Strikingly, however, few cultures share the notion that one could feel or should feel good about oneself . Indeed, if the language does not supply the tools to express this idea, it is doubtful that the idea has much psychological presence. This grammatical construction makes a reference to the self, but the self remains the feeling agent and not the felt object. Inasmuch as cultural and linguistic environments shape the representation of behavioral problems and their causes, they guide and constrain the search for remedies. In the prevalent cultural representation, high self-esteem is unambiguously good.
Recent findings suggest that high self-esteem can indeed hurt.
Narcissists are grandiose and feel that the world owes them respect and that they deserve special treatment. Narcissistically inflated self-esteem is defensive and hostile. Self-enhancers see themselves in a more favorable light than they see others and describe themselves more favorably than others describe them. In his book House of Cards , Robyn Dawes reported that most students believed they would be less likely than the average person to become sick. Not surprisingly then, a recent classroom exercise at Brown University showed that all students expected to do better than most of their classmates on the midterm exam.