Psychology - Critical Thinking Piece - Essay Example

Psychology - Critical Thinking Piece Psychologists have considered self-esteem as an importantissue in the study of psychology due to the fact that a positive or negative self-esteem significantly affects each individual’s behavior, personality as well as the outlook in life. It is a common knowledge that most individuals who have a low self-esteem are often experiencing psychological difficulties that causes a person to experience loneliness, depression, and other negative feelings. (Leary, 1999a: 34) As a result, these individuals find it more difficult in socializing with other people as compared with people with high self-esteem.

For this reason, a lot of psychologists and sociologists have considered the building of a positive self-esteem to be the best solution in solving psychological and social problems. (Leary, 1999a: 32 – 33) In line with the effort of psychologists in measuring the self-esteem of a person, sociometer theory was developed in order to serve as a psychological tool that measures the quality of social relationship in life of a person. (Leary, 1999b: 33) Personally, I do agree that developing a high self-esteem is essential part of our lives in terms of being able to socially cope with other people in our environment.

However, measuring the degree of self-esteem in each individual with the use of the sociometer theory seems to be illogical because of the so many immeasurable factors such as culture and traditions as well as other negative experiences in life such as criticism, failure, peer rejection (Leary, 1999a: 34), sexual abuse or maltreatment that could either directly or indirectly affect the self-esteem of a human being. For example: some parents who lives in the Asian countries may use physical abuse as a method of rearing a child.

On the contrary, most parents who resides in a Western country are trying to avoid physical abuse in rearing a child because of the law that protects the children from any forms of physical harm. Even with the use of research survey, we need to face the fact that it is not possible to accurately measure the exact number of children who has experienced physical abuse or harm which could affect the low self-esteem of a person in each geographic region. According to Leary (1999a: 33), “sociometer continuously monitors the environment for cues regarding the degree to which the individual is being accepted versus rejected by other people.

” Perhaps it is possible that the use of sociometer could detect whether or not the increase or decrease in the self-esteem in general could affect the social relationship of a person with other people. In line with this matter, there will always be an exemption to the rule such that not all people with limited social relationship with other people have poor self-esteem. It is also possible that the work and/or lifestyle of a person such as responsibility with the family members limit his / her social relationship with other people.

In some cases, the personality of a person matters. For instance, people who are introvert may choose to spend more time alone rather than socializing the whole Friday or Saturday night with friends. This does not mean that all introverts have a very low self-esteem or would find it difficult in building a social relationship with other people. It just so happened that these individuals are better off spending the night at home with their family members or significant others.*** End ***References:Leary, M. R. (1999a).

Making Sense of Self-Esteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 8(1):32 - 35.Leary, M. (1999b). The Social and Psychological Importance of Self-Esteem. In Leary M.R. (eds) Making Sense of Self-Esteem.