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Global Self-Esteem and Specific Self-Esteem: Different Concepts, Different OutcomesAuthor(s): Morris Rosenberg, Carmi Schooler, Carrie Schoenbach, Florence RosenbergSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 141-156Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096350 .Accessed: 30/09/2011 18:38

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

Morris Rosenberg Carmi Schooler University of Maryland and National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Mental Health

Carrie Schoenbach Florence Rosenberg National Institute of Mental Health Walter Reed Army Institute of

Research and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

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 mar- shal evidence that the two types of self-esteem may have strikingly different consequences, global self-esteem being more relevant to psychological well- being, 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.

O )ver the past 40 years, the concept of self-esteem has assumed an important

place in the field of social psychology. A computer search of the literature (Kitano 1989) found over 6,500 article titles that ex- plicitly used the term "self-esteem" and over 30,000 titles that used the term "self' in some hyphenated form, many of which also dealt with self-esteem (e.g., self-concept, self-evaluation, self-respect, self-confidence).

*Direct all correspondence to Carmi Schooler, Laboratory of Socio-environmental Studies, NIMH, NIH, Rm BIA-14, Federal Building, 7550 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20892. The authors presented an earlier version of this paper to Research Committee 42, Social Psychology, at the 12th World Congress of Sociology, Madrid, Spain, July 1990. This paper, which represents a very substantial revision of the earlier one and includes new analyses, was completed after Morris Rosenberg's untimely death in 1992. Among the analyses completed after Rosenberg's death are those that separate the positive and negative aspects of self-esteem and those that examine how valuing academic performance relates to specific academic self-esteem and global self-esteem.

Looking at the general body of research on self-esteem today, it is evident that most of this literature deals with global self-esteem, that is, the individual's positive or negative attitude toward the self as a totality. In the last decade, however, a number of writers have stressed the importance of studying specific self-esteem, as well (e.g., Harter 1985; Marsh 1986; Marsh and Shavelson 1985; Swann 1987). As Marsh (1990) expresses it: "More recently, self-concept theory has stressed the multi-dimensionality of self- concept, and empirical studies have identified distinct, a priori facets of self-concept" (p. 107).

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the nature and relevance of global and specific self-esteem and their relationship to each other. We begin by focusing on two general features of attitudes to clarify the distinctions we make regarding self-esteem. First, the study of any attitude, and self-esteem is an attitude, must take account of the fact that people may have attitudes both toward an object as a whole (global or general) and toward specific "facets" of that object

American Sociological Review, 1995, Vol. 60 (February:141-156) 141

142 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

(Marsh 1990). For example, a student may have attitudes toward her university as a whole, but she may also have different attitudes toward a specific department, the qual- ity of the faculty, or the attractiveness of the campus. Although the differences between global and specific attitudes are sometimes overlooked, they are not equivalent or interchangeable. This point applies equally to self-esteem, which can be viewed as an attitude toward an object, even though the holder of the attitude and the object toward which the attitude is held-the self-are the same (Rosenberg 1979).

A second feature of attitudes is that they include both cognitive and affective elements. That attitudes are cognitive is evident from the fact that they refer to objects-an attitude represents some thought about a particular thing (e.g., person, material object, group, idea, etc.). That they are affective is shown by the fact that attitudes have both direction (i.e., a positive or negative orientation toward some object) and intensity. Self- esteem research has tended to overlook the degree to which these cognitive and affective components differentially permeate specific and global self-esteem.

Like other attitudes, individuals' views of themselves can contain both positive and negative components. Thus, decades ago or- thogonal principal component factor analyses carried out by Kohn and Schooler (1969) indicated that the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1979) contained two components-self-confidence and self-deprecation. Using structural equation based measurement models they later confirmed that a two-component model that separates the positive and negative aspects of self-esteem provides a better fit to the data than does the single general component model that charac- terized Rosenberg's (1979) original concep- tion (Kohn and Schooler 1983).

More recently, Owens (1993) theorized that, in addition to self-esteem and self-con- sistency, the two central motives credited by self-concept theory for protecting and main- taining one's self-image, other theoretical perspectives suggest plausible functions for the less global concepts of self-deprecation and self-confidence. According to Owens, for example, self-verification theory (Swann, Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler 1992) suggests

that "negative self-conceptions may help people maintain a viable self-system and pre- dictable orderly social relations" (p. 289). On the other hand, "'effectance motivation' that compels judgment of one's own competence and efficacy (Gecas and Schwalbe 1983) ... should impel one to focus more sharply on one's own varying degrees of ability, competence, and efficacy-all attributes of self- confidence" (Owens 1993:290).

On a more empirical level, Owens (1993) has reconfirmed the existence of the self- confidence and self-deprecation components of self-esteem. He also has shown that both components fit well into a second-order construct of global self-esteem, with self- confidence having an appreciably higher association than self-deprecation with global self-esteem (e.g., at age 23 the effect of global self-esteem on self-confidence is .88 and on self-deprecation is -.64). We will consider this issue further in our analyses section.

We have defined the following objectives:

(1) To illustrate how investigators have sometimes reached incorrect conclusions by treating global and specific self- esteem as surrogates for one another.

(2) To demonstrate that global and specific self-esteem differ in their consequences and how these different consequences have led to some of the mispredictions and weak associations reported in the literature.

(3) To show that the effects of global and specific self-esteem may be mediated by each other.

(4) To examine how global and specific self- esteem affect one another, with particular emphasis on whether the effect of a specific facet of self-esteem on global self-esteem is a function of the degree to which that facet is valued.

(5) To explore how global and specific self- esteem differentially affect, and are differentially affected by, behavioral outcomes.

(6) To determine the relative importance of the positive and negative components of global self-esteem with respect to a behavioral outcome, school performance.

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM AND SPECIFIC SELF-ESTEEM 143

THE FALLACY OF EQUATING GLOBAL AND SPECIFIC SELF-ESTEEM

In more than a few self-esteem studies, the failure to distinguish the parts from the whole has led to a number of misunderstand- ings. A well-known example is the large body of research on the relationship between race and self-esteem. Some studies focus on pride in one's race (racial self-esteem), whereas others focus on pride in oneself (personal self-esteem) (Porter and Washing- ton 1989). This distinction is often overlooked. In his exhaustive review of the literature, Cross (1985) pointed out that 87 percent of the 161 studies he examined explored either racial self-esteem or personal self-esteem, but not both. In most studies, low regard for one's race was considered equivalent to low regard for oneself. Cross (1985) reported that, although researchers clearly set out to assess racial self-esteem, as a result of their failure to make a sharp distinction between racial and personal self-esteem, they often presented the racial self-esteem results "as if' their study had actually assessed level of self-worth. Similarly, children with poor academic self-concepts are often described as having low self-esteem, based on the im- plicit assumption that a child who feels that he or she is a poor student is thereby express- ing low general self-esteem (Wylie 1979).

Clearly, the aspects of oneself on which one's global self-esteem is based and the choice of reference group to which one com- pares oneself are complex matters. There is considerable experimental evidence (Major, Sciacchitano, and Crocker 1993) and survey- based evidence (Rosenberg 1979) supporting the hypothesis that members of stigmatized groups avoid threats to their self-esteem by comparing themselves primarily with others who are members of their own stigmatized group rather than with members of an advantaged out-group (Crocker and Major 1989). Other evidence indicates that members of stigmatized or disadvantaged groups also protect their self-esteem by selectively devaluing those domains in which the out- group is advantaged and selectively valuing those domains in which their in-group has advantages (Major et al. 1993). Research on coping suggests that other general coping strategies exist, based not only on the choice

of comparison groups but also on ignoring or devaluing problematic areas of functioning (Pearlin and Schooler 1978). All these possi- bilities are consistent with the hypothesis that decreasing the value one gives to domains in which oneself or one's reference group does poorly protects global self-esteem (Harter 1985; Rosenberg 1979). If this hypothesis is correct, global and specific self-esteem are different phenomena-they may be dynamically interrelated phenomena, but they are not directly interchangeable.

Marsh's (1986) research provides clear empirical evidence that global and specific self-esteem cannot serve as surrogates for one another. He examined the relationship of subjects' self-evaluations on 12 facets of the self to their global self-esteem. He found that the associations ranged from .06 to .60, with most falling within the .30 to .50 range. Even if we accept the possibility that measurement error might lower the correlations somewhat, such relatively low correlations are exactly what one would expect if specific and global self-esteem are related but not interchangeable phenomena.

It might seem apparent that the relationship between one's judgment of a particular facet of oneself and one's global self-esteem would depend in large part on the rank of that facet in one's personal hierarchy of self- values. Although this point underlies the point made in the preceding paragraph and was clearly noted many years ago by Will- iam James ([1890] 1950), not all empirical findings unequivocally support the relevance of psychological centrality. (For examples of mixed evidence, see Faunce 1982; Gecas and Seff 1990; Harter 1985; Hoelter 1986; Hoge and McCarthy 1984; Marsh 1986; Rosenberg 1989; Thomas 1989.) Using data measuring how much our respondents value academic achievement, we empirically test whether the relationship between global self-esteem and specific academic self-esteem varies when the value placed on academic achievement varies.

RELATIONSHIPS OF GLOBAL AND SPECIFIC SELF-ESTEEM TO BEHAVIOR AND WELL-BEING

It is particularly important to distinguish between global and specific self-esteem be-


cause the relationships reported in the literature between self-esteem and other variables are often weaker than might be expected. This is true whether self-esteem is treated as cause or outcome. For example, Wylie (1979) and others reported that sociodemo- graphic variables show no better than modest success in predicting self-esteem. (Some reasons for these results have been discussed by McCarthy and Yancey 1971; Rosenberg and Pearlin 1978; Rosenberg and Simmons 1972). Although there have been some suc- cesses (e.g., Menaghan and Parcel 1990), in general, self-esteem has not proved to be an impressive predictor of behavioral outcomes.

One reason for these comparatively weak relationships between self-esteem and behavior has been the failure to recognize that global and specific self-esteem are both important, but that they are important for different reasons and are relevant in different ways. A central hypothesis of this paper is that specific self-esteem is most relevant to behavior, whereas global self-esteem is most relevant to psychological well-being. Much self-esteem research, we believe, relates precisely the wrong type of self-esteem to the outcome variable (Scheff, Retzinger, and Ryan 1989), examining the relationship between global self-esteem and specific behav- iors or behavioral outcomes. We believe, on the contrary, that a specific behavior is best predicted by a specific self-esteem that is in some way connected to that behavior, whereas psychological well-being is best predicted by global self-esteem. Let us consider some of the evidence on which our hypothesis is based.

Self-Esteem and Behavior

The expectation that specific. self-esteem would have stronger effects on behavior than global self-esteem derives from the Fishbein and Azjen (1975) model, which postulates that the power of an attitude to predict a behavior is a function of how closely that attitude relates to the act in question-the more specific the attitude, the greater its predictive power. If so, then a specific self-esteem should be a better predictor of a specific behavior than is global self-esteem.

Self-efficacy theory and self-attribution theory offer other reasons for expecting stron-

ger relationships between specific self-esteem and a behavioral outcome. As noted, when we speak of specific self-esteem, we refer to a particular facet of the self (Marsh 1986). Insofar as this facet relates to some area of competence, specific self-esteem has much in common with the concept of self- efficacy. When Bandura (1982) speaks of self-efficacy, he refers to the individual's confidence that he or she can attain specified performance levels. Bandura (1982) identified several reasons why perceived self-efficacy tends to enhance performance outcomes. One reason, he noted, is that "people who judge themselves ineffective in coping with environmental demands tend to generate high emotional arousal, become excessively pre- occupied with personal deficiencies, and cognize potential difficulties as more formi- dable than they really are. Such self-referent concerns undermine effective use of the com- petencies people possess" (pp. 25-26).

Another reason Bandura (1982) offered for perceived self-efficacy to result in successful performance is that "self-judged efficacy ... determines how much effort people will ex- pend and how long they will persist in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences.... In the face of difficulties, people who entertain serious doubts about their ca- pacities slacken their efforts or give up alto- gether, whereas those who have a strong sense of efficacy exert greater effort to mas- ter the challenges" (p. 25). At comparable ability levels, then, self-efficacious persons are more apt to experience successful outcomes.

Global self-esteem, on the other hand, seems much less likely to exercise a powerful direct effect on performance. For one thing, the central feature of global self-esteem appears to be self-acceptance or self- respect. Competence is only one factor, and not necessarily the most important one, con- tributing to such feelings. Second, as we have noted, some facets of the self may be peripheral to feelings of self-worth, whereas others may be central. Unless a particular facet is important to the individual, there is little reason to think that global self-esteem will tell us much about a person's behavior or performance with respect to that facet, nor will such behavior necessarily indicate much about global self-esteem. For example,


knowing that someone has high global self- esteem will tell us little about that person's assessment of his or her competence as a pole-vaulter or as a writer of sonnets. Con- versely, the fact that I consider myself totally inept as a pole-vaulter in itself offers little indication of my overall feeling of self- worth. We do not suggest that global self-esteem is totally unrelated to behavior, but that this relationship is likely to be weaker than the relationship of specific self-esteem to a relevant behavior or performance.

Although evidence is limited, the results of both experimental and correlational studies support this view. In an experimental study, Shrauger (1972) asked female undergradu- ates to specify what percentage of under- graduates would perform better than themselves on a "concept attainment task." The percentage score served as the measure of specific self-esteem. General (global) self- esteem was based on a modification of a self- esteem measure used extensively by Diggory (1966). The concept attainment task was a modification of a measure developed by Weick (1964). Shrauger found that specific self-esteem was a significant predictor of ac- tual performance on the concept attainment test, but that global self-esteem was not.

Correlational findings are consistent with the experimental results. In Bachman's (1970) study of tenth-grade boys, the correlation between global self-esteem and school marks was .23, whereas the correlation between school marks and self-concept of academic ability was .48. Reviewing a number of studies dealing with the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance, Wylie (1979) concluded that the correlation between global self-esteem and grade point average is usually about .30, whereas the association between specific self-esteem (academic self-concept) and grade point average is more likely to be in the range of .45 to .70. Wylie (1979:698-700) also reported a number of other instances in which specific self-esteem is correlated with specific behavior but global self-esteem is not.

Self-Esteem and Psychological Well-Being

Although global self-esteem is less likely than specific self-esteem to be a good predictor of behavior or performance, there is

reason to believe that it is a decidedly better predictor of psychological well-being.

The theoretical foundation for this expectation lies in "self-enhancement theory" (Baumeister 1982; Greenwald 1980; Jones 1973; Kaplan 1975; Swann 1987), which states that self-esteem is a fundamental human motive. Thus, the self-esteem motive (also called the "self-maintenance motive" by Tesser and Campbell [1983] and the "motive for self-worth" by Covington [1984]) has been identified by Maslow (1970) as one of the "prepotent" human needs. All of these theories share the view that there exists in human beings a universal desire to protect and enhance their feelings of self-worth and that the frustration of this desire generates some measure of psychological distress. Maintenance of self-esteem leads to self-pro- tective motives, self-enhancement processes, and a variety of coping processes. As noted earlier in the discussion of the fallacy of equating global with specific self-esteem, such self-maintenance motives and processes have been shown to affect the comparison group one chooses as well as how one reacts to unfavorable comparisons (Major et al. 1993).

That global self-esteem is associated with psychological well-being has been demonstrated repeatedly in past research. One firmly established finding in this literature is the inverse association between self-esteem and depression (Rosenberg 1985; Wylie 1979). Studies of children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly all show the same pattern. Pearlin and Lieberman's (1979) study of 2,300 adults in the Chicago Metropolitan Area showed a correlation of -.49 between self-esteem and depression. Similar findings appear in Kaplan and Pokorny (1969) and Rosenberg and Simmons (1972). Using structural equation models to examine the causal relationships underlying these frequently reported correlations, we have found that self- esteem and depression significantly affect each other, although the negative relationship between the two variables seems to be due somewhat more to the effect of depression on self-esteem than to the effect of self-esteem on depression (Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach 1989). Clinical evidence (e.g., Beck, Rush, Shaw, and Emery 1979) supports these quantitative results. Global self-esteem


has also been shown to be strongly related to levels of anxiety, whether expressed in so- matic symptoms (Luck and Heiss 1972; Rosenberg 1989) or in psychological mani- festations (Luck and Heiss 1972; Rosenberg 1985). Specific self-esteem, on the other hand, may have little direct effect on psychological well-being, and, as noted above, what effects it does have may be influenced by the psychological centrality of the particular facet of the self that is involved.

To summarize our hypotheses, with respect to behavior or behavioral outcomes, we expect specific self-esteem to be a better predictor than global self-esteem. On the other hand, with regard to psychological well-being, global self-esteem will be a better predictor than specific self-esteem. No previous studies, as far as we know, have made these comparisons.

DATA AND MEASURES

We use data drawn from the Youth in Transi- tion study (Bachman 1970). This longitudinal study, based on a probability sample of 2,213 tenth-grade boys in 87 high schools throughout the contiguous 48 states, includes four waves extending over an eight-year span. Our analysis is limited to the 1,886 boys who participated in the first two waves of the study-1966 and 1968.

In our analysis, global self-esteem is measured by 6 of the 10 items of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1989). Aca- demic self-esteem (our specific self-esteem measure) is based on a 3-item index.' School marks, which serve as the behavioral outcome, are based on self reported grade point average. The following psychological well-being measures are included in this in-

vestigation: depression (6 items), anomie (8 items), general anxiety (7 items), resentment (7 items), anxiety and tension (5 items), irritability (7 items), life satisfaction (1 item), guilt (5 items), happiness (6 items), and negative affective states (4 items). In Tables 1 and 2, the data for these measures are from summary scores on the items.2

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the zero-order correlation coefficients for each of these 10 well-being indices with global self-esteem on the one hand, and with specific (academic) self-esteem on the other.3

Table 1 clearly shows that global self-esteem is more strongly related to most measures of psychological well-being (depression, anomie, general anxiety, resentment, anxiety-tension, irritability, life satisfaction, happiness, and negative affective states) than is specific self-esteem. The mean strength of the relationship of global self-esteem to all 10 measures is .337, whereas the mean strength relationship of academic self- esteem to these measures is .079. The single exception is the guilt variable, which is unrelated to global self-esteem but is significantly related to academic self-esteem. On the -other hand, when we consider our specific behavioral outcome (school performance), then specific (academic) self-esteem turns out to be much more highly correlated than is global self-esteem (.488 versus .253). This pattern of correlations indicates that self-esteem is significantly related to a number of other variables, but only if

I We use Bachman's School Ability Self-Con- cept Index, which is based on subjects' responses to three questions. Two questions are coded on a scale from 1 through 6-far below average to far above average: (1) "How do you rate yourself in school ability compared with those in your grade in school?"; (2) "How intelligent do you think you are compared to others your age?" The third question, (3) "Compared to others your age, how important is it to you to be able to use your intelligence?" is coded from 1 through 5-much less important than average to much more important than average.

2 These indices and the items used to create them are described in the Documentation Manual for Bachman's Youth in Transition study (Bach- man 1975).

3 We measure global self-esteem using an index created by summing the responses to six Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale items from the Bachman (1970) data (coded from 1 through 5- never true to almost always true): (1) "I feel I'm a person of worth"; (2) "I feel I have a number of good qualities"; (3) "I am able to do things as well as most other people"; (4) "I feel I do not have much to be proud of"; (5) "I take a positive attitude toward myself"; (6) "Sometimes I think I am no good at all."


Table 1. Zero-Order Correlation Coefficients of Psychological Well-Being and Behav- ioral Outcome with Global Self-Esteem and Specific (Academic) Self-Esteem: Tenth-Grade Boys, 1966 and 1968

Global Academic Outcome Variable Self-Esteem Self-Esteem

Psychological Well-Being Depression -.432*** -.103***

Anomie -.409*** -. 154***

General anxiety -.232*** -.010

Resentment -.346*** -.120***

Anxiety/tension -.319*** -.023

Irritability -.353*** -.044

Life satisfaction .318*** .052*

Guilt -.033 .087***

Happiness .499*** .105***

Negative affective -.424*** -.093*** states

Behavioral Outcome School marks (GPA) .253*** .488***

p <.05 **p < .01 ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests) Note: N = 1,886.

the appropriate type of self-esteem (global or specific) is paired with the appropriate correlate (psychological well-being or performance).

These data also tell us something about the nature of both types of self-esteem. Atti- tudes, as we pointed out earlier, have both cognitive and affective elements. This is as true of attitudes toward the self as toward anything else, but the affective and cognitive components of self-attitudes may not be equally represented in global self-esteem and specific self-esteem. Given the stronger association of global self-esteem with psychological well-being, it is probable that global self-esteem is chiefly an expression of personal affect. And given the stronger association of specific self-esteem with behavioral outcome, it is likely that specific self-esteem, which is probably largely a matter of judgment or evaluation of a particular character- istic, may be more cognitive in nature. It is thus understandable that these two types of self-esteem should have different effects- each effect, of course, being very important in its own right.

Global and Specific Mediators

Although the data in Table 1 are generally consistent with our hypothesis that global self-esteem is a better predictor of psychological well-being, whereas specific self-esteem is a better predictor of behavioral outcomes, it is nevertheless true that some dis- crepant effects appear. For example, there is a significant association between global self- esteem and school marks, and there are some small but significant associations between specific self-esteem and certain measures of psychological well-being. To a modest ex- tent, then, global self-esteem does predict behavior and specific self-esteem does predict psychological well-being. Do these findings represent exceptions to our generaliza- tion? Not necessarily. Global and specific self-esteem may each mediate the effect of the other. For example, if global self-esteem is associated with school marks because global self-esteem affects academic (specific) self-esteem and academic self-esteem in turn affects school marks, then it would still be true that specific self-esteem is directly responsible for the behavioral outcome. Glo- bal self-esteem would "depend on" specific self-esteem to exercise its behavioral effect. Conversely, if the association between specific self-esteem and psychological well-being were attributable to the fact that specific self-esteem affected global self-esteem and that global self-esteem, in turn, affected psychological well-being, then one could still say that global self-esteem is directly responsible for psychological well-being.

Table 2 presents the coefficients from the multiple regression of both types of self-esteem (global and specific) on both types of outcomes (psychological well-being and school marks). It is difficult to test the hypothesis that the relationship between specific self-esteem and psychological well-being is largely mediated by global self-esteem, because the original relationship is so weak, although even this weak relationship becomes weaker still when global self-esteem is controlled (average correlation declines from .079 to .067). Controlling academic self-esteem also does not diminish the relationship of global self-esteem to psychological well- being (average correlation actually increases from .337 to .359). When we turn to the be-


Table 2. Coefficients from Multiple Regressions of Psychological Well-Being and Behav- ioral Outcome on Global Self-Esteem and Specific (Academic) Self-Esteem: Tenth-Grade Boys, 1966 and 1968

Independent Variable

Global Academic Dependent Variable Self-Esteem Self-Esteem

Psychological Well-Being Depression -.451*** .056* Anomie -.405*** -.011 General anxiety -.261 *** .082*** Resentment -.346*** .002 Anxiety-tension -.355*** .101*** Irritability -.385*** .092*** Life satisfaction .342*** -.069** Guilt -.072** .1 13*** Happiness .527*** -.081 ***

Negative affective -.447*** .065** states

Behavioral Outcome School marks (GPA) .093*** .455***

*p <.05 ** <.01 p < .001 (two-tailed tests)

Note: N = 1,886. This table reports the results of 11 multiple regression analyses, each of which used global self-esteem and academic self-esteem as the two independent variables.

havioral outcome, however, the data suggest that global self-esteem affects specific (academic) self-esteem, which, in turn, affects school marks. We see that, when specific self- esteem is held constant through multiple regression, the relationship between global self-esteem and school marks is substantially reduced (from .25 to .09). On the other hand, the relationship between specific self-esteem and school marks is almost unaffected when global self-esteem is controlled (change from .49 to .46). These findings, then, are consistent with the view that specific self-esteem has a direct effect on behavior (or behavioral outcomes), whereas global self-esteem has a direct effect on psychological well-being.

Global and Specific Self-Esteem: Which Causes Which?

What is the causal connection between global and specific self-esteem? One can make

equally plausible theoretical arguments that the specific causes the global or that the global causes the specific: Thus, since global self-esteem is in some sense based on the judgments of various parts of the self, the parts (specifics) might be seen as responsible for the whole (global). On the other hand, assessments of particular facets of the self may well be based on one's overall feelings of self-worth. It is therefore requisite to empirically examine whether the parts are chiefly responsible for the whole or the whole for the parts.

This question has rarely been investigated systematically in the literature. Perhaps this history of neglect is attributable to the lack of a satisfactory methodology for dealing with possible reciprocal effects and to the stringent data requirements for the appropriate analyses. Today, however, the availabil- ity of structural equation modeling proce- dures (Joreskog and Sorbom 1976) and panel data sets make it possible to specify the effect each variable has on the other.

We begin by examining the reciprocal effects of academic self-esteem and global self-esteem.4 Several features of the causal aspects of these models should be noted.

First, we use panel data (waves 1 and 2, based on 1,886 respondents), which helps to solve the structural equation models and to estimate the causal influences. To solve the simultaneous equations necessary for esti- mating reciprocal effects, instrumentation is necessary: An instrument is a variable that identifies an equation by not being allowed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable of that equation. For an instrument to identify an equation meaningfully, there must be good theoretical justification that its

4 The measure of global self-esteem used in Tables 1 and 2 is based on summary scores. In the present analysis, global self-esteem (based on the same items) is estimated for 1966 and 1968 as part of a full-information linear structural equation model (Joreskog and Sorbom 1976). All of the correlations of residuals of the same variables at both points in time are estimated. In addition, significant correlations of residuals between different variables are included where suggested by an examination of the first-order par- tial derivatives. In all structural equations discussed, we allow errors in the causal equations to be correlated.


effect should only be indirect, and the instrument must be reasonably correlated with the variable it is not allowed to affect directly. In our model, cross-lagged effects are omitted to provide a source of instrumentation for the reciprocal effects that are modeled for wave 2. These wave 2 effects are viewed as outcomes of long-term processes and thus represent the sum of the lagged and contempo- raneous effects.

Additional instrumental variables are also employed. Instruments for the global to academic self-esteem relationship are positive family relationships, number of best friends, physical appearance, and complexion. All of these instrumental variables could be expected to directly affect global self-esteem. None of them would be expected to have a direct effect on academic self-esteem; any effect would be indirect through global self- esteem's effect on academic self-esteem. In- struments for the academic to global self-esteem relationship are hours spent on home- work, positive school attitudes, negative school attitudes, and valuation of academic achievement. All of these instrumental variables would be expected to affect academic self-esteem without directly affecting global self-esteem. /

We introduce the following variables as controls affecting both global self-esteem and academic self-esteem: race, age, intact family, mother's education, father's education, family socioeconomic status, father's occupational status, mother's occupational status, and number of siblings.

The model of the reciprocal effects of global self-esteem and academic self-esteem fits the data reasonably well, with a chi-square/ d.f. ratio of 4.05. This shows that global self- esteem and academic self-esteem affect one another significantly, but that academic self- esteem has a more powerful effect on global self-esteem than the other way around (.21 versus .1 1). Both effects are significant at the p < .05 level.

A second question is: Does the same pattern of findings appear when we consider a specific facet of the self-concept that rests on a higher level of abstraction, namely, self-estimate of intelligence? Facets of the self-concept, as Marsh and Shavelson (1985) have noted, exist at different levels of specificity. Some facets may be highly specific, others

more general. This is why Marsh and Shavel- son conceptualized the self-concept as a hi- erarchical structure. Consider, for example, facets of the self-concept that exist in the intellectual realm. At a highly specific level might be a child's assessment of his or her reading ability or math ability (Marsh 1986). At a somewhat broader level would be the child's academic self-esteem, which would be based in part on math and reading ability and in part on other facets. Still broader would be the child's assessment of his or her general level of intelligence, which would be affected by academic self-esteem but also by other facets. When we consider the reciprocal effects of global and specific self-esteem, then, it is important to consider the level of specificity or generality of the specific self- concept facet.

We addressed this question by examining the reciprocal effects of global self-esteem and the students' estimates of their own intelligence. Self-estimate of intelligence was measured by responses to the following item: "How intelligent do you think you are compared with other boys your age?" Six catego- ries of response were provided ranging from "Far below average (bottom 10 percent)" to "Far above average (top 10 percent)." Note that this item was also included in the academic self-esteem scale; however, compared to the other items in that scale, it is general and makes no specific reference to the school experience.

To identify the path from global self-esteem to self-estimate of intelligence, the following instrumental variables were used: respondent's height, weight, number of friends, level of social support, closeness to father, closeness to mother, parents' ten- dency to reason with the child in disciplin- ary situations, parental punitiveness, and stability of global self-esteem. All of these would be expected to affect global self-esteem directly and self-estimate of intelligence only indirectly. Instruments for the path from perceived intelligence to global self-esteem include certain performance measures (scores on a job information test and on a test of political knowledge), positive school attitudes, negative school attitudes, and stability of self-assessment of intelligence. All of these variables would be expected to have a direct effect on self-as-


sessment of intelligence and only indirect effects on global self-esteem. Again, cross- lagged effects were constrained to 0 in order to provide a source of instrumentation.

This model was found to fit the data reasonably well, as shown by a chi-square/d.f. ratio of 3.45. Again, we find that the specific facet of intelligence has a more powerful effect on global self-esteem than the other way around. Both variables produce significant effects upon one another, but the effect of intelligence on global self-esteem is .24, whereas the effect of global self-esteem on intelligence is .11.

Intellectual ability, then, whether narrowly conceived as academic ability or broadly conceived as general intelligence, produces a more powerful effect on global self-esteem than the other way around. Note that this effect appears despite the fact that only single items are used to measure the two more narrowly defined concepts (academic self-esteem and self-estimate of intelligence), while global self-esteem is modeled with multiple indicators based on a widely used measure. High school boys' general feelings of self- worth appear to be significantly affected by their judgments of their intellectual ability, but their general feeling of self-worth has a weak effect on their opinions of their intellectual ability.

We do not suggest, of course, that specific self-esteem is necessarily more likely to affect global self-esteem than the other way around. Intellectual ability may not be typi- cal of other facets of the self. Our prediction would be that the relative effects of various facets of the self-concept on global self-esteem would depend on the degree of "schematization" of the specific facets (Markus 1977)-if a particular facet is firmly established or solidly crystallized and is bol- stered by clear evidence, then it is likely to be fairly independent of the individual's general feeling of self-worth. For example, if many experiences of failure have taught a pupil through clear evidence that he or she is incompetent in school, then his or her general feeling of self-worth will do little to change this conviction. But if a particular facet is nonschematic (uncrystallized), then global self-esteem may exercise a more powerful effect on that specific facet. For example, if people are asked to judge their

"meaningful insight ability" (Berger and Conner 1969), it is possible that those who think well of themselves generally may assume they are probably good at insight and that those who have negative general attitudes toward themselves will assume that they probably are not. In this instance, global self-esteem would have a more powerful impact on specific self-esteem than the other way around.

Is the Degree to Which Specific Academic Self-Esteem Affects Global Self-Esteem a Function of How Much Academic Performance Is Personally Valued?

The assertion that the relationship between one's evaluation of a particular facet of the self and one's global self-esteem is a function of the importance of that facet in one's hierarchy of self-values seems highly plausible. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is mixed. Our data set allows us to test this assertion as it applies to academic self-esteem, global self-esteem, and valuing academic performance.

To do this we divided our respondents into two groups at the mid-point of the range of the variable measuring how much the respondent valued academic performance. We then reran our analyses of the reciprocal effects of global and academic self-esteem sepa- rately for the respondents in the low-value (N = 333) and high-value (N = 1,487) segments of the distribution.

Our models in both cases were satisfactory, with a chi-square/d.f. ratio for the low- value group of 1.72 and 2.13 for the high- value group. The reciprocal effects between global self-esteem and academic self-esteem were significant only for the high-value group; neither effect was significant in the smaller, but still substantial, sample that did not particularly value academic performance. The magnitude of the effect of academic self- esteem on global self-esteem was more than three times greater for those who valued academic performance relatively highly-the effect for the high-value group was .23 (t = 5.55); the effect for the low-value group was .07 (t =.77). On the other hand, the effect of global self-esteem on academic self-esteem was similar for the two groups-the effect for the high-value group was .12 (t = 2.70);


for the low-value group the effect was .15 (t = 1.38). In fact, it is only among the high- value group that specific academic self-esteem has a greater effect on global self-esteem than the other way around (.23 versus .12). Thus, at least in this instance, our findings strongly support the conjecture that the effect of specific self-esteem on global self- esteem is a function of the degree to which the relevant area of functioning is valued.

We also examined whether the level of specific self-esteem or global self-esteem affects the degree to which the relevant area of functioning is valued. Using academic self- esteem as our measure of specific self-esteem, we tested its effect relative to that of global self-esteem on valuing academic performance. In addition, we tested whether valuing academic performance reciprocally affected academic self-esteem. We did this by adding "valuing academic performance" as a third endogenous variable to our full- sample model examining the reciprocal effects of academic and global self-esteem. The new model, which also includes reciprocal paths between academic self-esteem and valuing academic performance, seems appro- priately identified and fits the data reasonably well (chi-square/d.f. = 3.88). Neverthe- less, none of the effects involving academic performance was significant, nor were the reciprocal effects between academic and global self-esteem notably changed from what they were when valuing academic performance was not included in the model. These findings seem to rule out the theoretical pos- sibilities that global and/or academic self-esteem affect the degree to which academic performance is valued or that valuing academic performance affects academic self-esteem. What valuing academic performance does is to increase the effect of academic self-esteem on global self-esteem.

Academic Self-Esteem and Academic Performance: Which Causes Which?

Low self-esteem has often been invoked as a possible cause of poor school performance (e.g., California Legislature 1986; Covington 1984; Purkey 1970; Scheirer and Kraut 1979). For example, it is sometimes suggested that one reason for the relatively poor academic performance of people from cer-

tain underprivileged groups is that they have low self-esteem and that their performance could be improved by enhancing their self- esteem. But this argument assumes that poor self-esteem causes poor school performance. If school marks are chiefly responsible for self-esteem rather than the other way around, then efforts to enhance self-esteem for the purpose of raising children's achievement levels would be misguided.

Second, assuming that self-esteem is causally related to school marks, the question re- mains: Which self-esteem-specific or global? If, for example, specific self-esteem affects school performance but global self-esteem does not, then the efforts of educators to help children to like and respect themselves as a whole may contribute to their psychological well-being but do little to improve their school performance. What may actually be needed is to help them improve their specific (academic) self-esteem. It is our impres- sion that most interventions designed to improve self-esteem and thus to enhance academic performance are actually attempts to modify global rather than specific self-esteem. It is thus essential to know which kind of self-esteem to change in order to positively affect children's success in school.

In an earlier study (Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach 1989), we examined the reciprocal effects of global self-esteem and school marks. That analysis showed that school marks had a more powerful effect on global self-esteem than global self-esteem had on school marks (. 15 versus .08). Whereas the effect of marks on global self- esteem was highly significant, the effect of global self-esteem on marks was only mar- ginally significant. Does this relationship also exist between specific (academic) self- esteem and school marks?

We constructed a model to test the reciprocal effects of academic self-concept and school performance. The data fit the model reasonably well, yielding a chi-square/d.f. ratio of 3.5. Each variable, we find, exercises a strong and statistically significant effect on the other; furthermore, the effects are ap- proximately equal. The effect of grades on academic self-esteem is .27; the effect of academic self-esteem on school marks is .30.

Similar results occur when we consider the reciprocal effects of school marks and self-


assessment of intelligence. These data also fit the model reasonably well, with a chi- square/d.f. ratio of 3.25. Each variable has a highly significant effect on the other and again these effects are equal (both effects are .36); self-estimates of intelligence thus appear to affect, and to be affected by, school performance. This evidence suggests that changes in self-esteem can in fact bring about an improvement in school performance; but it must be the right self-esteem, namely, specific academic self-esteem. Strat- egies designed to enhance global self-esteem (for example, by convincing a child that he or she is lovable or worthy of respect) will, our data suggest, have little or no effect on his or her school performance.

It could also be argued that, to improve school performance, positive or negative self-esteem should be changed rather than global self-esteem. On the one hand, efficacy theory implies that it is primarily the self- confidence generated by positive self-esteem that enhances school performance (Bandura 1982). On the other hand, the literature on learned helplessness suggests that the self- deprecation of negative self-esteem, feelings of personal helplessness, and poor performance are causally linked (Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale 1978).

To test whether either self-confidence or self-deprecation is more closely tied to academic performance than is global self-esteem, we replicated our analyses substituting each of these variables for global self-esteem.5 The only significant finding that emerged regarding the relationship between these two aspects of self-esteem and academic performance is that school marks sig-

nificantly affect self-confidence (beta = .17). The effect of self-confidence on school marks is lower (.07) and not significant. Nei- ther the effect of grades on self-deprecation (-.11) nor the effect of self-deprecation on grades (-.04) was significant, although the former was at the borderline of significance (p < .08). Not surprisingly, given Owens's (1993) finding that self-confidence is more strongly related to global self-esteem than is self-deprecation, the magnitudes of the paths between self-confidence and grades are also more similar to the magnitudes of the parallel paths between global self-esteem and school marks we reported in our earlier study (Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach 1989). In any case, all of these effects are smaller than the parallel effects involving academic self-esteem or self-assessment of intelligence. Furthermore, although our analyses suggest that raising the academic self-esteem or self-estimates of intelligence among students may increase academic performance, nothing in our findings suggests that raising their levels of global self-esteem or general self-confidence, or decreasing their levels of general self-deprecation would have any such effect.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

Our aim has been to better understand the nature, interconnections, and relevance of specific self-esteem and global self-esteem. In evaluating our conclusions we must ad- dress several limitations in our data. First, our only measure of global self-esteem is the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (1989). Al- though it is the most widely used of all self- esteem measures, it is only one among many. Some of the other available measures may include somewhat different aspects of self- esteem than does the Rosenberg scale.6

I Self-confidence and self-deprecation are based on structural equation measurement models derived from the original Kohn and Schooler (1983) analyses of self-esteem. Four indicators of self-confidence are based on responses to the following four statements (coded from 1 through 5, never true to almost always true): "I am a person of worth"; "I feel that I have a number of good qualities"; "I am able to do things as well as most other people"; "I take a positive attitude toward myself." The two indicators of self-deprecation are based on responses to two statements (same coding as above): "Sometimes I think I am no good at all"; "I feel that my life is not very use- ful."

6 For example, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith 1967) contains four in- ternally consistent subscales (social self, peers, home/parents, academic), although factor analysis revealed a dominant global self-esteem factor (Burns 1979; Edgar, Powell, Watkins, Moore, and Zakharov 1974). The Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts 1965) includes, among others, subscales on how respondents view their own moral worth and perceive themselves in reference to their families. Analyses of the Piers-Harris Scale


Another limitation of our data is that our only specific self-esteem measure is academic self-esteem. We do not know if the same pattern of results would hold if we used measures of other types of specific self-esteem, like social or sexual self-esteem. Dif- ferent kinds of specific self-esteem vary across a wide range of potentially relevant dimensions. One important dimension is the degree of specificity. Thus, although academic self-esteem is more specific than overall self-esteem, it is less specific than math- ematical self-esteem. As we have seen, a general tenet of many research findings on attitudes is that the more specific the attitude, the more powerful a predictor it is of the related specific behavior (e.g., Fishbein and Azjen 1975). Given that self-esteem is an attitude, the more specific the self-esteem is, the more accurately it should predict relevant behavior. As our own findings indicate, specific academic self-esteem has a greater effect on school marks than does global self- esteem.

Despite these limitations, we believe that our findings are important:

(1) We have documented the obvious but frequently overlooked fact that global and specific self-esteem are neither equivalent nor interchangeable, and that one cannot au- tomatically serve as a surrogate for the other.

(2) Focusing on academic self-esteem as an example of specific self-esteem, we have demonstrated that global and specific self- esteem have decidedly different correlates. Global self-esteem appears to be heavily affective in nature and tends to be associated with overall psychological well-being. Spe- cific self-esteem, in contrast, being more judgmental and evaluative, appears to have a

more cognitive component and tends to be more strongly associated with behavior or behavioral outcomes.

(3) We have suggested that global and specific self-esteem may each mediate the effect of the other. It was not possible to test whether the relationship between specific self-esteem and psychological well-being was mediated by global self-esteem because the original relationship was so weak, but our data are consistent with the view that the effect of global self-esteem on behavioral outcome is mediated by its effect on academic self-esteem.

(4) We have considered the reciprocal effects of global and specific self-esteem on one another. We pointed out that specific facets of the self may vary in level of abstraction. Our empirical findings suggest that more specific forms of self-esteem, such as academic self-esteem or self-assessment of intelligence, tend to have greater effects on more global forms of self-esteem than more global forms of self-esteem have on more specific ones.

(5) We have found that, at least among the variables we investigated, the effect of specific self-esteem on global self-esteem is affected by the degree to which the relevant role or behavior is personally valued. Our analyses demonstrated that the effect of specific academic self-esteem on global self-esteem is a function of how highly academic performance is valued. Furthermore, the value placed on academic performance is not a function of either academic or global self- esteem.

(6) We also considered the reciprocal effects of self-esteem and school marks, an important behavioral outcome among school populations. The data show that the nature and direction of these effects depends on whether global or specific self-esteem is considered. School marks, we find, do produce an effect on self-esteem, whether we consider academic self-esteem, global self-esteem, or self-confidence. However, global self-esteem has very little effect on marks, whereas specific self-esteem (academic self- esteem) has a strong effect on school performance. Self-esteem, it appears, does affect school performance, but it must be the right kind of self-esteem, namely, specific self-esteem. This last finding is particularly ironic,

(Piers and Harris 1964) have consistently revealed six interpretable factors, including popu- larity and social behavior, although no general factor has emerged (Burns 1979). Regardless of whether each of these scales contains specific components not covered by the Rosenberg scale, the Rosenberg scale would seem to be a more direct measure of global self-esteem; the self-evaluation of various aspects of functioning covered by the Coopersmith, Fitts, and Piers-Harris scales being conceptually akin to more specific forms of self-esteem, such as educational self-esteem, whose relationship to global self-esteem is a focus of the present paper.


as educators and policymakers almost invari- ably focus on precisely the wrong type of self-esteem-global self-esteem-when they introduce interventions to improve students' performance in school. Understanding the nature and interrelationships of global and specific self-esteem would, thus, seem more than a mere academic exercise. Heeding the distinction might actually increase the effec- tiveness of future educational interventions.

Morris Rosenberg was the central sociological researcher and theorist on self-esteem and conceptions of the self and probably one of the lead- ing experts on these issues in any discipline. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and at various times was a member of the Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health. He was Vice President of the American Sociological As- sociation and the winner of many awards including the AAAS Sociopsychological Prize, the ASA Social Psychology Section Cooley Mead Award, and the ASA Distinguished Contribution to Schol- arship Award. Manny Rosenberg died on Febru- ary 14, 1992.

Carmi Schooler is Acting Chief of the Labora- tory of Socio-Environmental Studies of the Na- tional Institute of Mental Health. His sociological research focuses on the social structural and cultural determinants of psychological functioning through the life span. He is presently involved in a follow-up study of respondents originally in- terviewed in 1964 and 1974 for a study he con- ducted with Melvin Kohn on the Psychological effects of occupational conditions.

Carrie Schoenbach is former Research Associ- ate, now guest worker, in the Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies of the National In- stitute of Mental Health. She has been a collabo- rator with Carmi Schooler and Melvin Kohn in analyzing the effects of social-structural and cultural conditions-particularly the effects of occupational conditions, social stratification and social class positions-on values and psychological functioning.

Florence Rosenberg has been a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Military Psychia- try, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Ser- vices University of the Health Sciences. Her main research interest has been on stress, coping, and mental health among Army wives and families, focusing on the perceptual factors that contribute to satisfaction with life. At present, as a Guest Scientist at the Walter Reed Army Institute, she is continuing research on this subject with other populations.

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