Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman have been continuing with their theme that you probably damage your kids by telling them they are smart. I think today’s post at Po’s blog is particularly good.
They start by wondering why studies focus on people with high self esteem or low self esteem. Why do they ignore all the people with middle self esteem? Shouldn’t a realistic self view be the goal? From their article:
You may have heard about the studies that found people with high self-esteem are smarter, more beautiful, and more successful in their personal relationships than us poor schlumps with low self-esteem. But those studies asked people to rate their self-esteem and then asked them to rate their own intelligence, beauty, relationship skills, etc. And if you think about it, it shouldn’t come as too terrible as surprise to learn that the people who thought highly of themselves said they were golden in each of those areas.
But when subsequent researchers asked third parties to rate high and low self-esteem people in terms of beauty, high self-esteem people were no more likely to be considered beautiful. IQ tests revealed they weren’t any smarter. And college students said that high-self-esteem students weren’t better roommates. Actually, it was the low-self-esteem students who were. Low self-esteem people assume you don’t like them, so they work harder to be friendlier – they take suggestions for change more seriously, etc.
The post was called You’re Ruining My Self-Esteem! – Part 1, so it appears there’s more to come.
