Self-esteem, personal sense of value, affects every aspect of our lives. Our level of self-esteem affects how we look at the world and how we explain each of our situations. Therefore, self-esteem is vital to our daily well-being, but few people realize its importance. We complain that in our careers, our bodies or friends cannot achieve the results we want. Most importantly, we complain when our closest relationship does not work the way we want. In these cases, it is easy to blame our partners, but the perceived difficulty of the relationship may be due to our own low level of self-esteem. Without a high degree of self-esteem, romantic relationships can become a frightening disappointment rather than a source of security, support and happiness.
Mental health
The booming relationship depends to a large extent on the positive emotions and attitudes of the partners involved. For example, Srivastava, McGonigal, Richards, Butler, and Gross [2006] found that optimism is an important factor in the relationship between long-term success and satisfaction. Unfortunately, people with low self-esteem experience negative emotions than those with high self-esteem [Conner & Barrett, 2005; Wood, Heimpel, & Michela, 2003], and their motivations are not as good as those with high self-esteem. Fix their negative emotions [Heimpel, Wood, Marchall, & Brown, 2002]. Similarly, people with low self-esteem have lower mental and physical health, lower economic prospects, and higher criminal behavior than high self-esteem [Trzesniewski, Brent Donnellan, Moffitt, Robins, Poulton, & Caspi, 2006]. In contrast, high self-esteem promotes happiness, mental health [Taylor & Brown, 1988] and life satisfaction [Kwan, Harris Bond, & Singelis, 1997]. Therefore, at least moderate self-esteem seems to be a prerequisite for healthy human function, which in turn is a prerequisite for a prosperous romantic relationship.
Choose a partner
The level of self-esteem seems to be related to how we behave in relationships and to the partners we choose. By comparing participants' attachment style dimensions, Collins and Read [1990] found that individuals tend to build relationships with partners who have similar feelings about intimacy and reliability of others. However, people will not simply choose a partner that is similar in each attachment dimension. For example, people with low self-esteem and high levels of attachment anxiety will not choose those who are worried about being abandoned. Similarly, Mathes and Moore [1985] argue that people with low self-esteem seek to achieve their ideal self by choosing a partner they believe to have a lack of quality. Therefore, people choose partners who have their own attachment style.
Coping with problems
The level of self-esteem affects the personal feedback people seek. On the one hand, some studies have found that people are more willing to interact with people who see themselves. Therefore, individuals with high self-esteem seek positive feedback and are therefore more willing to interact with people who are positive about them, while those with low self-esteem seek negative feedback and are therefore more willing to interact with people who are less positive [eg Swan, Griffin], & Gaines, 1987; Swann, de la Ronde, & Hixon, 1994]. On the other hand, Bernichon, Cook, and Brown [2003] found that participants with high self-esteem would seek self-verification feedback even if they were negative, but participants with low self-esteem sought positive feedback, even if it was not self-verifying. The truth behind these contradictory findings seems to be that people with low self-esteem are more hurt by negative feedback, so try to avoid it. However, in order to successfully avoid negative feedback, they must first find it, so they will continue to search for it. For example, Brown and Dutton [1995] found that individual failures made low self-esteem participants feel worse than self-respecting participants, probably because low self-esteem participants did not use effective coping mechanisms such as high self-esteem participants. The failures make external attribution [Blaine & Crocker, 1993] or emphasize their advantages in other areas [Dodgson & Wood, 1998]. In addition, people with low self-esteem tend to over-generate the negative effects of failure [Brown & Dutton, 1995], and when they encounter negative life events, they are more likely to make internal, global, and stable attribution [Tennen, Herzberger] and Nielsen, 1987]. Therefore, people with low self-esteem take a more self-protected lifestyle and aim to avoid negative feedback.
This self-protection attitude and lack of proper coping mechanisms are important for romantic relationships. Because people with lower self-esteem are less able to cope with negative feedback, they are also difficult to deal with when their relationship is in trouble. In three studies, Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, and Kusche [2002] convince participants that their relationship is problematic. Despite the problems with the methods of the first two studies, the last study led participants to believe that their partners [the people they were present] spent too much time listing the qualities of the target participants they disapproved. As the questionnaire completed after this threat induction, the low self-esteem participants read too much about the perceived problems as signs of a partner's emotional decline. In contrast, participants with high self-esteem show greater confidence in the continued acceptance of partners. The authors therefore conclude that people with low self-esteem can easily feel signs of rejection when threatened by relatively trivial relationships. One suggestion is that the occasional failure of low self-esteem people activates the perpetual fear that their partners will eventually discover their "real" self and their feelings may disappear. This low self-esteem person over-generalizes the consequences of minor difficulties and obviously inhibits the development of trust relationships. Therefore, these findings show how important self-esteem is to a successful romantic relationship.
Prevent rejection
Murray and others. [2002] found that participants with low self-esteem, after recognizing the threat to this relationship, had less positive opinions about their partners and reduced their intimacy. Instead, participants of high self-esteem respond to this problem by modifying the positive qualities of the partners and closer to the relationships. Murray, Holmes, MacDonald, and Ellsworth [1998] also found the same results. Therefore, people with low self-esteem seem to try to protect themselves from potential rejection by belittle their partners, thereby diluting the importance of what they will lose. The prospect of rejection seems to be less threatening by discovering the mistakes of their partners, because it seems that the partners are less than ideal [Murray et al., 1998; Murray et al., 2002]. Obviously, this strategy of dealing with difficulties has a negative impact on interpersonal relationships. It is therefore understandable that dating partners of low self-esteem have less and less positive opinions about their partners, and their relationship is becoming increasingly dissatisfied and more conflicting [Murray, Holmes & Griffin, 1996]. By degrading their partners, people with low self-esteem may lead to the end of the relationship, which they try to protect themselves.
Interestingly, in the study by Murray et al. [1998] also found that low self-esteem participants devalued their partners and suspected their partner's emotions after experimental manipulation aimed at improving self-esteem. The authors believe that this phenomenon may be due to the fact that when low self-esteem participants get positive feedback [the high scores of the questionnaire indicate their attitude towards the partner], they activate conditional thinking. In other words, participants with low self-esteem may have begun to believe that their partners' continued acceptance depends on their specific virtues, not who they are. This hypothesis is supported by the findings of Schimel, Arndt, Pyszczynski, and Greenberg [2001] who found that positive social feedback based on what people consider to be their own intrinsic aspects can reduce defensive responses [such as keeping themselves and other aspects of negative depiction] Distance] There is no positive social feedback based on one's achievements. Therefore, goodwill attempts to alleviate the insecurities of low self-esteem partners by pointing out their strengths may exacerbate insecurity.
The way in which self-respecting people react to the threat of self-esteem can also be understood using sociometric theory [Leary et al., 1995]. The threat to their self-esteem indicates a threat of social exclusion and measures are needed to eliminate it. As a result, individuals devalue their partners and keep a distance from them so that potential refusals are less threatening. This theory is also supported by the type of feedback that self-esteem is highly self-respecting and low self-esteem. As demonstrated by Vohs and Heatherton [2001], high-esteem people seek feedback related to their personal abilities [such as intelligence] after threats, while low-esteem people seek feedback about whether others accept them. High self-esteem people become more independent after being threatened, but people with low self-esteem become more interdependent...
Orignal From: The impact of self-esteem on romantic relationships - based on recent psychological research
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