The Cost Of Being Evaluated

Self-esteem is considered to be the fundamental human need that one needs to pursue in order to achieve psychological well being. Individuals choose certain domains with extreme care on the basis of their confidence to achieve success, with the purpose of experiencing higher self-esteem.

- Dr. Senthil Kumar

People hold on to the belief that they are worthy and valuable human beings, and this desire functions to work as a motivator for them to pursue different courses of actions so as to prove their value. The concept of self-esteem is used to assess the degree to which we feel confident, valuable, and worthy. Self-esteem is considered to be the fundamental human need that one needs to pursue in order to achieve psychological well being. Individuals take extreme care to choose certain domains on the basis of their confidence to achieve success, with the purpose of experiencing higher self-esteem. The domains include popularity, wealth, professional achievements, and virtuosity. They work hard to prove themselves in these chosen domains. They consistently seek evidence of their own merit and strive to demonstrate such evidence to others. Since the process of boosting self-esteem involves an individual's ego, increasing or decreasing self-esteem creates respective good or bad feelings among people. The behaviour of individuals is so intensely driven by self-esteem that they may even evade, repress, and distort their judgment in order to avoid any situation that adversely affects their self-appraisal.

Getting a measure of self-esteem

Self-esteem is measured on a continuum; from high to low. High self-esteem is often measured in terms of happiness, success, and popularity, and, is considered to positively affect psychological health; whereas low self-esteem is associated with socialanxiety, depression, social isolation, suppressed anger, and shame. During early 1970s, the self-esteem movement - extolling virtues of it - gathered momentum, and many people began to discover ways through which self-esteem can be boosted among children. than good in the long-run.