The ego boost
By: Solveig Bjørkholt
Tags: Self, Self Improvement, Social

Whenever we, humans, feel successful, the brain releases a dose of dopamine. We feel energized, strong, maybe even invincible. This psychological fact is so robust that it is widely used by the marketing industry. On Facebook and Instagram, we receive likes for our posts. Games are quick to hand out positive affirmation and unlock bonuses when we complete tasks. It also functions as flattery, for example the urge we get to keep talking with someone who keeps complimenting us.

The dopamine relesed by these triggers boosts our feeling of being a good person in the eyes of others. It boosts our ego. The ego is a sense of self derived from how we perceive our identity to be. We continually conjure an identity for ourselves — both bad or good — and we would like to have the good parts of this identity reaffirmed by others. If you value your creative skills, and somebody tells you that you are, indeed, creative, you will feel a boost of confidence. At the same time, receiving compliments on identities we would like to adopt — often socially valued characteristics such as looks, charisma or assertiveness — could also give that confidence boost.

People with low self-esteem are particularly vulnerable to ego boosts. I say “vulnerable”, because inconsistent ego boosts for these people can function quite adversively. People with low self-esteem have a poor internal sense of self, and they rely on others to feel good. A compliment therefore has a much larger effect than for someone with solid self-esteem. It’s like a shaky foundation that could easily be tipped in either direction by someone. For the first group, thus, a dopamine high is always followed an insecure low.

It almost takes the form of an addiction. First, the ego is filled with a sense of worth, value and completeness by the affirmation. The person feels whole and joyful. This is the plateau of inflated ego. Here, the person imagines itself to be significantly stronger, smarter, prettier or more interesting than the average. However, a dopamine high induced by someone else’s affirmation is quickly transformed into a craving for more once this ego-boost is gone. When the source of confidence vanishes, there is no sound base to turn to in order to feel a sense of worth. Thus, the ego plummets and enters the drought of the drained self.

The drought could last for days while the self desperately tries to find a new source of affirmation to boost the ego and strengthen a positive identity. This is a very tiring condition to be in, and over time, it takes the form of one high after the other, with long and sore periods of insecurity and bitterness in between. As with an addict, the person craves affirmation wherever they go, and they may be very vulnerable to criticism.

Yet, there is a way out of this ego-cycle. As I mentioned earlier, the ego is a function of the identity, and the identity is nothing but how we perceive ourselves. While we may believe than an identity is a social construct, since it is often what we present to others, it need not be so. In fact, psychologist Carl Gustav Jung operated with the “persona” and the “self” to make distinct the one part of us that we present to others, and the one part of us that is who we really are.

One way out of the ego-cycle is thus to stop and become aware of the thoughts and feelings circulating in moments of high and in moments of low. Who do I perceive myself to be now? How does that make me feel? Have I felt like this before? By becoming aware of the internal process, it is easier to recognize the ego for what it is — a construct made up by ourselves in order to somehow fit in to the world. In the next step, there are two options. Either practice mindfulness. These thoughts are mere constructs, and thus, we shouldn’t dwell on them to create a sense of self and self-worth. The self only exists in the now, and while every thought and feeling is worthwhile, they are also fleeting. The second option is to grab hold of the thoughts and dissect them. Why did this affect me in such a way? What about my history makes me prone to this sort of flattery? What are the reasons that I become anxious when the flattery is withdrawn?

Both of these methods might be even more egoistic than the ego-boosts. They allow a person to focus solely on oneself, not oneself as seen by others. This is the true self, the core, the inner nature. The identity is but a construct, and we should perceive it as such.