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

Medium Self-EsteemA Meaning-Based, Two-Factor Theory of Self-Esteem 167It would be a sad comment on human affairs if the types and levels ofself-esteem identified so far constituted the entire self-esteem picture. Forinstance, if it is true that authentic self-esteem is at the high end of thatquadrant then, like all extremes, including those of the other quadrants,its occurrence in the population is likely to be the exception rather thanthe norm. If not, then it would be likely that most of us would have to bein pretty poor psychological shape and that does not actually seem to bethe case, at least in terms of clinical significance. Does that mean weshould expect equal distributions in the four non-clinical areas? Althoughthere are many people who live worthiness-based, competence-based,and low self-esteem, there is good reason to believe that they do not constitutethe majority of the population even if they are combined. For onething, such a condition would make testing self-esteem quite difficultbecause there would be little in the way of a normal range against whichto compare the others. For another, the major self-esteem instruments doseem to indicate that most people are found well between the extremes,which is to say normal and normative.Fortunately, there is one more level of self-esteem to consider thataddresses this final part of the self-esteem picture. Medium self-esteemis a part of the self-esteem literature, albeit a small one. The dominantview on the character of medium self-esteem is represented byCoopersmith (1959, 1967) and Rosenberg (1965). This perspectiveholds the position that medium self-esteem results from enough exposureto positive experiences to avoid problems in this area, but notenough to reach a genuinely high state. In this view, higher self-esteem isalways seen as more desirable, even though it may involve some socialcosts such as the envy of other people. Also, the testing literature makesconsiderable use of the medium range of self-esteem, although the exactmeasure of the central tendency varies somewhat from group to groupor culture to culture.Of course, medium self-esteem is also anticipated by the matrix.Possessing some, but not an unusually large degree of competence, andsolid, but not overwhelming worthiness, definitely places such people inthe upper right-hand quadrant. However, they cannot be located as farup its diagonal as are those individuals with authentic self-esteem; otherwisethere is no way to distinguish between the two groups and weknow that such a difference exists. We accommodate this condition bysimply dividing the quadrant into two levels of self-esteem as we havedone with others, which in this case, would be at the +5, +5 position inthe diagram. This location means that medium self-esteem is reasonablystable, secure, or balanced, but capable of moving up to the higher,more authentic level of self-esteem found in this quadrant. Last but not