Audball comments on Two More Things to Unlearn from School - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 July 2007 05:45PM

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Comment author: Blueberry 05 June 2010 05:06:15PM *  3 points [-]

That article reads like it has a very large political axe to grind. While empathy may have decreased due to some large-scale social changes, blaming the "self-esteem movement" is confusing correlation with causation. I'd be curious to know, for instance, if people in urban communities score lower empathy than people in rural communities.

It seems reasonable that a lack of empathy and grandiosity would be associated with violent behavior, but I don't think it's meaningful to call this "self-esteem" or blame a movement that tries to make people feel better about themselves. There's a problem with your measure of self-esteem if it correlates with not being able to admit when you're wrong: that shouldn't be called self-esteem! A secure person is more likely to admit when they're wrong.

The survey in the first article measures empathy; I don't see the self-esteem surveys anywhere, but that last link says

it may be more correct to say that a form of high self-esteem -- more precisely, a highly favorable and possibly inflated view of self that is confronted with an external threat -- leads to violence.

That final article also refers to 'egotistical' and 'arrogant' as terms of "high self-esteem". While it makes sense that egotistical and arrogant people may be more likely to be violent, it's highly misleading to call that having high self-esteem. The article seems to be talking more about lacking the ability to react well to criticism, which sounds more like low self-esteem, not high. (That final article does note that many of the scales that measure self-esteem may be biased either negatively or positively.)

(Edited to make clear which article I mean in the last paragraph.)

Comment author: Audball 31 January 2014 12:59:49AM *  0 points [-]

It is certainly more ideal for a person to have high self esteem and also the security to admit fallibility, but the two are not mutually exclusive. Self esteem is exactly what it sounds like - how highly a person values themselves regardless if their belief is justified in the right context, morally or not (What Vaniver says goes into this better). Self esteem that is incongruent with reality or the context is the issue here, which is why programs that simply seek to boost self esteem without also teaching proper skills that can justify high self esteem can create narcissistic individuals. Your comment below identifies this by indicating instability.

This also means that being unable to react well to criticism does not indicate low self esteem - you cannot assume a connection, let alone directionality based on your purported view of self esteem.