The effect of negatively worded measures of self-esteem on children
Main Article Content
Low self-esteem in learning disabled or emotionally disturbed children has been reported as a result of their failures in various social and educational settings (e.g., Conley, Ghavami, Vonohlen, & Foulkes, 2007). To verify such a decline, a number of self-esteem scales have been used in research. These usually utilize positive and negative items. For example, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) has five positive descriptions and five negative descriptions.
However, it is not known how children who tend to evaluate themselves negatively will feel when completing self-esteem measurement, particularly on items that require the child to evaluate whether or not a negative description is accurate. The use of these items for children with low self-esteem may result in subjective discomfort and subsequently enhance the child’s negative self- concepts. If this is true, self-esteem measurements involving both positive and negative self-descriptions would have to be reconsidered. In the present study, we examined how self-esteem measurement involving negative self-descriptions affects healthy children. The children’s self-esteem was measured using the RSES.
Thirty-eight fifth-grade elementary school children (19 girls and 19 boys; 10- or 11-year-olds) were asked to rate the subjective discomfort they felt while completing the RSES on a 5-point scale with 1 = It was enjoyable; 2 = It was slightly enjoyable; 3 = It was not enjoyable, but not unpleasant either; 4 = It was slightly unpleasant; 5 = It was unpleasant.
The total self-esteem score was calculated by adding the positive self- evaluation scores to the inverse of the negative self-evaluation scores. Statistical analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between self-esteem scores and self-reported discomfort experienced during self-esteem measurement (r = -.50, p < .01). Thus, children with lower self-esteem reported greater discomfort during self-esteem measurement. The result suggests that self-esteem measurement may not be a pleasant experience for children with low self-esteem. Therefore, if possible, it is desirable to avoid self-esteem measurements with many negative descriptions, at least in educational settings. Instead of such self- esteem measurements, the present result suggests the use of measurements with only positive items, or with free descriptions of only one’s own positive aspects for children with possibly lower self-esteem. However, we need further evidence to confirm that children do not necessarily experience discomfort during self- esteem measurement with only positive descriptions.
References
Conley, T. D., Ghavami, N., Vonohlen, J. M., & Foulkes, P. (2007). General and domain-specific self-esteem among regular education and special education students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(4), 775-789.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Conley, T. D., Ghavami, N., Vonohlen, J. M., & Foulkes, P. (2007). General and domain-specific self-esteem among regular education and special education students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(4), 775-789.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This work was supported by (JSPS) KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 14580260
18530680).
Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers.
Masako Tsurumaki, Fukushima University, Faculty of Human Development and Culture, Kanayagawa 1, Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture, 960-1296, Japan. Phone: +81-24-548-8173; Fax: +81-24-548-8173; Email: [email protected]