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

The Crucial Issue of Defining Self-Esteem 15In other words, instead of being a positive developmental and motivationalforce, Crocker and Park (2003, 2004) took the competencemodel to its final conclusion and pointed out that self-esteem could actuallydrive people to seek success and avoid failure in ways that are harmfulto themselves or to others. They referred to this aspect of self-esteemas the “problem of pursuing self-esteem” and went on to list its manycosts. Potential problems involved in pursing self-esteem when it isdefined this way include risking a loss of autonomy caused by beingdriven toward success instead of just desiring it; having a lowered capacityto learn or take risks that results in chronic failure or an incapacitatingfear of it; developing conflicts in relationships that are created by theneed to defend against losing self-esteem when honesty and opennesswould serve one much better; experiencing difficulty with self-regulationthat might lead to negative outcomes, such as becoming overly aggressive,and so forth. These authors even discussed how various clinicalproblems could result from an unhealthy pursuit of self-esteem that isconnected with a drive toward perfection, such as is found in eating disorders,or how failure to achieve one’s goals may be associated with substanceabuse problems or other ways of masking a sense of failure.We can see three things that result from defining self-esteem primarilyin terms of competence. First, the approach certainly merits the statusof a major school of thought and work on the topic. After all, seeing selfesteemin terms of competence not only was the first way to conceive ofit, but it is still very much alive today. Second, there are considerableadvantages to this approach. By understanding self-esteem in relation tosuccess and failure, for example, we are able to appreciate it in terms ofhuman motivation and motivational psychology. People do seek variousforms of success, we may come to avoid taking advantage of opportunitiesto reduce the possibility of failure, and we often react powerfullywhen self-esteem is threatened. In addition, this vision of self-esteemallows us to appreciate how unique individual self-esteem is for each ofus: We all care deeply about success and failure in areas that are personallysignificant to us on the basis of our particular constellation of history,circumstances, interests, and pursuits.Unfortunately, there is a glaring problem with this approach to selfesteemthat cannot be ignored. Crocker and Park (2003, 2004) capture itmost convincingly: If self-esteem is defined in terms of competence alone,then it is truly contingent on our successes and failures. Because successnever lasts forever and because failure is always possible, this view ofself-esteem means that success is a fragile foundation on which to buildan identity or a life. Although plausible, defining self-esteem in terms ofcompetence, then, takes one in a rather narrow, predictable, and “dark”direction. If that is the only way of defining self-esteem, then it would