The Effect of Low Self-Esteem
By: Hengky Sanjaya
Tags: Academic, Academic English, Essay, Cause And Effect, Self Esteem

Self-esteem is an opinion or reflection of people’s self-appreciation. Self-esteem involves the attitude and relates to confidence, emotions, beliefs and appearance of individuals. People who have high confidence in their own worth are considered as mentally stable and balanced (Branden, 1994). In comparison, people with low self-esteem are considered as mentally depressed (Tennen & Affleck, 1993). This essay will explain the causes of low self-esteem which covers how inner criticism makes the negative self-beliefs and self-comparison leads to unworthy feelings and its consequences of low self-esteem to academic performance and risk level of depression.

The first internal cause of individuals to have low self-esteem is they are listening too much to their own inner criticism. Recent research reveals that how some individuals respond to their inner criticism has two primary functions. First, they see it as a way to help their personality to get better. Inner criticism becomes a tool for individuals to benchmark themselves and measure their own self-performance. Second, some individuals see it as a way to penalize themselves. It becomes a negative self-criticism for them; as a result, they dislike who they are which leads to low self-esteem. Many people see it from the second perspective of inner criticism functions. Their inner voice instead fuels their self-insecurity by underplaying their own capabilities; hence, it becomes a weapon that attacks their mentality and self-belief which makes their self-appreciation low.

The second cause of why people possess low-level self-esteem because they compare themselves with others. Many people often compare themselves with others (Zell & Balcetis). For instance, people compare their ability to do something with their friend, or compare their physical conditions, and compare their salary to their colleague’s salary. According to a social psychologist Leon Festinger, every individual will always need an assessment of the environment by comparing themselves with others. Basically, it is human nature (Festinger,1954). In fact, this process of comparing is the practice to understand and recognize someone’s ability and evaluate the progress of what they have done, but the way to look at the result of benchmarking can be seen as positive or negative motivation. It depends on the individual's choice. The problem is that the comparison is frequently not used as self-motivation; instead, it makes someone feel inferior.

As a result of the aforementioned causes of low self-appreciation, it may cause several effects to personal life, such as impairing academic performance and to have an effect on amplifying the risk of depression.

First, low self-esteem may interfere with every single aspect of life as well as academic aspects (Department of Health & Human Services, 2014). When people compare themselves or follow their negative self-beliefs, it will decrease their performance in academics. For example, they compare their academic result with their schoolmate or they hold a belief that they cannot do better than the others. In this case, it makes someone feel unworthy and less confident. Low self-esteem discourages people to study for exams or to finish their homework with their full potential. Therefore, It makes individuals feel that they do not have enough ability to accomplish a task which affects their competence to achieve maximum academic potential.

Second, low self-esteem may increase people’s risk of depression. Over the past decade, self-esteem and the feeling of hopelessness were researched to understand the connection. The vulnerability model predicts that low appreciation of one’s self causes individuals to become more vulnerable to depression (Manna et al, 2016). At the time when individuals feel of low appreciation of themselves, it may generate a feeling of worry, stress which leads to hopelessness and inadequacy.

In conclusion, self-esteem involves the attitude and relates to confidence, emotions, beliefs and appearance of individuals. Therefore, from the aforementioned causes of self-esteem, it can be concluded that self-control is very important for individuals to prevent the negative effects that happen to their academic performance and their self-beliefs. By controlling the emotion, belief and mindset, individuals will get better confidence in their own worth which can increase self-appreciation and likelihood of success.