By William Kremer BBC World Service
Research suggests that more and more American university students think they
are something special. High self-esteem is generally regarded as a good thing -
but could too much of it actually make you less successful?
About nine million young people have filled out the American Freshman Survey,
since it began in 1966.
It asks students to rate how they measure up to their peers in a number of
basic skills areas - and over the past four decades, there has been a dramatic
rise in the number of students who describe themselves as being "above average"
for academic ability, drive to achieve, mathematical ability and
self-confidence.
This was revealed in a new analysis of the survey data, by US psychologist Jean
Twenge and colleagues.
Graphic showing how the the percentage of American students rating themselves
as "above average" has gone up. Measures shown: Drive to achieve, social
self-confidence, intellectual self-confidence, leadership ability and writing
ability
Self-appraisals of traits that are less individualistic - such as
co-operativeness, understanding others and spirituality - saw little change, or
a decrease, over the same period.
Self-esteem and confidence
Psychologists rarely use the word confidence. They have separate measures for:
self-esteem - the value people place on themselves
narcissism - definitions vary, but essentially a negative, destructive form of
high self-esteem
self-efficacy - the ability to achieve personal goals
Twenge adds that while the Freshman Survey shows that students are increasingly
likely to label themselves as gifted in writing ability, objective test scores
indicate that actual writing ability has gone down since the 1960s.
And while in the late 1980s, almost half of students said they studied for six
or more hours a week, the figure was little over a third by 2009 - a fact that
sits rather oddly, given there has been a rise in students' self-proclaimed
drive to succeed during the same period.
Another study by Twenge suggested there has been a 30% tilt towards
narcissistic attitudes in US students since 1979.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines narcissism as: "Excessive self-love or
vanity; self-admiration, self-centredness."
"Our culture used to encourage modesty and humility and not bragging about
yourself," says Twenge. "It was considered a bad thing to be seen as conceited
or full of yourself."
The Freshman Survey
Three female students
A nationally representative sample of first-year college and university
students in the US
Conducted every year since 1966
Questions on a range of topics - including values, financial situation, and
expectations of college
Not everyone with high self-esteem is a narcissist. Some positive views of the
self may be harmless and in fact quite justified.
But one in four recent students responded to a questionnaire, the Narcissistic
Personality Inventory, in a way which leaned towards narcissistic views of the
self.
Though some have argued that narcissism is an essential trait, Twenge and her
colleagues see it as negative and destructive.
In The Narcissism Epidemic, co-written with Keith Campbell, Twenge blames the
growth of narcissistic attitudes on a range of trends - including parenting
styles, celebrity culture, social media and access to easy credit, which allows
people to appear more successful than they are.
"What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the idea that
being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself - is the
key to success.
"Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's widely held, it's very
deeply held, and it's also untrue."
This bewitching idea - that people's lives will improve with their self-esteem
- led to what came to be known as The Self-Esteem Movement.
Legions of self-help books have propagated the idea that we each have it within
us to achieve great things - we just need to be more confident.
Over 15,000 journal articles have examined the links between high self-esteem
and measurable outcomes in real life, such as educational achievement, job
opportunities, popularity, health, happiness and adherence to laws and social
codes.
Yet there is very little evidence that raising self-esteem leads to tangible,
positive outcomes.
"If there is any effect at all, it is quite small," says Roy Baumeister of
Florida State University. He was the lead author of a 2003 paper that
scrutinised dozens of self-esteem studies.
All about me, me, me...
In a recent paper Jean Twenge examined changes in pronoun use in American books
published between 1960 and 2008, using the Google Books ngram database
She found that first person plural pronouns (we, us our etc.) decreased in use
by 10% while first person singular pronouns (I, me, my etc.) increased in use
by 42%
He found that although high self-esteem frequently had a positive correlation
with success, the direction of causation was often unclear. For example, are
high marks awarded to people with high self-esteem or does getting high marks
engender high self-esteem?
And a third variable can influence both self-esteem and the positive outcome.
"Coming from a good family might lead to both high self-esteem and personal
success," says Baumeister.
"Self-control is much more powerful and well-supported as a cause of personal
success. Despite my years invested in research on self-esteem, I reluctantly
advise people to forget about it."
Am I a narcissist?
Close-up of a woman wearing red lipstick
The Narcissistic Personality Inventory asks 40 questions, then ranks you on a
narcissism scale
Take the narcissism test
This doesn't mean that under-confident people will be more successful in
school, in their careers or in sport.
"You need to believe that you can go out and do something but that's not the
same as thinking that you're great," says Twenge. She gives the example of a
swimmer attempting to learn a turn - this person needs to believe that they can
acquire that skill, but a belief that they are already a great swimmer does not
help.
Forsyth and Kerr studied the effect of positive feedback on university students
who had received low grades (C, D, E and F). They found that the weaker
students actually performed worse if they received encouragement aimed at
boosting their self-worth.
"An intervention that encourages [students] to feel good about themselves,
regardless of work, may remove the reason to work hard," writes Baumeister.
So do young people think they are better than they are?
If they are, perhaps the appropriate response is not condemnation but pity.
The narcissists described by Twenge and Campbell are often outwardly charming
and charismatic. They find it easy to start relationships and have more
confidence socially and in job interviews. Yet their prognosis is not good.
How self-esteem become a movement
Werner Erhard
The Self-Esteem Movement is said to have its roots in the civil rights
movement, which promoted group solidarity - but also the rights of individuals
to be who they want
A series of seminars were held in the 1960s on achieving happiness and
fulfilment by tapping inner potential - it was called The Human Potential
Movement
First popular book on self-esteem published in 1969 - The Psychology of
Self-Esteem by psychologist Nathaniel Branden
Werner Erhard (above) held sessions aimed at boosting self-esteem in US prisons
in the 1970s - there were similar programmes in the 1980s to try to reduce teen
pregnancy rates and crime
Interest is still high - there were more than 40,000 articles about self-esteem
in newspapers and magazines between 2002 and 2007
"In the long-term, what tends to happen is that narcissistic people mess up
their relationships, at home and at work," says Twenge.
Narcissists may say all the right things but their actions eventually reveal
them to be self-serving.
As for the narcissists themselves, it often not until middle age that they
notice their life has been marked by an unusual number of failed relationships.
But it's not something that is easy to fix - narcissists are notorious for
dropping out of therapy.
"It's a personality trait," says Twenge. "It's by definition very difficult to
change. It's rooted in genetics and early environment and culture and things
that aren't all that malleable."
Things also don't look good for the many young people who - although not
classed as narcissists - have a disproportionately positive self-view.
A 2006 study led by John Reynolds of Florida State University found that
students are increasingly ambitious, but also increasingly unrealistic in their
expectations, creating what he calls "ambition inflation".
"Since the 1960s and 1970s, when those expectations started to grow, there's
been an increase in anxiety and depression," says Twenge.
"There's going to be a lot more people who don't reach their goals."