GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM AND SPECIFIC SELF-ESTEEM - DIFFERENT CONCEPTS, DIFFERENT OUTCOMES

In this paper, we attempt to shed light on the nature of relevance of, and relationship between global self-esteem and specific self-esteem. We marshal evidence that the two types of self-esteem may have strikingly different consequences, global self-esteem being more relevant to psychological wellbeing, and specific self-esteem being more relevant to behavior. We use linear structural equation causal modeling to test this hypothesis for the case of global self-esteem (Rosenberg 1979) and specific (academic) self-esteem. Our findings show that, while global self-esteem is more strongly related to measures of psychological well-being, specific (academic) self-esteem is a much better predictor of school performance. Other findings indicate that the degree to which specific academic self-esteem affects global self-esteem, particularly the positive component of global self-esteem, is a function of how highly academic performance is personally valued.