Table of Contents
Definition and Concept of Self-esteem
According to Okoko (2012), self-esteem refers to a person’s overall evaluation of his or her own worth. It encompasses emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. It can also apply to a particular dimension such as “I believe I am a good writer and I feel proud of myself or I believe I am a good person and I am proud of that.” Self-esteem can be equated to self-worth, self-regard, self-respect, self-love, and self- integrity. In the mid-1969, Morris Rosenberg, a social learning theorist defined self-esteem in terms of a stable sense of personal worth or worthiness. Self-concept therefore, is a concept of personality and for it to grow, we need to have self-worth, and this self-worth will be sought from embracing challenges that result in the showing of success.
Self – esteem and academic achievement
According to Nina (1996), students’ statistic function with the self-followed on the heels of academic success. The influence may come through socio-cognitive progress such as internalization of social opinions and social comparisons. Studies on social perception and academic achievement in Kenya High School students found that Kenyan parents and teachers tend to encourage and support males to achieve higher academic goals compared to females (Frank 2009; Merish et al, 1999). Examining students’ self-concept by grade level, the research findings showed that students in advanced grades had higher self-concepts.
Nelson et al, (2006) stated as students advance in years and grade levels, their perceptions of the various aspects of self-concept went up. A possible explanation was that students improve in verbal and problem solving skills as they take more academic subjects in school.
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Peer relationships and self –esteem
According to Okoko (2012) Children spend an increasing amount of time in peer interactions during middle to late childhood and adolescence. Good peer relations might be necessary for normal social development in adolescent (Santrock, 2001). An adolescent’s self-image influences the way peers perceive him or her. Poor peer relations in adolescence is associated with dropping out of school and delinquency. A research conducted on sex- peer indicated that boys perceived themselves to have significantly better relations with opposite sex peers.
According to Ladd (1999) Studies reveal that adolescents who feel accepted in their peer groups have their love and belonging needs as well as self-esteem needs met. Rejected adolescents are infrequently nominated as best friends. Rejection results from aggression, poor sociability, communicative unresponsiveness and hyperactivity. Factors that affect adolescents’ acceptance by peers include intelligence ability, physical attractiveness, special talents, socio-economic class and ethnicity.
Self Esteem, Grade and Relationships
A research by Frank; (2009, indicates that inflating students’ self-esteem by itself can actually decrease grades. High self-esteem correlates highly with self-reported happiness. However it is not clear, which, if either, necessarily leads to the other. Additionally, self-esteem has been found to be related to forgiveness in close relationships, in that people with high self-esteem tend to be more forgiving. The relationship involving self-esteem and academic results does not signify that high self-esteem contributes to high academic result. It simply means that high self-esteem may be accomplished due to high academic performance.
Low Self Esteem causes
Low self-esteem has been linked to numerous adolescent risk behaviors such as smoking, drug use, and sexual activity. Adolescents engaging in these risk behaviors may have subsequent health problems, such as alcohol and drug addiction, as well as teen pregnancy. Present treatment modalities for low self-esteem have not been optimally effective. Nursing needs to examine adolescent self-esteem within the discipline of nursing and develop its own prevention and intervention strategies. (Zandstra K, Ehrenberger H, Muenchen B., 1998)
Local Studies
Watkins, David & Astilla, Estela. (1979). Self-Esteem and Social Class in the Philippines. The Journal of Psychology. 102. 211-214. 10.1080/00223980.1979.9923490. This paper examines the hypothesis that a significant positive relationship exists between the self-esteem and social class of adolescent Filipinos. Ss were 250 male and female Liberal Arts and Science students at a major Filipino university. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was used to classify the Ss into two groups—the top and bottom 25% of scores being designated as of high and low self-esteem, respectively. Ss in the two groups were then compared with respect to their parents’ levels of education and the status of the occupation of their family head. Evidence of a stronger association between self-esteem and social class than is typically found in Western countries was obtained.
Self-esteem and family relationship: This paper reports a study which tests the hypotheses that high self-esteem Filipino university freshmen will more often report a higher degree of acceptance by their families, a higher level of family inter-communication, and a greater degree of shared satisfaction with their family than will their low self-esteem peers. All hypotheses were supported confirming the close association between the Filipino’s perception of his family relationship and his self-esteem.
Measures of self-esteem and attribution for future success or failure at a forthcoming examination were obtained for 241 Filipino university students. Analysis of variance indicated that the high self-esteem subjects were significantly more likely than the low self-esteem subjects to perceive their possible success as due to internal causes and to attribute possible success more to internal causes than they did possible failure. Low self-esteem subjects did not differ significantly in their attribution for success and failure. Rather than supporting either self-enhancement or self-consistency theory for the low self-esteem group the data suggest that these subjects may fail to internalize success to the same degree as the high self-esteem subjects. A cross-cultural explanation of this apparent trend is suggested.
According to Gamosa, (2013) Self-esteem and Academic achievement as the researchers’ variables are perhaps one of the topics in the field of research in psychology. These two variables can give some insights on how a student perceives his self-worth in relation to his academic performance. As students pursue their studies, they tend to strive to have a good performance resulting to their insight about their self-worth.
According to Yazon (2013) Students who feel positive about themselves have fewer sleepless nights, succumb less easily to pressures of conformity by peers, are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, are more persistent at difficult tasks, are happier and more sociable, and most pertinent to this study is that they tend to perform better academically. On the other hand, college students with a low self-esteem tend to be unhappy, less sociable, more likely to use drugs and alcohol, and are more vulnerable to depression, which are all correlated with lower academic achievement.
