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

8 SELF-ESTEEM RESEARCH, THEORY, AND PRACTICESince that time, positive psychology has grown to the point where ithas identified many key issues and concerns. For instance, we find thatin the classic The Handbook of Positive Psychology (Snyder & Lopez,2002) such topics as subjective well-being, positive affectivity, andauthenticity are included in the field, all of which have been a part ofself-esteem work for a good while. Perhaps now it is the time to seewhether these two overlapping fields may be integrated in meaningfulways. In sum, these three factors (the importance of self-esteem for negativeand positive qualities of life; the development of more sophisticatedresearch methods, findings, and theories; and the advent of a newpositive psychology) work together to create the need to look at selfesteemanew.THE CENTRAL ISSUE OF DEFINING SELF-ESTEEMIn one sense, we all know what self-esteem “really is” because it is ahuman phenomenon, and we are all human beings. But like muchcommon sense knowledge, there are serious limits to such understandingthat become apparent as soon as we begin to examine them more closely.As Smelser observed,We have a fairly firm grasp of what is meant by self-esteem, as revealedby our own introspection and observation of the behavior of others.But it is hard to put that understanding into precise words. (1989, p. 9)A simple but revealing way to explore this problem is to ask almostany reasonably mature undergraduate psychology class to do the followingexercise.At the beginning of the class or lecture ask each person to writedown his or her own definition of self-esteem. Then, invite the studentsto either read their definitions aloud or to hand them in to be read aloud.As the information comes in, write the key components of each definitionon the board so that they can be examined publicly. After that is done,ask the group to develop a single definition of self-esteem. The typicalclass sees the point almost immediately: What seems so familiar and easyat the beginning of the activity quickly shows itself to be quite complexand difficult. They also tend to be struck by the diversity of definitions,and for some it may even seem as though there are as many ways to defineself-esteem as there are people trying to do so! Similarly, the class tends tonotice that, although different, several definitions appear to have somemerit because they all suggest, capture, or describe an important aspect ofthe phenomenon.