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

Major Self-Esteem Theories and Programs 119or incompetent behavior, positive or negative social feedback, and highor low global self-esteem becomes important to the self cognitively andaffectively. What happens in the domains and what occurs in importantrelationships continues to influence the self and self-esteem. However, theself and self-esteem may also influence what happens in the domains orrelationships. This condition results in what Harter called “directionality.”Thus, self-esteem is seen as a “phenomenological mediator” (Harter,1999). In later work, Harter (2003) also noted that this process of mediationis a particularly powerful one in terms of organizing a person’s perception,experience, and behavior. Such a view stands in starkcontradiction to that of those who see self-esteem as a mere “epiphenomenon”(Seligman, 1990).What makes Harter’s approach distinctly developmental, however, isthat she ties the interaction of competence and social support or approvalto the processes of cognitive maturation and social growth. In otherwords, Harter connected her theory of self-esteem directly to the cognitivestructures of the self as they unfold according to the stages and stepsseen in neo-Piagetian developmental theory. Indeed, she is even able toshow how the preoperational cognitive structures of early childhood configureself-esteem in ways that are different from those characteristic ofan older, concrete operational child or the formal operational adult, andso forth.One result of emphasizing social as well as psychological processesis that this two-factor approach enabled Harter to trace the developmentof self-esteem throughout the entire life cycle, which is an extraordinaryachievement. Although all of the processes cannot be presented here, it isimportant to note that she found that there is predictability to the typesof domains of behavior and social feedback that may be most significantfor self-esteem at a given age, just as one might expect from a developmentalperspective (Harter, 1999, p. 119). For instance, there are onlyfive domains of self-concept that have relevance for the development ofself-esteem in early childhood, but there are 12 in late adulthood. Some,such as peer acceptance, drop out of significance by early or middleadulthood, but others, such as concerns about mortality, appear at thattime. Indeed, only the domain of physical appearance stays with usthroughout the life cycle in regard to self-esteem: Apparently, the factthat we are social creatures means that we can never fully escape the wayothers respond to how we look. Like it or not, the reaction of the otheralways matters to us at some fundamental level, probably in terms of oursocial desirability or worth as a person.Harter also made it clear that there is a tremendous degree of individualvariation in this process. For example, academic competence canbe achieved in writing, math, social science, physical science, shop class,