Influences and Importance of Self-Awareness, Self-Evaluation and Self-Esteem

176 Pages·2022·5.625 MB·English

by  Heidi R. Thomas

PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS

I I
NFLUENCES AND MPORTANCE
S -A ,
OF ELF WARENESS
S -E
ELF VALUATION
AND SELF-ESTEEM

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SYCHOLOGY ESEARCH ROGRESS

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PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS

I I
NFLUENCES AND MPORTANCE
S -A ,
OF ELF WARENESS
S -E
ELF VALUATION
AND SELF-ESTEEM

HEIDI R. THOMAS
EDITOR
Copyright © 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52305/LBDI7424

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Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
Contents

Preface ....................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1 Understanding What Self-Esteem
Is and Why It Matters:
A Terror Management Perspective ............................. 1
Uri Lifshin, Dylan E. Horner and Jeff Greenberg
Chapter 2 Self-Esteem as a Mindset for Strengthening
the Democratic Way of Thinking .............................. 33
Cristiana Senigaglia
Chapter 3 What Is Reduced Self-Awareness? An
Overview of Interpretative Models, Bioethical
Issues and Neuroimaging Findings ............................ 65
S. Palermo
Chapter 4 Self-Evaluation in Higher Education:
Students’ Reflections in Building Professional
Identity and Teaching Quality ................................... 93
Daria Tot
Chapter 5 Self-Concept as a Predictor of Perceived
Academic Self-Efficacy in Adolescents .................... 117
Maria Victoria Montesinos García,
Inmaculada Méndez, Cecilia Ruiz-Esteban
and José Manuel García Fernández
vi Contents
Chapter 6 Influence of Testosterone on School-Age
Children’s Self-Esteem ............................................. 137
Eider Pascual-Sagastizabal
and Aitziber Azurmendi
Index ..................................................................................... 155
PREFACE

Self-esteem forms a critical component of mental health, as an
absence of self-esteem is associated with mental disorders like depression
and even suicidal ideation. As such, understanding the nature and
meaning of self-esteem and related phenomena like self-perception is
essential for treatment of a variety of mental illnesses. Chapter one
utilizes terror management theory to explain what self-esteem is, how the
need for self-esteem develops, how people attain and maintain self-
esteem, and why self-esteem is so important for psychological well-
being. Chapter two demonstrates how self-esteem is the fundamental
mental attitude that provides the qualities necessary to perform
democracy and reject authoritarian threats. Chapter three deals with the
definition of self-awareness, the description of the neural substrates that
have been associated with it, and the examination of an interpretive
neuroanatomical model of the phenomenon, with a focus on neurological
and neuropsychological diseases. Chapter four advocates a culture of
self-evaluation as part of academic and professional culture through
critical reflection on teaching and the results of one’s own work. Chapter
five analyzes self-concept as a predictor of the academic self-efficacy
perceived by adolescents. Lastly, chapter six studies the relationship
between testosterone levels and self-esteem in school-age boys and girls.
viii Heidi R. Thomas
Chapter 1 - In this chapter, the authors utilize terror management
theory to explain what self-esteem is, how the need for self-esteem
develops, how people attain and maintain self-esteem, and why self-
esteem is so important for psychological well-being. Then the authors
briefly review empirical evidence supporting these ideas. First, the
authors review evidence that reminders of death increase self-esteem
striving. Second, the authors describe studies showing that self-esteem
reduces defensiveness, anxiety, and death-related thought in response to
mortality salience. Third, the authors consider evidence that threats to
self-esteem increase death-related cognition, and that low self-esteem is
associated with deficient terror management mechanisms and increased
risk for psychopathology following traumatic events. Finally, the authors
present evidence that self-esteem is associated with a sense of symbolic
and literal immortality. Together, these research programs support the
terror management theory proposition that a primary reason self-esteem
matters is because it helps us minimize the anxiety engendered by the
knowledge of our vulnerability and mortality.
Chapter 2 - The positive accomplishment of democracy requires
active citizens who autonomously think and take decisions, being at the
same time empathetically related to the others and sensitive to the major
political questions or shared issues. This mental attitude entails the
capacity to take the dimension of feelings into account, by nevertheless
mediating them through a rational and reflected evaluation. Additionally,
it includes the ability of self-focusing without being self-centered, since
reflection can take place only in a developed and conscious inner
dimension which nonetheless simultaneously requires a precise and
elaborated reference to reality and interpersonal relations. The main issue
of the present contribution consists of demonstrating that self-esteem, if it
is correctly understood, is the fundamental mental attitude that provides
the qualities necessary to perform democracy as individuals and at the
same time to reject authoritarian threats. Self-esteem also opposes
narcissism, opportunism, and forms of dependence which are detrimental
to democracy. In synthesis, the analysis aims at delivering a substantial
investigation of the salient components entailed in self-esteem by