The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

by Branden, Nathaniel

  Self-esteem as a psychological reality existed in human consciousness thousands of years before it emerged as an explicit idea. Now that it has emerged, the challenge is to understand it.

  The Need for Self-Esteem Is Not “Cultural”

  Every human being, whatever the network of customs and values in which he or she grows up, is obliged to act to satisfy and fulfill basic needs. We do not always and automatically feel competent in facing this challenge. Yet all human beings need an experience of competence (which I call self-efficacy) if they are to possess a fundamental sense of security and empowerment. Without it, they cannot respond appropriately. We do not always and automatically feel worthy of love, respect, happiness. Yet all human beings need an experience of worth (self-respect) if they are to take proper care of themselves, protect their legitimate interests, gain some enjoyment from their efforts, and (when possible) stand up against those who would harm or exploit them. Without it, again they cannot act appropriately in their own best interests. The root of the need for self-esteem is biological: it pertains to survival and continued efficacious functioning.

  The need is inherent in human nature; it is not an invention of Western culture.

  The Universality of Self-Esteem Issues

  Living Consciously. For every organism that possesses it, consciousness is an imperative of effective adaptation. The distinctive human form of consciousness is conceptual: our survival, well-being, and skillful adaptation depend on our ability to think—on the appropriate use of mind. Whether one is mending a fishing net or debugging a computer program, tracking an animal or designing a skyscraper, negotiating with an enemy or seeking to resolve a dispute with one’s spouse—in all cases, one can bring a higher level of consciousness to the occasion or a lower. One can choose to see or not to see (or anywhere between). But reality is reality and is not wiped out by self-elected blindness. The higher the level of consciousness one brings to what one is doing, the more effective and in control one feels—and the more successful one’s efforts.

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  The root of the need for self-esteem is biological: it pertains to survival and continued efficacious functioning.

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  In any context where consciousness is needed, operating consciously benefits self-esteem, and operating (relatively) unconsciously wounds self-esteem. The importance of living consciously is grounded not in culture but in reality.

  Self-Acceptance. When individuals deny and disown their experience, when they reject their thoughts, feelings, or behavior as “not me,” when they induce unconsciousness of their inner life, their intention is self-protection. They are trying to maintain their equilibrium and defend their view of themselves. The intention is to serve “self-esteem.” But the result is to harm self-esteem. Self-esteem requires self-acceptance; it is not served by self-rejection. This truth stands apart from any question of whether the beliefs of a given culture do or do not encourage self-acceptance. A highly authoritarian society, for example, might encourage neglect and even disparagement of the individual’s inner life. This does not mean that self-acceptance is merely a cultural bias with no justification in human nature. It means that some cultures may hold values that are inimical to human well-being. Cultures are not equal in the psychological benefits they confer on their members.

  Self-Responsibility. No one can feel empowered, no one can feel competent to cope with life’s challenges, who does not take responsibility for his or her choices and actions. No one can feel efficacious who does not take responsibility for the attainment of his or her desires. Self-responsibility is essential to the experience of inner strength. When we look to others to provide us with happiness or fulfillment or self-esteem, we relinquish control over our life. There is no social environment in which these observations become untrue.

  Not all cultures value self-responsibility equally. This does not alter the fact that where we see responsibility and the willingness to be accountable, we see a healthier, more robust sense of self—a biologically more adaptive organism.

  As for teamwork, group activity, and the like, the self-responsible person can function effectively with others precisely because he or she is willing to be accountable. Such a person is not a dependent nor a parasite nor an exploiter. Self-responsibility does not mean one does everything oneself; it means that when one acts in concert with others, one carries one’s own weight. Does it need to be argued that a society whose members value this attitude is stronger and better equipped for survival than a society whose members do not?

  Self-Assertiveness. Self-assertiveness is the practice of honoring one’s needs, wants, values, and judgments, and seeking appropriate forms of their expression in reality. Not all cultures value self-assertiveness equally. And some forms of appropriate self-expression may differ from place to place—for example, the words one uses, or the tone of voice in which one speaks, or the gestures one makes. But to the extent that a culture suppresses the natural impulse to self-assertion and self-expression, it blocks creativity, stifles individuality, and sets itself against the requirements of self-esteem. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, to name two examples in this century, ruthlessly punished self-assertiveness; in these countries, it was a cultural disvalue. They were not societies in which human life could flourish. Other cultures punish self-assertiveness and self-expression in less extreme and violent ways (sometimes in very gentle ways). Hawaiian children may be lovingly enjoined, “Remain among the clumps of grasses and do not elevate yourself.”1 Just the same, self-effacement as a basic pattern of being is inimical to self-esteem—and to the life force.

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  To the extent that a culture suppresses the natural impulse to self-assertion and self-expression, it blocks creativity, stifles individuality, and sets itself against the requirements of self-esteem.

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  Self-expression is natural; self-suppression is not. Children do not need to be educated into self-assertion; authoritarian societies do need to socialize them into self-surrender. That some children may come into this world more naturally self-assertive than others does not contradict this observation. When fear is absent, self-assertiveness is the natural condition of human beings. What people may have to learn is comfort with and respect for the self-assertiveness of others. This is clearly an imperative of cooperation. Cooperation is not a “middle ground” between self-assertiveness and self-suppression, but the intelligent exercise of self-interest in a social context—which does have to be learned.

  Living Purposefully. The idea of living purposefully can be misinterpreted to mean that all of one’s life is given over to long-term productive goals. Our purposes can include many things besides productive work: raising a family, enjoying a love affair or a marriage, pursuing a hobby, developing one’s body through exercise or one’s spirit through study and meditation. Understood correctly, there is nothing intrinsically “Western” about a strong goal orientation. When Buddha set out in search of enlightenment, was he not moved by a passionate purpose? I am confident that even among Polynesians, some men and women are more purposeful than others.

  In discussing self-esteem, I use words like “efficacy,” “competence,” “achievement,” “success.” In our culture there might be a tendency to understand these ideas in exclusively materialistic terms; I intend no such implication. They are meant metaphysically or ontologically, not merely economically. Without disparaging the value of material attainments (which are, after all, necessities of survival), we can appreciate that these ideas embrace the total spectrum of human experience, from the mundane to the spiritual.

  The question is: Is our life and well-being better served by organizing our energies with relation to specific (short- and long-term) purposes, or are they better served by living from day to day, reacting to events rather than choosing one’s own direction, passively drifting at the whim of impulse and circumstance? If one holds to the Aristotelian perspective, as I do, that a proper human life is one in which we seek
the fullest exercise of our distinctive powers, then the answer is obvious. In passivity neither our reason nor our passion nor our creativity nor our imagination fulfill themselves. We only half live our existence. This perspective may be Western, but I believe it is arguably superior to the alternative.

  If human life and happiness are the standard, not all cultural traditions are equal. In Africa, for example, there are societies in which it is normal and accepted practice to mutilate the genitals of young females. An ancient tradition in India led millions of widows to be burned alive. If we object to these practices, I doubt that anyone will wish to raise the charge of “cultural imperialism.”

  We will want to keep this in mind as our discussion of self-esteem and culture proceeds.

  Personal Integrity. The practice of integrity consists of having principles of behavior and being true to them. It means keeping one’s word, honoring one’s commitments, being faithful to one’s promises. Since I have never heard this virtue disparaged as a “cultural artifact,” since it is esteemed in every society I know of—even in the underworld there is the idea of “honor among thieves”—I think it is obvious that this virtue is deeper than any “cultural bias.” It reflects an implicit awareness held by everyone about life.

  The betrayal of one’s convictions wounds self-esteem. This is decreed not by culture but by reality—that is, by our nature.

  I stressed early in the book that self-esteem is neither comparative nor competitive. It has nothing to do with striving to make oneself superior to others. A Hawaiian psychologist asked me, “Aren’t you teaching people to elevate themselves above others?” I answered that the work had nothing to do with others, in the sense he imagined: it had to do with our relationship with ourselves—and with reality. Raised in a culture in which not the individual but the group is primary, he had difficulty understanding this; his whole orientation was to the social collective. “When gathered in a bucket, the crabs on top will always keep the others from getting out,” he insisted. “It’s not good to be too great.” “In the first place,” I answered, “I don’t see human society as a bucket of crabs, and in the second place, what happens to children of extraordinary talent or ability in your world?” He said that as he understood self-esteem, it could only be the security of belonging—of being well integrated into a network of relationships. Was that different, I wanted to know, from trying to base self-esteem on being liked and approved of? He countered that I was “phobic” about dependency.

  If we have a genuine need to experience our powers and worth, then more is required than the comfort of “belonging.” This is not to argue against the value of “relationships.” But if a culture places relationships first, above autonomy and authenticity, it leads the individual to self-alienation: to be “connected” is more important than to know who I am and to be who I am. The tribalist may wish to assert that being “connected” is more important, is the higher value, but that is not a license to equate it with self-esteem. Let that kind of gratification be called something else. Otherwise, we are trapped in an eternal Tower of Babel.

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  If human life and happiness are the standard, not all cultural traditions are equal.

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  When I discussed these issues with a Hawaiian educator who was eager to introduce better self-esteem principles into the school system, she said, “No matter what our skills or talents, so many of us here have a major self-esteem problem. We feel inferior and we’re afraid we’ll never catch up. Our children suffer from demoralization.”

  All this leads naturally to the question: What is the effect of different cultures, and different cultural values, on self-esteem?

  The Influence of Culture

  Every society contains a network of values, beliefs, and assumptions, not all of which are named explicitly but which nonetheless are part of the human environment. Indeed, ideas that are not identified overtly but are held and conveyed tacitly can be harder to call into question—precisely because they are absorbed by a process that largely bypasses the conscious mind. Everyone possesses what might be called a “cultural unconscious”—a set of implicit beliefs about nature, reality, human beings, man-woman relationships, good and evil—that reflect the knowledge, understanding, and values of a historical time and place. I do not mean that there are no differences among people within a given culture in their beliefs at this level. Nor do I mean that no one holds any of these beliefs consciously or that no one challenges any of them. I mean only that at least some of these beliefs tend to reside in every psyche in a given society, and without ever being the subject of explicit awareness.

  It is not possible for anyone, even the most independent, to make every premise conscious or to subject every premise to critical scrutiny. Even great innovators who challenge and overthrow paradigms in one area of reality may accept uncritically the implicit assumptions reigning in other areas. What impresses us about a mind like Aristotle’s, for instance, is the wide number of fields to which he brought the power of his extraordinarily original intellect. Yet even Aristotle was in many respects a man of his time and place. None of us can entirely escape the influence of our social environment.

  Consider, as illustration, the view of women that has dominated human history.

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  Some version of woman-as-inferior is part of the “cultural unconscious” of just about every society we know of.

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  In almost every part of the world and throughout virtually all the centuries behind us, women have been regarded, and been taught to regard themselves, as the inferior of men. Some version of woman-as-inferior is part of the “cultural unconscious” of just about every society we know of—and in the “cultural conscious” as well. Woman’s second-class status is a pronounced aspect of every brand of religious fundamentalism—be it Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or Hindu. Therefore, it is at its most virulent in societies dominated by religious fundamentalism, such as modern Iran.

  In Christianity, and not only among fundamentalists, it was held (and often is still held) that woman’s relationship to man should be as man’s relationship to God. Obedience, in this view, is a woman’s cardinal virtue (after “purity,” no doubt). I once made the mistake, in therapy with a female client, of associating this idea with “medieval Christianity.” She looked at me with astonishment and said sadly, “Are you kidding? I heard it from our minister last Sunday—and from my husband on Monday.” When her husband learned of our discussion, he insisted that she discontinue therapy. Woman-as-inferior is not an idea that supports female self-esteem. Can anyone doubt that it has had a tragic effect on most women’s view of themselves? Even among many modern American women who consider themselves thoroughly “emancipated,” it is not difficult to detect the pernicious influence of this view.

  There is a corresponding widely held idea about men’s value that is detrimental to male self-esteem.

  In most cultures men are socialized to identify personal worth with earning ability, with being “a good provider.” If, traditionally, women “owe” men obedience, men “owe” women financial support (and physical protection). If a woman loses her job and cannot find another, she has an economic problem, to be sure, but she does not feel diminished as a woman. Men often feel emasculated. In hard times, women do not commit suicide because they cannot find work; men often do—because men have been trained to identify self-esteem with earning ability.

  Now it could be argued that there is rational justification for tying self-esteem to earning ability. Does not self-esteem have to do with being equal to the challenges of life? Then is not the ability to earn a living essential? There are at least two things to be said about this. First, if a person is unable to earn a living because of his (or her) own choices and policies—unconsciousness, passivity, irresponsibility—then that inability is a reflection on self-esteem. But if the problem is the result of factors beyond the individual’s control, such as an economic depression, then it is wrong
to make the problem the occasion of self-blame. Self-esteem properly pertains only to issues open to our volitional choice. Second, note that the emphasis usually is not on earning ability as such, but on being a good provider. Men are judged, and are encouraged to judge themselves, by how well they can financially take care of others. Men are socialized to be “servants” fully as much as women; only the forms of culturally encouraged servitude are different.* If a man cannot support a woman, he tends to lose stature in her eyes and in his own. It would take unusual independence and self-esteem to challenge this culturally induced attitude and to ask “Why is this the gauge of my value as a man?”

  The Tribal Mentality

  Throughout human history, most societies and cultures have been dominated by the tribal mentality. This was true in primitive times, in the Middle Ages, and in socialist (and some nonsocialist) countries in the twentieth century. Japan is a contemporary example of a nonsocialist nation still heavily tribal in its cultural orientation, although it may now be in the process of becoming less so.