Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Susan Harter, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The nature of children’s and adolescents’ concepts of self change with age, in large part due to cognitive-developmental
changes. Young children’s self-concepts are limited to specific, concrete representations (e.g., I can run fast, I know my
numbers). In middle and later childhood, children’s self-descriptions represent trait labels (e.g., I am smart because I do well
in Social Studies, Language Arts, and Math). At adolescence, self-descriptions become increasingly abstract (e.g., I am
intelligent, athletic). In addition to domain-specific self-concepts, the ability to evaluate one’s overall worth as a person
emerges in middle childhood. The level of such global self-esteem varies tremendously across children and is determined by
how adequate they feel in domains of importance as well as the extent to which significant others (e.g., parents and peers)
approve of them as a person. Low self-esteem is associated with many psychological liabilities including depressed affect, lack
of energy, and hopelessness about the future. However, efforts to promote positive self-esteem can be problematic if they are
based on unrealistically positive judgments, namely, overestimations of one’s competencies. I review the debate about Self-
Esteem Movement, which has taken place largely in our schools, which has been criticized for fostering unrealistic percep-
tions of children’s competencies and, in collusion with some parents, a sense of entitlement. Moreover, one must consider
cross-cultural differences in the nature of self-esteem, which are legion. Certain cultures (e.g., China) do not even have a term
for self-esteem. Plus, instruments designed for Americans are often inappropriate, in terms of content and psychometric
properties, leading to faulty interpretations.

Introduction children and adolescents make evaluative judgments about

Beginning in the second year of life, toddlers begin to talk
about themselves. With development, they come to understand
that they possess various characteristics, some of which may be
positive (‘I am smart’) and some of which may be negative (‘I
am unpopular’). Of particular interest is how the very nature of
such self-evaluations changes with development as well as
among individual children and adolescents across two basic
evaluative categories: (1) domain-specific self-concepts, i.e.,
how one judges one’s attributes in particular arenas, e.g.,
scholastic competence, social and (2) global self-esteem (for
a complete treatment of self-development in childhood and
adolescence, see Harter, 1999, 2012).
Developmental shifts in the nature of self-evaluations
are driven by changes in the child’s cognitive capabilities.
Cognitive-developmental theory and findings (see Piaget,
1960,1963; Fischer, 1980) alert us to the fact that the young
child is limited to very specific, concrete representations of
self and others, for example, ‘I know my ABCs’ (see Damon
and Hart, 1988; Harter, 1999). In middle to later childhood,
the ability to form higher order concepts about one’s
attributes and abilities (e.g., ‘I am smart’) emerges. There are
further cognitive advances at adolescence, allowing the
teenager to form abstract concepts about the self that
transcend concrete behavioral manifestations and higher
order generalizations (e.g., ‘I am intelligent’).
the self have been identified: scholastic competence, physical
competence, social competence, behavioral conduct, and
physical appearance (Harter, 1999). The types of statements
vary, however, across age periods, early childhood, middle
childhood, later childhood, and early, mid-, and late
adolescence, in keeping with the cognitive abilities of each
age period.
Early Childhood
Young children provide very concrete accounts of their
capabilities, evaluating specific behaviors. Thus, they
communicate how they know their ABCs, how they can run
very fast, how they are nice to a particular friend, how they
do not hit their brother or sister, and how they possess
a specific physical feature such as pretty blond hair. Of
particular interest in such accounts is the fact that the young
child typically provides a litany of virtues, touting his or her
positive skills and attributes. One cognitive limitation of this
age period is that the young child cannot distinguish the
wish to be competent from reality. As a result, they typically
overestimate their abilities because they do not yet have the
skills to evaluate themselves realistically. Another cognitive
characteristic that contributes to potential distortions is the
pervasiveness of all-or-none thinking. That is, evaluations
are either all positive or all negative, but primarily, all
positive.

Developmental Differences in Domain-Specific

Self-Concepts
Domain-specific evaluative judgments are observed at every
developmental level. However, the precise nature of these
judgments varies with age. Five common domains in which
Middle Childhood
As the child grows older, the ability to make higher order
generalizations in evaluating his or her abilities and attributes
emerges. The child may observe that he or she is good at sports,
in general. This inference can further be justified in that the

492 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.23019-5

child can describe his or her talent at several sports (e.g., good
at soccer, basketball, and baseball). Thus, the higher order
generalization represents a cognitive construction in which an
overarching judgment (good at sports) is defined in terms of
specific examples that warrant this conclusion. Similar
processes allow the older child to conclude that he or she is
smart (e.g., does well in math, science, and history). The
structure of a higher order generalization about being well
behaved could include such components as obeying parents,
not getting into trouble, and trying to do what is right. A
generalization concerning the ability to make friends may
subsume accounts of having friends at school, making friends
easily at camp, and developing friendships readily upon
moving to a new neighborhood. The perception that one is
good looking may be based on one’s positive evaluation of
one’s face, hair, and body.
Later Childhood
During later childhood, all-or-none thinking diminishes and
the aura of positivity fades. Thus, children do not typically
think that they are all virtuous in every domain. The more
common pattern is for them to feel more adequate in some
domains than others. For example, one child may feel that he
or she is good at schoolwork and is well behaved, whereas he
or she is not that good at sports, does not think that he or
she is good looking, and reports that it is hard to make
friends. Another child may report the opposite pattern.
Contributing to this advance is the ability to engage in
social comparison. Children can use comparisons with others
as a barometer of the skills and attributes of the self. In contrast,
the young child cannot simultaneously compare his or her
attributes to the characteristics of another in order to detect
similarities or differences that have implications for the self.
Although the ability to utilize social comparison information
for the purpose of self-evaluation represents a cognitive-
developmental advance, it also ushers in new, potential
liabilities. With the emergence of the ability to rank-order the
performance of other children, all but the most capable
children will necessarily fall short of excellence. Thus, the
very ability and penchant to compare the self with others
makes one’s self-concept vulnerable, particularly if one does
not measure up in domains that are highly valued. The more
general effects of social comparison can be observed in
findings revealing that domain-specific self-concepts become
more negative during later childhood, compared to early
childhood.
Early Adolescence
For the adolescent, there are further cognitive-developmental
advances that alter the nature of domain-specific self-
evaluations. Early adolescence brings with it the ability to
create more abstract judgments about one’s attributes and
abilities. Thus, one no longer merely considers oneself to be
good at sports but to be athletically talented. One is no
longer merely smart but views the self more generally as
intelligent, where successful academic performance, general
problem-solving ability, and creativity might all be subsumed
Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence 493
under the abstraction of intelligence. Abstractions may be
constructed in the other domains. In the domain of
behavioral conduct, there will be a shift from the perception
that one is well behaved to a sense that one is a moral or
principled person. In the domains of social competence and
appearance, abstractions may take the form of perceptions
that one is popular and physically attractive.
These illustrative examples all represent positive self-
evaluations. However, during adolescence (as well as in later
childhood), judgments about one’s attributes will also
involve negative self-evaluations. Thus, certain individuals
may judge the self to be unattractive, unpopular,
unprincipled, etc.
Mid-Adolescence
Of particular interest is the fact that when abstractions emerge,
the adolescent typically does not have total control over these
new acquisitions, just as when one is acquiring a new athletic
skill (e.g., swinging a bat and maneuvering skis) one lacks
a certain level of control. In the cognitive realm, such lack of
control often leads to dramatic shifts in self-perceptions across
situations or time. For example, the adolescent may conclude at
one point in time that he or she is exceedingly popular but
then, in the face of a minor social rebuff, may conclude that
he or she is extremely unpopular. Moreover, adolescents
develop multiple selves, how they are different in different
role relationships, for example, cheerful with peers, depressed
with parents, self-conscious on a date, etc. However, these
vacillations and different selves cause distress, perceived
psychological conflict, and confusion about just which is
their ‘true self’ (see Harter, 2012).
Late Adolescence
Gradually, adolescents gain control over these self-relevant
abstractions such that they become capable of more balanced
and accurate self-representations (see Harter, 1999, 2012).
They develop more advanced cognitive skills to deal with the
confusion and the conflict between their multiple selves. Two
strategies have been documented in the author’s own work.
As adolescents advance to more mature levels of cognitive
development, they develop higher levels of abstractions that
can integrate the seeming contradictions of the previous
period. For example, the realizations that they are depressed
with parents but cheerful with friends can be subsumed
under the more advanced abstraction that they are ‘moody,’
thus integrating and justifying what were previously
inconsistent self-perceptions. Second, older adolescents
normalize what were former contradictions, describing how it
would be ‘weird’ to be the same with your mother as you are
on a date, or with friends at a ball game (see Harter, 2012).
Global Self-Esteem
The ability to evaluate one’s worth as a person also undergoes
developmental change. The young child simply is incapable,
cognitively, of developing the verbal concept of his or her value
as a person. This ability emerges at the approximate age of
494 Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence
8 years. However, young children exude a sense of value or
worth in their behavior. The primary behavioral manifestations
involve displays of confidence, independence, mastery
attempts, and exploration (see Harter, 1999, 2012). Thus,
behaviors that communicate to others that children are sure of
themselves are manifestations of high self-esteem in early
childhood.
At about the third grade, children begin to develop the
concept that they like, or do not like, the kind of person they
are (Harter, 1999; Rosenberg, 1979). Thus, they can respond
to general items asking them to rate the extent to which
they are pleased with themselves, like who they are, and
think they are fine, as a person. Here, the shift reflects the
emergence of an ability to construct a higher order
generalization about the self. This type of concept can be
built upon perceptions that one has a number of specific
qualities, for example, that one is competent, well behaved,
attractive, etc. It can also be built upon the observation that
significant others are approving and supportive, for
example, parents, peers, and teachers, think highly of the
self. This process is greatly influenced by advances in the
child’s ability to take the perspective of significant others
(Selman, 1980). During adolescence, one’s evaluation of
one’s global worth as a person may be further elaborated,
drawing upon more domains and sources of approval, and
will also become more abstract. Thus, adolescents can
directly acknowledge that they have high or low self-esteem,
as a general abstraction about the self.
Individual Differences in Domain-Specific
Self-Concepts as Well as Global Self-Esteem
Although there are predictable cognitively based develop-
mental changes in the nature of how most children and
adolescents describe and evaluate themselves, there are
striking individual differences in how positively or negatively
the self is evaluated. Moreover, one observes different profiles
of children’s perceptions of their competence or adequacy
across the various self-concept domains, in that children
evaluate themselves differently across domains. Consider the
profiles of four different children. One child, Child A, may
feel very good about her scholastic performance, although
this is in sharp contrast to her opinion of her athletic ability,
where she evaluates herself quite poorly. Socially she feels
reasonably well accepted by her peers. In addition, she
considers herself to be well behaved. Her feelings about her
appearance, however, are relatively negative. Child A also
reports very high self-esteem. Another child, Child B, has
a very different configuration of scores. This is a boy who
feels very incompetent when it comes to schoolwork.
However, he considers himself to be very competent,
athletically, and feels well received by peers. He judges his
behavioral conduct to be less commendable. In contrast, he
thinks he is relatively good-looking. Like Child A, he also
reports high self-esteem.
Other profiles are exemplified by Child C and Child D,
neither of whom feel good about themselves scholastically or
athletically. They evaluate themselves much more positively in
the domains of social acceptance, conduct, and physical
appearance. In fact, their profiles are quite similar to each other
across the five specific domains. However, judgments of their
self-esteem are extremely different. Child C has very high self-
esteem, whereas Child D has very low self-esteem. This raises
a puzzling question: how can two children look so similar
with regard to their domain-specific self-concepts but
evaluate their global self-esteem so differently? The author
turns to this issue next, in examining the causes of global
self-esteem.
The Causes of Children’s Level of Self-Esteem
The understanding of the antecedents of global self-esteem
has been greatly aided by the formulations of two historical
scholars of the self, William James (1892) and Charles
Horton Cooley (1902). Each suggested rather different
pathways to self-esteem, defined as an overall evaluation of
one’s worth as a person (see reviews by Harter, 1999, 2012;
Rosenberg, 1979). James focused on how the individual
assessed his or her competence in domains where one had
aspirations to succeed. Cooley focused on the salience of
the opinions that others held about the self, opinions that
one incorporated into one’s global sense of self (see Self:
History of the Concept).
Competence–Adequacy in Domains of Importance
For James, global self-esteem derived from the evaluations of
one’s sense of competence or adequacy in the various
domains of one’s life relative to how important it was to be
successful in these domains. Thus, if one feels one is
successful in domains deemed important, high self-esteem
will result. Conversely, if one falls short of one’s goal in
domains where one has aspirations to be successful, one
will experience low self-esteem. One does not, therefore,
have to be a superstar in every domain to have high self-
esteem. Rather, one only needs to feel adequate or
competent in those areas judged to be important. Thus,
a child may evaluate himself or herself as unathletic;
however, if athletic prowess is not an aspiration, then self-
esteem will not be negatively affected. That is, the high self-
esteem individual can discount the importance of areas in
which one does not feel successful.
The author has directly examined this explanation in
research studies by asking children to rate how important it is
for them to be successful (Harter, 1999). The findings reveal
that high self-esteem individuals feel competent in domains
they rate as important. Low self-esteem individuals report
that areas in which they are unsuccessful are still very
important to them. Thus, the discrepancy between high
importance and perceptions of inadequacy contribute to
low self-esteem. In contrast, the congruence between
importance and feelings of success leads to higher self esteem.
Incorporation of the Opinions of Significant Others
Another important factor influencing self-esteem can be
derived from the writings of Cooley (1902) who
metaphorically made reference to the ‘looking-glass self.’

According to this formulation, significant others (e.g., parents
and peers) were social mirrors into which one gazed in order
to determine what they thought of the self. Thus, in evaluating
the self, one would adopt what one felt were the judgments of
these others whose opinions were considered important.
Thus, the approval, support, or positive regard from
significant others became a critical source of one’s own
sense of worth as a person. For example, children who
receive approval from parents and peers report much higher
self-esteem than children who experience disapproval from
parents and peers.
The author’s findings (Harter, 1999, 2012) reveal that both
these factors, competence in domains of importance and the
perceived support of significant others, combine to influence
a child’s or adolescent’s self-esteem. Thus, those who feel
competent in domains of importance and who also report
high support, rate themselves as having the highest self-
esteem. Those who feel inadequate in domains deemed
important and who also report low levels of support rate
themselves as having the lowest self-esteem.
Cross-Cultural Considerations
Globalization and the proliferation of psychological research
on the international scene is a welcome new trend.
However, one must appreciate that there are clear differences
between Western and Eastern conceptions that much be
recognized, before Westerners encourage Eastern cultures to
embrace Western frameworks, paradigms, and instruments
(Harter, 2012). Clearly, self-esteem is a value touted by
Americans, as witnessed by the many attempts to protect
and enhance it (Harter, 2012; Leary, 2004). However, high
self-esteem, based on individual accomplishments, is not
revered as a psychological commodity in most Eastern
cultures (see Harter, 2012). In fact, in some languages,
namely, Chinese and Japanese, there is no equivalent term
for ‘self-esteem.’ Self-esteem is simply not a core value and
therefore is not represented or codified in their respective
languages.
This leads to numerous problems when instruments
designed for Americans are administered in many other
countries (see Harter, 2012). First, the content may not be
appropriate, meaning at the domain or item level. Most
noticeable is that self-esteem items do not resonate with
such populations. As a result, this interferes with the
psychometric properties in that American instruments
administered in such countries lack reliability and validity,
and the factor structures do not hold up. Question formats
such as the one employed in our own instruments pull for
social comparison, which is frowned upon in many
countries, leading to lower scores than would be anticipated
given objective data about levels of achievement and
competencies in certain cultures. See Harter (2012) where
these different issues are addressed in more detail. There, the
author urges that those in different cultures take stock of
these problems and perhaps initially designed interview
questions to address their specific research questions and
hypotheses that are more culturally sensitive and will lead to
more meaningful findings.
Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence 495
To Raise or Not to Raise Self-Esteem within both
Society and Our Schools
For two decades, considerable debate and controversy has
surrounded this question. Initiatives have been proposed to
raise self-esteem at the national and state levels, as a cure-all
for many societal ills. Parallel interventions at the classroom
level have been urged by some educators who presume that
self-esteem enhancement should motivate students to attain
higher levels of academic achievement. The initiative
adopted by the State of California, in 1990, reflects one of
the most ambitious efforts to tackle this issue at a legislative
level (California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and
Personal Responsibility, 1990). This particular initiative
became a public marker of the ‘Self-Esteem Movement.’ Its
message was also a subtext in the playbooks of many
educators.
California state legislators expressed their conviction that
by raising the self-esteem of its citizenry, many social ills
would be significantly reduced, for example, crime, teen
pregnancy, delinquency, drug abuse, and school
underachievement. Such a widespread intervention would
lead to better societal, as well as personal, outcomes. The
California initiative vaulted the topic of self-esteem into the
national limelight, as the media scrambled to cover the
frenzied efforts to alter self-perceptions in the service of the
greater cultural good. Swann (1996) likens the quest for
high self-esteem to the search for the Holy Grail, pointing to
the dizzying array of programs that proliferated.
Unfortunately, these efforts did not have their intended
effects, based upon very disappointing findings that did not
produce the desired outcomes. Self-esteem, particularly if it
was unrealistically enhanced, did not represent the
anticipated panacea that would cure our social ills (see
Eccles and Roeser, 2009).
How the self-esteem movement played out on the stage of
America’s classrooms, as an educational microcosm of
society, is of particular relevance in terms of its implications
for the youth. A major focus of many educational
interventions has been the enhancement of self-esteem,
given the argument that student achievement would
improve, as a result. These contentions have fueled an
intense debate that is reflected within the educational and
psychological literature (see review in Harter, 2012).
Proponents have touted the advantages of enhanced self-
esteem, whereas opponents have vociferously argued that
such efforts are not only misguided and useless, at best, but
destructive, at worst. What are the primary arguments, pro
and con?
The claims of the proponents are perhaps the most
straightforward, given the belief and insistence that raising the
self-esteem of students will produce higher levels of
achievement and foster academic success, primarily
measured by grades and test scores (see Tice and Gailliot,
2006; for thoughtful reviews of the dispute).
Those who believe in the value of enhancing self-esteem
among students first argue that while admittedly modest,
the correlation between these two constructs is sufficient to
warrant educational intervention. Second, these proponents
also contend that the enhancement of self-esteem will
496 Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence
produce educational benefits, that is, global perceptions of
one’s worth as a person act causally to promote gains in
academic achievement.
Opponents of educational interventions first point out
that the magnitude of the correlation between self-esteem
and academic achievements is relatively trivial and thus
without serious implications. Second, they challenge the
presumed directionality of effects. That is, although the
two constructs may bear a modest correlation to one
another, it is just as likely that successful achievement in
the classroom (as indexed by good grades and high
standardized test scores) represents the cause of higher
self-esteem, not the effect. These are the general arguments
that define each position. Next, the author turns to the
more nuanced considerations.
A major concern addressed by many opponents is that
seeking to boost self-esteem can artificially destroy any
incentives for students to devote effort toward scholastic
goals (Tice and Gailliot, 2006), particularly if self-
evaluations are unrealistic. Inflated self-esteem provides no
incentive for self-improvement. Moreover, the practice of
inviting students to make unconfirmed self-affirmations as
to their worth (‘I am smart,’ ‘I am awesome,’ ‘I am special’)
do not appear to be effective.
Damon (1995) was also among the first to be critical of
what he considered an overemphasis by educators on
promoting high self-esteem, particularly when these efforts
lead to an inflated sense of one’s self-worth. Damon has
viewed such efforts as not only misguided but potentially
detrimental, arguing that they divert educators from the
active teaching of skills and deprive students of the thrill
that results from personal accomplishment. It has been
Damon’s contention that self-esteem has become an
overrated commodity and that the effusive praise that
parents and teachers heap on children to make them feel
good about themselves is often met with suspicion by the
children themselves. Moreover, it interferes with their
attention to the goal of building specific skills in the service
of genuine achievement. It does a grave educational
injustice to encourage children to think well of themselves
without having earned it. Cote (2009) has joined the ranks
of opponents, decrying the ‘cult of self-esteem’ that has
gripped schools in this country.
‘Feel-good activities,’ a mainstay of many of the self-
esteem interventions to emerge in the 1980s, have produced
few gains, despite the widespread commercial packaging of
programs designed to enhance self-esteem. They demand
that teachers suspend corrective feedback and remove
challenging material, ‘dumbing down’ the curriculum
(Damon, 1995). Such activities divorce self-esteem from
palpable achievements that result from realistic attributions
to the student’s personal effort. As a result, they confound
self-esteem with egocentrism, narcissism, arrogance, conceit,
and self-delusion (see Harter, 2012). That said, proponents
of these packaged programs claim that the self-affirming
affective exercises and techniques will extend, not only to
heightened school performance, but to broader societal
goals to help curb such teenage social ills as pregnancy,
drug use, and delinquency. However, there is little evidence
to warrant these claims (see Covington, 2006). Moreover,
given my own experience in the schools over the years,
many teachers who were forced to administer what they
called touchy-feely exercises complained that this was not
their job definition, rendering them less than effective if
they attempted to mouth the self-esteem mantra.
Furthermore, the goal of self-enhancement strategies, for
its own sake, interferes with the educational goals of
learning and mastery. As Covington (2006) observes,
enhanced achievement is more likely if children are
motivated to learn for the sake of learning, to stimulate
their own curiosity, to challenge themselves, and to set
personal goals that involve skill improvement. If the reasons
behind school performance are more self-promotional and
defensive in nature, for example, striving to succeed in order
to avoid failure with its implication that one is
incompetent, academic motivation will wane because of the
fear that one cannot succeed.
Perhaps one of the strongest and most vocal opponents of
self-esteem enhancement programs within the school system
is Baumeister and colleagues (Baumeister, 1996; Baumeister
et al., 2003). Baumeister’s devastating critique is captured by
this assertion: “At worst, the pursuit of high self-esteem is
a foolish, wasteful, and self-destructive enterprise that may
end up doing more harm than good” (Baumeister, 1996: p.
120). What is the basis for his contentions?
To begin with, Baumeister is critical of the California
initiative to promote self-esteem, which professed to
represent a social vaccine to cure or hopefully inoculate
citizens against the evils of crime, violence, substance abuse,
teen pregnancy, child abuse, chronic welfare dependency,
and educational failure. He rightfully asserts, consistent with
the considerable evidence on narcissism, that for many in
this country, self-esteem is already inflated.
We seem to be revisiting an earlier movement, from the
1960s and 1970s, what the author has called the Camelot era
of self-esteem interventions, which invoked simplistic
attempts to enhance self-esteem that were unsuccessful.
These urged general self-affirmations (e.g., “I’m OK, you’re
OK” messages) and affective feel-good exercises that were
designed to impact self-esteem directly. The contemporary
analog can be observed among educators, coaches, and
parents who have fallen prey to the ‘good job!’ mantra.
Children and adolescents are lavishly and indiscriminately
praised for their efforts, independent of whether they
warrant such positive feedback.
Recent findings (reviewed in Harter, 2012) reveal that
narcissism among the youth has systematically increased
over the past three decades, given that society, in general,
and schools, in particular, have both perpetuated messages
and practices that promote self-enhancement, self-serving
biases, and a sense of entitlement. Affirmations of
‘specialness’ and educational practices such as grade
inflation and ‘dumbing down’ the curriculum prompt
unrealistic views of competence and contribute to
narcissistic self-promotion. In May of 2012, in a risky and
courageous high school graduation speech, the speaker
shocked students and outraged parents by his blatant
contention that “you students are not special!” It was
a wake-up call that caught the attention of the national
media and reactions went viral. Thus, the bottom line is

that our educational system and child-rearing practices
should cultivate behaviors that produce self-views that are
both realistic (that is, based on objective evidence) and
adaptive (that is, promote activities that predict long-term
adjustment to the demands of society).
Conclusions
Two types of self-representations that can be observed in
children and adolescents were distinguished, evaluative
judgments of competence or adequacy in specific domains
and the global evaluation of one’s worth as a person,
namely, overall self-esteem. Each of these undergoes
developmental change based on age-related cognitive
advances. In addition, older children and adolescents vary
tremendously with regard to whether self-evaluations are
positive or negative. Within a given individual, there will
be a profile of self-evaluations, some of which are more
positive and some more negative. More positive self-
concepts in domains considered important, as well as
approval from significant others, will lead to high self-
esteem. Conversely, negative self-concepts in domains
considered important, coupled with lack of approval from
significant others, will result in low self-esteem. Self-esteem
is particularly important since it is associated with very
important outcomes or consequences. Perhaps the most
well-documented consequence of low self-esteem is
depression. Children and adolescents (as well as adults)
with the constellation of causes leading to low self-esteem
will invariably report that they feel depressed, emotionally,
and are hopeless about their futures; the most seriously
depressed consider suicide. Thus, it is critical that one
intervenes for those experiencing low self-esteem (see
suggestions in Harter, 1999).
Positive self-esteem can be a psychological commodity,
a resource that is important for us to foster in our children and
adolescents if we want them to lead productive and happy
lives. However, unrealistically inflated positive views of one’s
competencies and worth as a person can also compromise
one’s personal growth. It can lead to self-aggrandizing
tendencies that can merge into narcissism, which can
eventually alienate others and lead to blame and hostile
behaviors (see Harter, 2012, 2012). Thus, our responsibility
Self-Development in Childhood and Adolescence 497
should be to foster realistic self-perceptions and provide
support to encourage children and adolescents to develop the
necessary skills toward that goal.
See also: Identity in Childhood and Adolescence; Self-
Concepts: Educational Aspects; Self: History of the Concept.
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