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Understanding the Inner Nature of Low Self-Esteem: Uncertain, Fragile, Protective, and Conflicted

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Self-Esteem

Part of the book series: The Plenum Series in Social / Clinical Psychology ((SSSC))

Abstract

In recent decades, psychologists have offered many speculations and hypotheses about people with low self-esteem. Perhaps they hate themselves. Perhaps they seek to distort things in a negative, pessimistic direction. Perhaps they are indifferent to praise and popularity. Perhaps they lack some key drive to succeed or to think well of themselves. Perhaps they are irrational and self-destructive. In the last two decades, however, a growing body of enlightening data on low self-esteem has allowed psychologists to move beyond the earlier, more speculative theories. One can begin to sort the welter of competing theories into a coherent set of empirically grounded conclusions.

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© 1993 Plenum Press, New York

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Baumeister, R.F. (1993). Understanding the Inner Nature of Low Self-Esteem: Uncertain, Fragile, Protective, and Conflicted. In: Baumeister, R.F. (eds) Self-Esteem. The Plenum Series in Social / Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8956-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8956-9_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-8958-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-8956-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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