Do not forget that this very "self esteem" thingy is almost exclusively American. The other nations do not even think in such terms.
Certainly there are small communities everywhere (even in America -- after all, they were prolific in America's infancy) that sought the creation of a hyper-communal and idyllic towns... but... those never scale because, well, people are selfish. But still. I just can't process what you're saying. Maybe I'm blinded by offense.
What culture (besides the Northern Americans) would so blindly equate self respect to self esteem? The others understand better that you can respect yourself even without the overblown, unrealistic views on your own abilities and virtues.
I don't think self esteem means what you think it means.
But we're talking about self-esteem, which everyone is supposed to get for free. Self-respect, like the respect of others, must be earned. Equating the two is a quintessentially modern-American mistake (I'm a modern American, and I made this mistake myself for years), and I think that's what 'sklogic calls out above.
This over inflated sense of importance or "self esteem thingy" may be exclusively American but not anywhere close to all Americans subscribe to it. There are 330+ million people of various ages and backgrounds living in the US. I don't see how painting with such a broad brush like you have been does anything but inflame debate.
My question is this though, as much as people like bandying DK around, has it not been replicated? Specific to you, has the effect not been tested anywhere outside North America?
No, I'm saying that only Americans are so conditioned to value their "self esteem". There is no emphasis on this stupidity in the other cultures.
It's all about the emphasis: http://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/articles/Cai%20et%20al.%20...
And I don't think that study supports your comment at all.
> Supporting this contention, our Chinese participants reported liking themselves every bit as much as our European American participants.
> This finding supports our claim that cultural differences in self-esteem arise from cultural differences in self-evaluations, with people from East Asian countries evaluating themselves less positively than people from Western countries.
> Thus, even though cognitive self-evaluations are lower in China than in America, they are not less predictive of global self-esteem. This finding suggests that global self-esteem is experienced similarly across dissimilar cultures
This study finds that self esteem is equally prevalent across the two cultures, and as far as I can see says nothing about how much the participants value their self esteem.
Again. Only Americans are conditioned to value and cherish their self esteem. That was my statement.
Other cultures do not put any emphasis on self esteem (and many consider it as something shameful to even talk about it).