Self-esteem, a sense of personal value, affects
every aspect of our lives. Our level of self-esteem influences the way
we see the world and how we interpret each situation we find ourselves
in. Self-esteem is therefore crucial for our everyday well-being, but
yet few people are aware of its importance. We complain about not
achieving the results we want in our careers, with our bodies or with
our friends. Most of all, we complain when our most intimate
relationships do not work the way we would like them to. In these
situations it is easy to blame our partners, but perceived relationship
difficulties may instead be due to our own low levels of self-esteem.
Without a high level of self-esteem, romantic relationships can become
frightening disappointments rather than sources of security, support
and happiness.
Mental wellbeing
Flourishing relationships are to a large degree
dependent of positive moods and attitudes of the partners involved. For
example, Srivastava, McGonigal, Richards, Butler and Gross (2006) found
that optimism is an important contributor to relationship long-term
success and satisfaction. Unfortunately, people with low self-esteem
experience negative emotions more often than people with high
self-esteem (Conner & Barrett, 2005; Wood, Heimpel, &
Michela, 2003), and they are less motivated than people with high
self-esteem to repair their negative moods (Heimpel, Wood, Marchall,
& Brown, 2002). Likewise, low self-esteem individuals have
poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects, and higher
levels of criminal behaviour, compared with high self-esteem
individuals (Trzesniewski, Brent Donnellan, Moffitt, Robins, Poulton,
& Caspi, 2006). In contrast, high self-esteem promotes
happiness, mental health (Taylor & Brown, 1988) and life
satisfaction (Kwan, Harris Bond, & Singelis, 1997). Thus, at
least a moderate level of self-esteem seems to be a prerequisite for
healthy human functioning, which in turn is a prerequisite for
prospering romantic relationships.
Selection of partner
Level of self-esteem seems to be implicated, not
only in how we behave in our relationships, but also in our selection
of partners. By comparing participants’ attachment style dimensions,
Collins and Read (1990) found that individuals tend to be in
relationships with partners who share similar feelings about intimacy
and dependability on others. However, people do not simply choose
partners who are similar on every dimension of attachment. For example,
individuals with low self-esteem and high levels of attachment anxiety
do not choose partners who share their worries about being abandoned.
Similarly, Mathes and Moore (1985) argued that individuals with low
self-esteem seek to fulfill their ideal selves by choosing partners who
they believe have the qualities they lack. Consequently, people choose
partners with attachment styles that compliment their own.
Coping with problems
Level of self-esteem affects the kind of personal
feedback people seek. On the one hand, some studies have found that
people prefer to interact with others who view them as they view
themselves. Hence, individuals with high self-esteem seek positive
feedback and therefore prefer to interact with people that see them
positively, whereas people with low self-esteem seek negative feedback
and therefore prefer to interact with people that see them less
positively (e.g. Swann, Griffin, & Gaines, 1987; Swann, de la
Ronde, & Hixon, 1994). On the other hand, Bernichon, Cook and
Brown (2003) found that high self-esteem participants seek
self-verifying feedback even if it is negative, but low self-esteem
participants seek positive feedback, even if it is not self-verifying.
The truth behind these conflicting findings seems to be that people
with low self-esteem are more hurt by negative feedback and therefore
try to avoid it. However, to successfully avoid negative feedback they
first have to find it, and they therefore constantly look out for it.
For example, Brown and Dutton (1995) found that personal failures make
low self-esteem participants feel worse compared to high self-esteem
participants, probably because low self-esteem participants are less
apt than high self-esteem participants to use effective coping
mechanisms such as making external attributions for their failures
(Blaine & Crocker, 1993) or emphasise their strengths in other
domains (Dodgson & Wood, 1998). Furthermore, people with low
self-esteem tend to over-generalise the negative implications of
failure (Brown & Dutton, 1995), and they are more likely to
make internal, global, and stable attributions when they encounter
negative life events (Tennen, Herzberger & Nelson, 1987). As a
result, people with low self-esteem adopt a more self-protective
approach to life by aiming to avoid negative feedback.
This self-protective attitude and lack of
appropriate coping mechanisms have important implications in romantic
relationships. As people with low self-esteem are less able to cope
with negative feedback, they are also less able to cope when problems
arise in their relationships. In three studies, Murray, Rose, Bellavia,
Holmes, & Kusche (2002) led participants to believe that there
was a problem in their relationships. Although the methods for doing
this are questionable for the first two studies, the last study led
participants to believe that their partners (who were physically
present) spent an excessive amount of time listing qualities in the
target participants that they disapproved of. As indicated on
questionnaires completed after this threat inducement, low self-esteem
participants read too much into the perceived problems, seeing them as
signs that their partner’s affections were waning. In contrast,
participants with high self-esteem showed increased confidence in their
partners’ continued acceptance. The authors thus concluded that people
with low self-esteem perceive signs of rejection too readily when
threatened by relatively mundane difficulties in their relationship. A
suggested reason for this is that low self-esteem individuals’
occasional failures activate an ever-present worry that their partners
will eventually discover their "true" selves and their affections might
then diminish. This way in which low self-esteem individuals
over-generalise consequences of minor difficulties apparently inhibits
the development of trusting relationships. These findings therefore
indicate how important self-esteem is for successful romantic
relationships.
Protection against rejection
Murray et al. (2002) found that low self-esteem
participants reported less positive views of their partners and
diminished feelings of closeness after perceiving a threat to the
relationship. Instead, high-self esteem participants coped with the
problem by embellishing the positive qualities of their partners and
drawing closer to the relationship. The same results were found by
Murray, Holmes, MacDonald, & Ellsworth (1998). Consequently, it
seems that people with low self-esteem attempt to protect themselves
against potential rejection by devaluing their partners and thus
downplaying the significance of what they stand to lose. By finding
faults in their partners, the prospect of rejection appears less
threatening because the partner is now seen as less desirable (Murray
et al., 1998; Murray et al., 2002). Obviously, this strategy of coping
with difficulties has detrimental effects on relationships. It is
therefore understandable that dating partners of low self-esteem
individuals report decreasingly positive perceptions of their partners,
less satisfaction and greater conflict as their relationships progress
(Murray, Holmes & Griffin, 1996). By devaluing their partners,
low self-esteem individuals may thus bring about the end of the
relationship, which is what they are trying to protect themselves
against.
Interestingly, in the study by Murray et al.
(1998) it was also found that low self-esteem participants devalued
their partners and doubted their partners’ affections after an
experimental manipulation intended boost to self-esteem. The authors
suggested that this phenomenon might be because when low self-esteem
participants received positive feedback (high scores on a questionnaire
said to measure how considerately they behaved towards their partners)
they activated thoughts of conditionality. In other words, low
self-esteem participants might have started to think that their
partners’ continued acceptance was dependent on their possession of
specific virtues, rather than who they are intrinsically. This
hypothesis is supported by findings by Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, and
Greenberg (2001), who found that positive social feedback based on what
one considers to be intrinsic aspects of oneself reduces defensive
reactions (such as distancing oneself from a negatively portrayed
other), whereas positive social feedback based on one’s achievements
does not. Thus, well-meaning attempts to soothe insecurities in low
self-esteem partners by pointing to their virtues may instead
exacerbate the insecurities.
The ways in which people with low self-esteem
react to self-esteem threats can also be understood in terms of the
sociometer theory (Leary et al., 1995). A threat to their self-esteem
indicates a threat of social exclusion, and thus requires measures to
eliminate this threat. As a result, individuals devalue their partners
and distance themselves from them to make a potential rejection less
threatening. This theory is also supported by the types of feedback
people with high and low self-esteem seek following a threat to their
self-esteem. As demonstrated by Vohs and Heatherton (2001), high
self-esteem individuals seek feedback relating to their personal
competence (e.g. intelligence) after a threat, whereas low self-esteem
individuals seek feedback relating to whether or not others accept
them. High self-esteem individuals become more independent after a
threat, but low self-esteem people become more interdependent. Hence,
level of self-esteem influences people to focus on different
self-aspects after a self-esteem threat, so that high self-esteem
individuals focus on personal aspects and low self-esteem participants
focus on interpersonal self-aspects. However, although the sociometer
theory states that a threat to self-esteem indicates a threat of
exclusion, it does not say that people with low self-esteem
automatically feel excluded when they encounter a self-esteem threat.
Feelings of exclusion lead to lower self-esteem, but low self-esteem
may not necessarily lead to feelings of exclusion, merely the
anticipation of feeling it. For example, Leary et al. (1995) only found
that exclusion leads to lower self-esteem and that perceived exclusion
and low self-esteem are correlated. They did not demonstrate that low
self-esteem leads to perceived exclusion. Consequently, it seems that
low self-esteem per se may not necessarily make individuals feel
excluded, but by constantly anticipating it, individuals with low
self-esteem react in ways that eventually make their partners more
likely to reject, and thus exclude, them.
The anxieties that low self-esteem individuals
hold about being rejected can also be understood in terms of their
anxious or avoidant adult attachment styles. Adult attachment
researchers, such as Collins and Read (1990) and Srivastava and Beer
(2005), have found that low self-esteem is correlated with high levels
of attachment anxiety and avoidance. Anxious and avoidant adult
attachments are thought to spring from inconsistent or avoidant
care-giving throughout childhood, during which individuals learnt that
love and support is not constantly available. Participants with these
attachment styles therefore have relationships marked by emotional
highs and lows, jealousy, and either less intimacy or obsessive
preoccupation with their partners as they are afraid of losing them.
People with secure attachments styles, on the other hand, have
relationships characterized by happiness, trust, and friendship
(Collins and Read, 1990). Hence, the insecurities and consequent
inadequate coping strategies demonstrated by low self-esteem
participants in the studies by Murray and her colleagues (e.g., Murray
et al., 1998; Murray et al., 2002) may be due to anxious or avoidant
attachments established during their childhoods. Attachment styles of
partners in a relationship also predict relationship satisfaction.
Collins and Read (1990) found that greater anxiety in women was
associated with lower satisfaction in their male partners. Because
anxious women are less trusting and more jealous, their partners feel
more restricted and therefore less satisfied. In contrast, women showed
higher satisfaction when their men were comfortable with closeness and
intimacy. Men are often stereotyped as less comfortable with intimacy,
so a man’s willingness to become close may be particularly valued by
women (Collins and Read, 1990).
Perceptions of partner’s affections
People with low self-esteem assume that their
partners see them in the same negative light as they see themselves.
Consequently, they cannot understand why their partners would love
them. On the other hand, people with high self-esteem assume that their
partners see them as the great people they believe themselves to be,
and their partners’ affections are therefore no mystery to them. In a
study by Murray, Holmes and Griffin (2000), couples described
themselves, their partners and how they thought their partners saw
them. The results revealed that low self-esteem participants
dramatically underestimated how positively their partners saw them.
Participants who underestimated their partners’ regards also had more
negative perceptions of their partners. The converse was found for high
self-esteem individuals. Consequently, perceived regard seems to be the
link between self-esteem and relationship satisfaction, so that
self-esteem influences perceived regard and perceived regard influences
relationship perceptions. However, it seems that even low self-esteem
individuals want to be positively seen by their
partners. For example, Murray et al. (1996) found that individuals are
happier in their relationships the more positively their partners see
them. Thus, although low self-esteem individuals wish to be positively
regarded by their partners, their own negative self-perceptions prevent
them from feeling this positive regard.
To get a clearer understanding of this issue,
Murray et al. (2005) investigated the effects of pointing out strengths
in the self or flaws in the partner. For example, when low self-esteem
participants were led to believe that their personality traits fit
easily with many potential partners, and hence, were in high demand,
they reported higher self-perceptions, greater security in their
partners’ positive regards and more commitment to the relationship.
This finding is interesting because it goes against earlier findings by
Murray et al. (1998). As discussed earlier, these researchers found
that pointing out specific virtues in low self-esteem individuals made
these individuals doubt their partner’s affections, probably because
they felt that their partners’ positive regard was dependent on their
continued possession of certain virtues. The reason why the first study
found different results seems to be because they focused on specific
personal strengths (considerateness) rather than on general
interpersonal strengths (more intrinsic characteristics) as in the
later study.
Furthermore, Murray et al. (2005) found that low
self-esteem participants felt better about themselves and valued their
partners and their relationships more when flaws in their partners were
pointed out. As a result, this study suggests that the reason why low
self-esteem people underestimate their partners’ affections is not
necessarily only because they assume that their partners see them as
they see themselves, but also because they feel inferior to their
partners. That is, seeing faults in their partners gives low
self-esteem individuals reason to expect greater tolerance from their
partners of their own faults. Moreover, by emphasising own
interpersonal virtues, the feeling that the partner is out of their
league diminishes. Perceived security in a partner’s continued positive
regard and commitment thus depends on the perception that each partner
is bringing comparable personal strengths and weaknesses to the
relationship.
Conclusion
Self-esteem plays a very important role in
romantic relationships. People with low self-esteem experience more
negative emotions, whereas people with high self-esteem experience more
happiness and life satisfaction. Level of self-esteem influences who we
select as partners and how we view them. Individuals who have negative
perceptions of themselves also have more negative perceptions of their
partners. Also, because they feel inferior, they cannot see any reason
to why anyone would like them. Low self-esteem individuals therefore
doubt that their partners actually love them, and consequently they
take minor relationship difficulties or failures as signs that their
partners’ affections are waning and that they will put an end to the
relationship. At the face of such problems, people with low self-esteem
distance themselves from their partners and devalue them even further,
because the prospect of rejection becomes less threatening if the
partner is seen as less desirable. On the other hand, people with high
self-esteem value their partners more highly and even in situations of
difficulties they maintain their confidence in that their partners will
continue to love and support them. Consequently, low self-esteem poses
a serious threat to successful relationships.
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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/
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-based-on-recent-psychology-research-1857507.html
About the Author
Liv Miyagawa, The Self-Esteem Coach, helps people
all over the world to raise their self-esteem and to reach their
personal goals. She opens people’s eyes to their own strengths and
helps them to figure out what it really is that they want to get out of
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