Self esteem (Image: Garrett Thurman)
In this post, I am going to discuss the differences between
self esteem, self worth, and self efficacy according to Young (2017). While
this may be common knowledge to everyone reading this, I found the
differentiation provided in the text to be helpful. Self esteem is considered a
broad concept in the psychological world. It has been called “faith in one’s
self” by Adler, and Allport recognized it as a critical part of mental health.
Because of the broad and sometimes vague understanding of self esteem, it has
been broken down into two parts: self worth, and self efficacy. Self worth is
considering oneself worthy of existence and as basically good. It is also summarized
as self-approval by Young (2017). Self efficacy is related to ones’ faith in
their ability to complete tasks. If someone is good at a task, they develop
high self efficacy in that area, but if they mess up really bad in that task,
their self efficacy can be damaged. People who have low self efficacy may be
afraid to try new things because of their fear to fail again. So in sum, the
term self-esteem includes the concepts of both self-worth and self-efficacy; the
confidence to complete tasks and general self approval (Young, 2017)
Young, M. (2017). Learning the art of helping, 6th edition.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Hey Garret, great topic and post! This was a simple but crucial area to highlight in terms of acknowledging the difference to these three similar but very different topics. As counselors we must be highly educated on the differences between the three, in that while a counselee may score highly on one they can easily be very low in others.
ReplyDeleteThanks once again for an amazing post Garrett! I appreciate you describing the differences between self-worth, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. It seems that you spoke more of self-efficacy though. It makes sense that if you are not good at a certain task then you will be less inclined to attempt it again, especially if one already has a low self-esteem. I hope that I do not fall into this category. I think it is important to continue to grow as individual. If we fail at something it is ok to try again. I mean look at a toddler. What it the stopped trying to walk because they fell on his/her first attempt…
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