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

The Crucial Issue of Defining Self-Esteem 21researchers have shown just how inadequate and ineffective unidimensionalapproaches to defining self-esteem are in theory and in research.For example, Tafarodi and Swann Jr. (1995) examined Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale and found that its questions actually load in two directions.To be sure, some items seem to assess factors that are associated withworthiness, which was the original intent. However, others clearly tapinto competence even though the instrument was not designed to do that.Noting that researchers have been aware of the need to consider two axesof self-esteem since Diggory’s critique of the self-concept in 1966, theymaintain that, “Rather than experiencing ourselves as simply positive ornegative, we experience ourselves as globally acceptable–unacceptable(referred to here as self-liking) and globally strong–weak (referred to hereas self-competence). Together these dimensions are held to constituteglobal self-esteem” (Tafarodi & Swann Jr., 1995, p. 324).The term self-esteem, then, actually turns out to be an efficient wayof talking about an interaction between these two variables. As Tafarodiand Swann Jr. most elegantly said, self-esteem “may simply be an expedientof discourse, in the same way that one speaks of the size of aperson’s build rather than the person’s (constitutive) height and girth”(Tafarodi & Swann Jr., 1995, p. 337). Thus, those who work within thisschool often note that the two-factor approach has the ability to bringtwo major streams of the field together much more than do the otherways of understanding self-esteem. For example, they work together wellconceptually.Self-competence, as the valuative experiences of one’s own agency, isclosely linked to motivational concepts such as effectance (White,1959, 1963), personal causation (de Charms, 1968), and striving forsuperiority (Adler, 1931/1992). It is the self-valuative result of actingout one’s will on the world—of being effective. Self-liking, in contrast,is the valuation of one’s personhood—one’s worth as a social object asjudged against internalized social standards of good and bad. Thissocial worth dimension of self-esteem figures prominently in accountsof the genesis of the ethical self, as offered by Baldwin (1899/1973) andCooley (1902/1992), among others. (Tafarodi & Vu, 1997, p. 627)In addition, it is important to appreciate the fact that this dual modelof self-esteem also takes the field in new directions. One of them concernsthe relationship between culture and self-esteem. This work is typicallydiscussed in terms of individualist versus collectivist societies and theirrespective approaches to providing the foundations for healthy identities.For instance, Tafarodi and Swann Jr. (1996) found that whereas bothtypes of cultures appreciate the need for an individual to demonstrate competenceand to feel worthy, each one tends to emphasize one component of