Review article
https://doi.org/10.5559/di.21.2.08
New Findings in Self-Esteem Research: Self-Esteem Security
Margareta JELIĆ
orcid.org/0000-0002-2478-0756
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb
Abstract
In scientific and popular psychological literature, self-esteem is
often mentioned as an indicator of mental health, mature
personality and adaptation of an individual. However, recently
there has been a growing number of contradictory findings on
self-esteem, the reason for which can be found in an old-
-fashioned approach to investigating self-esteem, i.e.
neglecting various aspects of self-esteem, as well as different
measures for self-esteem. The aim of this article is to familiarize
researchers with new insights in self-esteem research, point out
the complexity of the construct and give guidelines for future
research. The article explains why the use of different self-
-esteem measures often results in contradictory findings
concerning self-esteem level. We also introduce the construct of
self-esteem security that can shed light on the abovementioned
contradictory findings. Furthermore, the definition of self-
-esteem security as well as various operationalisations of this
construct are given, and commonalities and differences with
related constructs explained. Finally, the article presents results
of recent self-esteem research and new findings in this area.
Keywords
self-esteem level; secure self-esteem; implicit self- -esteem; paradoxical self-esteem; defensive self-esteem
Hrčak ID:
84539
URI
Publication date:
1.4.2012.
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