How Confidence Boosters Hurt

In a follow-up to my previous post on self-esteem, this recent study came out suggesting that positive reinforcement may backfire on those with negative self-image. While positive reinforcement made people with an already-positive self image feel even better, for those with a negative self-image it simply drew attention to the contradiction between how they felt about themselves and what they were saying.

The psychologists then asked the study participants to list negative and positive thoughts about themselves.

They found that, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

Writing in the journal, the researchers suggest that, like overly positive praise, unreasonably positive self-statements, such as "I accept myself completely," can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals with low self-esteem.

Such negative thoughts can overwhelm the positive thoughts.

If people are instructed to focus exclusively on positive thoughts, negative thoughts might be especially discouraging.

When my friend Carol sent me the initial article from the Sydney Morning-Herald, I found it to imply some sort of bias toward negativity to me. After all, I wouldn't expect those with a positive self-image to respond psychologically to negative statements with a reinforcement of their original worldview, allowing them to feel better. So is a negative self-image impossible to overcome once formed?

As I stated before, I think the answer here is a more realistic attitude toward self-awareness. The article I previously cited questioned the inflation of self-esteem as a goal, seeing it as unrealistic in many ways. Obviously, I went a little further--to quote Dom analyzing me well in the comments:

Never mind, we just worked out that we differ in that I don't think that thinking of oneself as less than a wonderful person requires internal suffering, and you do. Hooray!

For the record, I do happen to think that internal suffering is a natural result of truly struggling and engaging with the negative parts of oneself (and presumably, constantly seeking to change them and falling short in some fashion). What this recent study suggests to me, however, is that avoidance of the negative aspects of oneself not only harms others when it bolsters one's self-image too much, but harms those depressed individuals who would seemingly have the most to gain from such avoidance. To quote from the initial article on self-esteem (again, hat-tip Carol for pointing this out to me):

One such program, called Emerge, is run by a psychologist named David Adams in a low-budget building in Cambridge, Mass. Emerge's clients are mostly abusive men, 75 percent of them mandated by the courts. ''I once did an intake on a batterer who had been in psychotherapy for three years, and his violence wasn't getting any better,'' Adams told me. ''I said to him, 'Why do you think you hit your wife?' He said to me, 'My therapist told me it's because I don't feel good about myself inside.''' Adams sighs, then laughs. ''We believe it has nothing to do with how good a man feels about himself. At Emerge, we teach men to evaluate their behaviors honestly and to interact with others using empathy and respect.'' In order to accomplish these goals, men write their entire abuse histories on 12-by-12 sheets of paper, hang the papers on the wall and read them. ''Some of the histories are so long, they go all around the room,'' Adams says. ''But it's a powerful exercise. It gets a guy to really concretely see.''

I am a big fan of catharsis, and I think that doing such activities in a larger group like this is also helpful. I am still a little personally unsure of how to strike the balance between recognizing that everyone is flawed in many ways and not allowing that fact to excuse or provide comfort to me in my own flaws.

However, what is clear to me is that an attitude of honesty matters when it comes to self-esteem, rather than simply encouraging whatever thoughts seem to provide the most comfort. Now, will honest negative statements allow someone truly uncomfortable with themselves to accept honest positive statements as well, rather than continue to reject those that do not correspond to their initial feelings? I cannot answer that yet, but I sincerely hope it is true.