ABSTRACT
Self-esteem was first described in 1890 by a man called William James as the sense of positive regard that develops when individuals consistently meet or exceed the important goals in their lives. The development of a healthy self-esteem is not straightforward and is affected by many factors. Sullivan believed that ‘one’s concept of self develops out of the reflected appraisals of significant others’. Self-esteem is often considered to be a fundamental human need and people will express a preference for self-esteem boosts over other pleasant activities. By far the most common way to assess self-esteem is to use the self-report method and the most widely used assessment of global self-esteem is the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Self-esteem is the value we place on ourselves and has three separate concepts: global self-esteem, feelings of self-worth and self-evaluations. Although different, they are highly correlated so that the person with high self-esteem will evaluate themselves more positively and will experience higher feelings of self-worth.
