theory”) and anunderstanding of who we are in relation to them (a “self-theory”).Like all theories, personal theories make sense out of data; in thiscase, it is the information given to us through our experience, family,culture, and so forth, in addition to what is more sensory in nature. Aswith any theory, we generalize from a set of concepts in a way that helpsus to understand the past, view the present, and anticipate the future.Finally, such personal theories are practical in that they are “prescriptive,”which is Epstein’s way of saying that they help us to survive andgrow. This cognitive device allows us to identify our needs and to findways of satisfying them that are likely to be successful given the particulartime, culture, and circumstances in which we live. In his words, suchtheories areA conceptual tool for fulfilling life’s most basic psychological functions,namely, to maintain a favorable pleasure/pain balance over theforeseeable future, to maintain a favorable level of self-esteem, to