What do many psychologists believe is the process for developing self-esteem? Does it change over time? What might be the evolutionary purpose of self-esteem in humans? Provide an example of different responses to a situation based on whether the individual has high self-esteem or low self-esteem

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Many psychologists believe that the process of developing self-esteem begins very early in childhood. Long before the child has a working model of the self, he or she is experiencing the emotional consequences of acceptance and rejection. Children form a variety of attachments with their primary caregivers. A child’s pattern of attachment in infancy predicts his or her self-esteem at the age of 6. Self-esteem does not appear to change much over the life span. Early differences in self-esteem seem to be magnified and reinforced over time, as having high or low self-esteem influences both the selection of activities and the reactions of others to the self.
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Self-esteem contributes to belongingness, or the maintenance of good social relationships. Because social rejection could have such devastating effects on survival in our evolutionary past, self-esteem may have emerged as a way of estimating the likelihood of rejection. Following the experience of social exclusion, self-esteem drops. A drop in self-esteem serves as an early warning signal that rejection by the group is imminent and that behavior designed to regain the favor of the group should be initiated.
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Student examples may exhibit very different responses to a situation relative to whether the individual has high self-esteem or low self-esteem. One example is that people with high and low self-esteem respond quite differently to failure. The person with low self-esteem tends to overgeneralize from failure. In other words, people with low self-esteem who fail one exam might assume that they are going to fail all their classes. This tendency to overgeneralize may explain why people with low self-esteem are more prone to depression. In contrast, people with high self-esteem respond to failure in one domain by exaggerating their abilities in other domains. If a person with high self-esteem fails an exam, she is more likely to remind others about how great she is in sports, appearance, or dating.
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