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

Self-Esteem and Positive Psychology 251the development of positive aspects of human behavior. What could bemore positive than fostering competence when it is balanced by worthiness?Second, we have seen that positive therapy aims at helping peopleto reach psychological well-being, as well as subjective well being; sodoes helping them deal with life’s challenges in a competent and worthyway over time. Finally, we saw that Linley and Joseph stated that positivetherapy also is concerned with “organismic values” and self-actualization.They, too, have been shown to be a part of self-esteem and enhancingit, especially in terms of intrinsic values and authenticity. In sum,enhancing self-esteem is clearly a form of positive therapy and shouldbe seen that way, regardless of whether positive is defined in newer orolder ways.Self-Esteem and Prevention: Working with a Human StrengthAnother dimension of the practical connection between self-esteem workand new positive psychology occurs in relation to prevention, which isamong its chief characteristics. As Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi saidearly on in the movement,Prevention researchers have discovered that there are human strengthsthat act as buffers against mental illness: courage, future mindedness,optimism, interpersonal skill, faith, work ethic, hope, honesty, perseverance,and the capacity for flow and insight, to name several. Muchof the task of prevention in this new century will be to create a scienceof human strength whose mission will be to understand and learn howto foster these virtues in young people. (2000, p. 7)Although important at the individual level, fostering strengths orvirtues also has larger, more social, and longer lasting implications. Forexample, healthy people are more likely to demand healthy institutions,work for their creation, remove obstacles that threaten them, and carefor them because of the intrinsic value of the project. In this way, thestrengths perspective may set up a virtuous cycle that could expand overtime to include more and more people. At the Utopian level, perhaps thispositive dynamic could even include the entire world. Of course, anyonewho is familiar with Maslow’s work knows that humanistic positive psychologyproposed such a long range and encompassing vision as well.At this point it should be clear that there is a place for self-esteem inpositivistic positive psychology. If not, then it is important to ask thequestion of what would it take for the new positive psychology to payattention to self-esteem in this way? Some positive psychologists haveidentified 10 criteria by which human characteristics and qualities maybe identified or understood as constituting a positive strength or virtue