LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH OF SELF-ESTEEM
2.10 GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER
Firstly in this chapter, the self and self-esteem theories were outlined under five sections: the self in James’s pioneer work; the looking-glass self or self in symbolic interactionism (Cooley & Mead); the self in Freudian and Neo-Freudian theories (Freud, Jung, Adler, Horney, Fromm, Sullivan and Erikson) the self in the humanistic perspectives (Maslow, & Rogers); the self-enhancement, & self-consistency theories;
and finally, attitudes toward the self or self worth (Rosenberg, & Coopersmith).
Although there are a variety of theoretical explanations on the nature of the self and self-esteem, it is obvious that most theorists agree that the self is an important concept in understanding human behaviour. Under the framework of these theories, most of the recent researchers are still enthusiastically exploring the nature of self-esteem.
Secondly, the conceptual problems of self-esteem and self-concept were briefly examined. Although self-esteem became interesting both in psychology and education, and its construct has been discussed in many theories since W. James and his work (1890), there is still a lack of consensus in terms of a proper definition. Both the past and the present reviews and definitions indicate that not only esteem and self-concept, but also the other self-terms (such as self-image, self-evaluation, self-value, self-perception, self-assessment etc.) are used interchangeably. Many researchers used self-esteem scales to measure self-concept, as well as using self-concept scales in order to measure self-esteem. Sometimes authors used both of the concepts to refer to the same construct. Despite a great number of studies being conducted to distinguish self-esteem and self-concept constructs and to clarify the definitions of them, there remains controversy over the definitions of the concepts. Therefore, in the present study, the terms self-esteem and self-concept will be used interchangeably, as used by previous
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psychologists such as Wylie (1968), Shavelson, et al. (1976), Rosenberg (1979), Burns (1981), Abdallah, (1989), Cassidy (1991), and Burnet (1994).
The self-esteem measurement methods and some problems in measuring self-esteem were also briefly discussed in this chapter. As with any personality measure, there are also problems in self-esteem assessment. The literature review revealed that there have been countless numbers of self-esteem measures, however, no firm body of evidence exists yet with which to justify them. Wylie (1974) points out that a large number of studies which she reviewed lacked information about validity and reliability of the scales. Another difficulty of self-esteem measures, is the non-equivalence of the measures, i.e. one cannot compare the test results. It is not possible to validate a self-esteem measure by comparing it with the results of another self-self-esteem measure.
However, more recently researchers have developed self-esteem instruments specifically to measure particular aspects of self-esteem that are based on a theoretical model. This approach has produced instruments in which multiple facets of self-esteem are clearly identified (e.g. Harter, 1982; Marsh et al., 1984; Coopersmith, 1991).
After these general explanations, three main sections followed in this chapter. They were a) the relation of self-esteem with academic achievement, b) sex differences in self-esteem, and c) self-esteem and cultural differences. These sections were given close attention because of their relation to some of the main objectives of this study. Each of these three sections included some brief theoretical explanation, as well as related empirical findings of past research.
The past research suggests that there is a moderate relationship between self-esteem and achievement. Although, a large proportion of studies have reported a significant self-esteem / academic achievement relationship, the correlations have been uniformly low between the two variables. The issue was summarised by Wylie (1974) who stated:
“The correlations of achievement indices and overall self-regard indices tend to be
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small in absolute terms, offering no support to the commonly accepted lore that achievement and self-concept are strongly associated” (p.406). Although the review studies of Uguroglu & Walberg (1979) and Hansford & Hattie (1982), and most of the studies whose findings are outlined in this section, reveal, in the aggregate, self-esteem is significantly associated with academic achievement. Most of these studies, however, do not provide strong enough evidence to determine the causal direction between self-esteem and academic achievement. The correlational data also indicates that the academic achievement / self-esteem relationship is slightly stronger among boys than among girls.
Although much research has been conducted in the last three to four decades concerning self-esteem (or self-concept) and academic achievement, it has to be pointed out that the causal relation between these two constructs has yet to be clearly defined. Though many researchers have used predominantly correlational data, they have commonly stated that self-esteem causes academic achievement. Though in recent years researchers have used more advanced statistical techniques and models (such as longitudinal data, cross-lagged panel analyses etc.) than simple correlations or variance analyses to determine the causal relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement, the research data still does not provide consistent evidence to determine which comes first, positive self-esteem or academic success. However, despite limitations of clear evidence it seems logical that educators do not necessarily have to make a decision whether to follow either the basic-skills or the self-esteem enhancement model. The findings of Owens (1991) support this idea, and suggests that “we should integrate self-enhancement and skill-development strategies rather than polarise them” (176).
Moreover, enhancing self-esteem is not only important because it helps to increase academic achievement, it is also crucial in the promotion of good social and emotional adjustment and mental health. Therefore, educators and policymakers should be
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encouraged to structure school curricula or programmes to facilitate the achievement of both goals, by following them both simultaneously.
Although the review revealed that a considerable number of studies were undertaken in the Western world in order to investigate self-esteem-achievement relationships, there have been only a few studies in Turkey. When past self-esteem studies in Turkey were examined it could be seen that almost all of them had been undertaken during the 1980s and 1990s. In order to find out the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement, a total of five studies were conducted in Turkey (Arseven, 1986; Can, 1986; Gürel, 1986; Dogusal, 1987; Ersek, 1992) and only one of them focused on secondary school students. These data clearly indicate that the number of Turkish studies are very limited. Therefore one of the main objectives of this study is to investigate self-esteem-achievement relationships for Turkish subjects.
Sex differences in self-esteem was another subject examined in this chapter. In many societies and cultures, it is commonly acknowledged that men and women are expected to perform different roles, and have different attitudes, and functions. Although, Carlson (1965) suggests that self-esteem is a relatively stable dimension of self and independent of sex role, some social theorists argue that it is the socialisation process that guides men and women in different directions (Rosenberg & Simmons, 1975). In order to have an idea about sex differences in self-esteem the findings of some 60 past and recent studies from 1959 to 1994 were examined in this chapter. The summary of these studies can be seen in Appendix C, Table 2. Although about 75% of all the comparisons failed to obtain a significant sex difference in self-esteem, the number of comparisons which showed that males had significantly higher self-esteem scores than females, more than double the comparisons found that females had higher self-esteem scores than males.
While the present review, overall, does show girls to have somewhat lower self-esteem than boys, the differences are quite modest. In fact, many recent discussions have
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emphasised the importance of women’s changing self-concept. The influence of the recent feminist movement might be an important factor in relation to these results.
However, evidence across different studies is largely consistent, revealing a common core of stereotyped characteristics. Males are described as competent and logical, possessing self-confidence, direct in manner and dominant. Females are described as warm and sensitive, socially skilled and inclined toward interpersonal and artistic interests. Despite the fact that women now constitute a greater percentage of the nation’s workforce than in the past, female roles still continue to be stereotyped primarily in terms of domestic responsibilities in many societies. Such stereotypes are slow to change within a culture. However, the modern women’s movement does take the position that basic changes in attitudes are essential to achieve true equality of opportunity.
When the studies were analysed, it could be seen that most of these studies were American. However, a total of eight British, and thirteen Turkish studies were included in this review and when the findings of these studies were examined separately, the data still showed that the majority of the studies obtained no sex differences. In contrast to what was expected, sex differences among Turkish students in favour of boys were only found in one study. In summary, the majority of the reviewed studies fail to support a relationship between sex and self-esteem. Although various speculative interpretations may be offered to explain the repeated finding of null results, no firm conclusions can yet be drawn. The questions of sex differences remain unresolved.
Self-esteem and cultural differences was another section in this chapter. As one of the objectives of this study was to find out self-esteem differences between the English and the Turkish groups, the findings of past cross-cultural research were outlined in this chapter. The review suggested that cross-cultural studies on self-esteem were few in number and there have been a remarkably small number of studies conducted outside of
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the USA and Western Europe. Furthermore, most of these studies have concentrated on examining self-esteem differences between different ethnic groups within the same country. There has not been any cross-cultural study comparing self-esteem of the British and the Turkish subjects in the literature.
Locus of control as being another personality variable, will be the subject of the next chapter. The related literature and review of locus of control will be summarised. After a brief theoretical explanation, the relation of locus of control with academic achievement, sex, and cultural differences will be examined.