Self-Esteem

The terms ‘esteem’, ‘approbation’ and ‘favourable regard’ are taken to be equivalent here.

People can be esteemed both for actions and for ‘character’ (or dispositions). For example, a soldier might be esteemed because he performed some heroic act—and it is the quality of the act as such that elicits the esteem of others. Or he might be esteemed because that act indicates that he has a courageous disposition. In this latter case, if it turned out that he had performed the act for non-courageous reasons (say, because he wanted the rewards of promotion and esteem), then the esteem forthcoming would be diminished and in the limit extinguished. For our purposes here, it won’t be significant whether the object of esteem is action or disposition. But we do need a term to cover both cases: accordingly, we shall use the generic term ‘performance’ to cover all cases.

Following of course the tradition for which Smith is merely a representative spokesman. See Lovejoy (1961).

‘Standards’ are a term of art here. For present purposes just think of the ‘standard’ as the performance level that separates disesteem from esteem. If the performer’s performance is above standard S, the performer will be positively esteemed: if that performance is below S the performer will be disesteemed.

An implication is that someone who has a low level of self-esteem will have a higher demand for social esteem ceteris paribus than someone who has a high level of self-esteem.

This is perhaps a rather transparent attempt to make a virtue of my own ignorance—but with ignorance, what else can you do?

The EC property might extend beyond beliefs about performance quality to beliefs about ‘value’. That is, the fact that others share your values might give you confidence in their validity. These EC domains are of course distinguishable—in row three, the opposition between V and M might confirm A’s judgements of performance quality, but moderate A’s confidence in her values. In that event, the esteem incentive might also be moderated, as A’s self-esteem becomes correspondingly less secure. This effect, if present, will be identical across the columns—the difference in esteem incentive levels between (i) and (ii)/(iii) will remain.

The classic reference is Prentice and Miller (1993) and Miller and Prentice (1994).

Suppose they were in such doubt. Then revealing to them that lots of their peers secretly disapproved of binge-drinking would not have any effect: they would still go on acting in the same way in ignorance of the fact that binge-drinking was what they were doing!

See Munger and Harris (1989)

For a more extended discussion of all these matters, see Brennan and Pettit (2002, 2004).

There is a considerable literature on this phenomenon, by now well-attested, in relation to self-evaluation, to clinical depression and to illusions concerning degree of control over outcomes. The classic references are Taylor and Brown (1988) and Bandura (1989).

It is worth emphasising that it is what I take the neighbours to think of my performances, rather than what they actually say to me about them that is critical. Indeed, part of the source of the divergence between what others think of me and what I think of myself may well lie in a (corresponding) divergence between what others really think of me and what they say to me about such things. Norms of politeness shade into flattery: when we consider the divergence between what we say to others and what we really think about them, we have perhaps good reason to discount the things that people say to us. But such ‘good reason’ is equally something that it is a bit depressing to entertain. One implication is that ‘social esteem’ as revealed by the signals of esteem that are given to us by others may be as much the cause of self-partiality as a cure for it! I am grateful to Loren Lomasky for this point. [He may have been suggesting that his remarks to me about this paper might be a case in point!]

Perpetual presence has another (non-epistemic) aspect, which is taken up in the next section.

And, for example, not because your mother/partner is always around!