 This is part two of lecture five. So in the first part, we saw where our self-concept comes from. So the idea of who we are, our self-knowledge. So we don't only have an idea of who we are, we also feel a certain way about this. So we have a good or a bad feeling about who we are. And this is captured in our self-esteem. So this is what this part of the lecture is about. It's about our self-esteem. And if you're curious about your own level of self-esteem, you could complete the very famous and very well-used Rosenberg self-esteem skill, which is developed already in 1965, but it's still used. Also I use it in my own research to instruct people and get a sense of their level of self-esteem. So here you see the items of the Rosenberg self-esteem skill. At the first item is I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal level with others. Two, I feel that I have a number of good qualities. Three, all in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure. So here see something interesting happening and I wanna point your attention to it. So in a good questionnaire, you don't always have, the formulation of the question differs a bit. So for the first two items, a higher answer, so saying I totally agree with this item, would be captured in a higher level of self-esteem. So if you feel that you have a number of good qualities, then this is an indication of higher level of self-esteem. For the third item, something interesting is happening because the item is, all in all, I'm inclined to feel that I'm a failure. So a higher score on this item would actually mean a lower level of self-esteem. And for a good questionnaire, you have these items that are called reverse scored items. So you have to reverse score them to eventually come up with an outcome for the self-esteem questionnaire. So okay, let's continue and I hope you recognize the reverse item, reverse scored items. I am able to do things as well as most other people. I feel that I do not have much to be proud of. I take a positive attitude toward myself. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself. I wish I could have more respect for myself. I certainly feel useless at times and at times I think I am no good at all. It's always a bit sad this last item, I think. So if you answer this or you complete this questionnaire and the researcher reverse scores some of the items, then you can get a mean outcome of the skill. And the higher the outcome, the higher your level of self-esteem is and the better you will feel about yourself. So every individual has this need to feel good about themselves. It's a basic human motive, the self enhancement motive. We wanna have a good feeling about ourselves and that is just captured in our self-esteem. So what is interesting is that our self-esteem is in one way more or less a stable trait and this is called trait self-esteem. So people differ, it's like an individual difference between people, some people generally feel better about themselves than others. Other people just sort of chronically have a lower sense of self-worth and others have a higher sense of self-worth. But self-esteem is also something that can fluctuate over time. So on one day, you might have a higher self-esteem than on other days. So it's also a state. It's both a trait and a state. So you might think to yourself, how come does self-esteem fluctuate over time? Where does these differences come from? Well, first of all, self-esteem can fluctuate because of how you're doing in certain domains that you really care about. So let's imagine you are a very motivated student, I hope you are, and you worked really hard on your study psychology and you saw all the lectures and then eventually you did the exam and you get the feedback and you really aced it. You really have a very good grade. At that moment, there's quite a big chance because performance on that domain of excelling in your study is so important to you that you temporarily have a higher level of self-esteem. You succeeded in a domain that really mattered to you. So your self-esteem goes up. And if you failed the exam, then probably your self-esteem goes down. What is important to keep in mind is that this is only for domains that are really important to you. So let's imagine you go bowling one evening and you really, you've never played, you've never bowled in your life or you rarely do it. You really don't care about the outcome so you don't care if you win or not, you just go there with your friends and you win this bowling night. You come in first. And this probably doesn't affect your self-esteem so much because it's in a domain that really doesn't bother you so much. Also, if you fail, you might be like, oh, I wish I did a little bit better but it will not affect your self-esteem because this domain is not so interesting to you. So that's one reason why self-esteem fluctuates, success and failures in domains that are important. But secondly, self-esteem also has a lot to do with how we fit into the group. And according to sociometer theory, self-esteem is actually an indicator of our interpersonal success. So if we feel good about ourselves, then we're actually thriving in our close relationships, in our relationship with others. And this is also something that we see with kids in, for example, high school or primary school that are bullied or excluded. Their self-esteem typically really drops and can drop at a very drastic level, actually also causing sometimes depression in children, very severe feelings of loneliness. And so in one way it's also important to keep in mind that self-esteem is not something that you can control by yourself completely. It's also, it's really important if you surround yourself with people that give you a good feeling about yourself and include you in the group. Okay, so one other factor that I wanna point out is the role of gender. And more broadly speaking, actually the role of stereotypes when it comes to self-esteem. So we know from research Don published in the prestigious Journal of Science that it was found that girls from a very young age, actually from six years of age on, already start believing that specific activities are actually not for them because they don't feel or consider them as smart enough. And that is something to do with the way that boys and girls are treated in school. And we know from research that teachers typically have higher expectations of boys succeeding than of girls succeeding. And this is also reflected in their parents, which is in a way really sad, I think. So in a 2014 report, it was shown that American parents, Google, is my son a genius more than twice as often than is my daughter a genius. So they expect very high levels of intelligence more from boys than from girls. And I don't think I have to remind you of the consequences of this. We are now pretty far along in this lecture. We know what expectations can do, right? So if we expect a person to be really smart, this person will get more chances of succeeding in this domain. So boys actually have a better treatment. We expect more intelligence from them than girls. And interestingly, typically in school, if you look at the numbers, girls outperform boys. So even with this stereotype, girls are actually outperforming boys in getting higher grades. And that might have something to do with their motivation because girls do know that they can work really hard. And this is also sometimes a feedback that they get. So you really worked hard on this. You show you really persevere, to really show it's good effort. And this can help them to keep up their performances. But this stereotyping of girls are not as smart as boys is of course quite dramatic. And this is not only something that happens with gender. It also happens with ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, that people have lower expectations of intelligence from minority groups, for example. Which also impairs their performance in school. Okay, so one other aspect that really matters is culture. So we talked about collectivistic and individualistic cultures and the differences between them. And research showed that in general, in individualistic cultures, people have higher self-esteem than in collectivistic cultures. So I'm curious if you could guess why that is. Why would people in individualistic cultures have a higher self-esteem? Well, first of all, the reason is that people in individualistic countries care about it more. They care about their personal identity. They care about being smart. It's the way, how they wanna see themselves, how they wanna perceive themselves. Well, people in the collectivistic cultures, they care way less about their personal characteristics. They care about how their group is doing. So if you are less smart, who cares? As long as your group is thriving, that is all that matters. So that your personal self-esteem, how you feel about yourself is less important. And the second reason is that actually self-esteem is very actively increased in Western societies and individualistic cultures. Look, for example, at this little song that children in primary schools in the United States typically sing when they start the day. So I am special, I am special. If you look, you will see someone very special because it's me, because it's me. And this is just one of the many ways in which in individualistic cultures, people are really sort of motivated to see themselves as super special and super important. And you know, it makes sense because feeling good about yourself has a lot of positive consequences. But is there also something like too much self-esteem? I think we're all familiar with the concept of narcissism, right? Narcissism is a combination basically of excessive self-love, so you really like yourself. And at the same time, you have a lack of empathy towards others. And very high self-esteem is sometimes argued is a risk of developing narcissism. And this is a trait you really don't want to have because if you're narcissistic, you actually have lower chances of success in work and in study. You are more likely to show violent behavior, aggressive behavior, and you also have an inability to protect and maintain relationships, which in the end we all really want, right? We want to have successful relationships. And for narcissistic people, this is hard to maintain. So narcissism is something you really don't want to have. That might sound a bit scary to you. I'm talking to a generation, I'm sort of generalizing here, but I think I'm talking to Gen Z. You are a generation Z. This is a generation of people born between 1995 and 2010. Most of you will fall in this group. So you are referred to as Gen Z, also known as Generation Selfie. This is the first generation that cannot imagine a life without the internet. The internet has always been around. And the internet changed the way we looked at ourselves. So if you, for example, Google how to make the perfect selfie, you end up with almost 20 million likes within half a second. We've never been more focused on ourselves. And you can ask yourself, so has all this increased attention for ourselves and looking good and working on your social media profile, has that changed the way we see ourselves? Are we becoming more narcissistic? Well, according to popular media, yes, this is affecting ourselves. So all this posing and pouting turned us all into narcissists. The selfie syndrome, how social media is making us narcissistic. What social media and the selfie generation did to my teenage daughter? Well, isn't that a clickbait for you? So you might wonder how much truth is there in this? It might be a bit scary for you thinking that we are all becoming more narcissistic. Well, the actual evidence is super mixed. So in the book, there's actually a description and you've been informed that narcissism is indeed on the rise. So here you see a figure that's also captured in the book. Here you see the mean narcissism skill of American University students between 1980 and 2007. So there seems to be an increase in narcissism there. But before we overgeneralize, there's actually new research done, not in the US, but in Canada and in Australia, a meta-analysis, and we know we love meta-analysis, right? These meta-analysis showed that there's actually no evidence of narcissism being on the rise. It doesn't seem to be a global trend. So even for societies that have many cultural and social commonalities with the United States, narcissism is not on the rise. So, of course, these are figures from Canada, Australia, and I don't have figures for you from Europe or the Netherlands, but I'm curious if you think that people in the Netherlands or more broadly speaking in Europe are becoming narcissistic, more narcissistic, yes or no. Okay, so this is the end of this part of the lecture.