Stories like these are not new, nor are they simply British or American phenomena. Western cultures have long had a complex relationship with self-esteem—one that’s taken many forms over the past century and inspired a great deal of research. After all of that discussion and experimentation, what can we say we’ve learned about fostering, identifying, or even defining genuine self-esteem?

Beyond Simply “Feeling Good”

In 1965, social psychologist Morris Rosenberg developed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), which remains in use today. But the concept of self-esteem was around long before that. In fact, Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James (brother of novelist Henry James) had developed a formula for it as early as 1890, suggesting that “our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities.” He portrayed this ratio as a literal fraction: self-esteem equals success divided by what James called our “pretensions”—in other words, our accomplishments divided by what we believe we can do.

Nearly a century later, in 1967, developmental psychologist Stanley Coopersmith proposed that building genuine self-esteem in children was essential, but he also carefully qualified that children with high self-esteem typically had parents who set clear limits and defined high standards of behavior, modeling these by their own examples. This implies that parents should themselves have a healthy self-view. What this means, and how to cultivate it, has been a topic of debate ever since.

In 2016 Glenn Schiraldi, founder of Resilience Training International, developed a workbook for people of all ages in which he described healthy self-esteem as “a realistic, appreciative opinion of oneself. ‘Realistic’ means accurate and honest. ‘Appreciative’ implies positive feelings and liking oneself. Some speak of high and low self-esteem, but this makes self-esteem seem like a numbers game that is competitive and comparative.”

“Self-esteem is squarely between ‘self-defeating shame’ and ‘self-defeating pride.’”

Schiraldi points out that those who are arrogant and narcissistic have an unrealistic view of what it means to be human, while those on the other unhealthy end of the self-esteem spectrum view themselves as less than human.

Genuine self-esteem cannot be mistaken for selfishness. It coexists with healthy humility and recognizes the equal value of others. When self-esteem embodies pride, it isn’t vain conceit based on a need to be admired but rather gratitude for and feeling good about one’s achievements, talents and ability to serve others in order to contribute to society. Authentic self-esteem is bolstered not only by our personal achievements but by recognizing that contributing to the broader community is a crucial part of those achievements. 

This observation has been borne out in the study of self-esteem as well as in other areas of research into mental health and well-being. What drives our resilience and self-regard as human beings includes both our capacity for personal growth and mastery and, to an important degree, our potential to have a positive impact on the well-being of others.

With this in mind, we can acknowledge that the goal of building healthy self-esteem is not, as some fear, a direct route to either narcissism or debilitating inferiority. But it does matter how we go about developing self-esteem and, indeed, how we define healthy. Many factors determine whether we foster a healthy self-view or one that leads to such extremes as arrogant self-regard, or self-loathing and depression. One of the most important factors is whether we encourage people to embrace failure or fear it.

Two Mindsets

Encouragement is essential for teaching persistence, and the right kind of praise can be a wonderful tool for reinforcing positive behavior. In fact, research consistently shows that positive reinforcement motivates behavior changes much more quickly, and embeds them more deeply, than punishment. But children see through empty praise, however well-meaning. When we feel we haven’t earned it, we learn to mistrust praise even when it’s richly deserved. Praise is most effective when it reflects reality and points to effort, perseverance and growth rather than innate personal characteristics like intelligence or beauty, which are beyond our control.

On the other end of the spectrum is criticism. Like praise, it can be merited or unmerited, and the way it’s framed can determine whether it produces hopelessness or optimism. Also like praise, criticism is most effective when it encourages us to try again (and perhaps even gives us some direction on how) rather than being directed at fixed traits. Trait-based criticism—“you’re just not very coordinated,” or “you couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket”—can destroy motivation to try again.

Failure leads to hopelessness if we think it reflects who we are or what we’ll ever be capable of doing. In other words, feeling bad about failure isn’t the problem. It’s the framing of failure that gets in the way of self-esteem. Failure and the disappointment that results from it are both necessary steps in the learning process. “In order for your child to experience mastery,” psychologist and educator Martin Seligman insists, “it is necessary for him to fail, to feel bad, and to try again repeatedly until success occurs. None of these steps can be circumvented. Failure and feeling bad are necessary building blocks for ultimate success and feeling good.”

For this to be true (for children or anyone else), failure needs to be framed as an opportunity for growth. If people are berated when they fail, they learn to fear failure, and it won’t fulfill the function Seligman describes. He isn’t saying it’s the job of parents to make their kids feel bad when they miss the mark. It’s important to understand that when people are instilled with an intrinsic eagerness to do well because they anticipate positive outcomes from their efforts, the “feeling bad” part will happen all on its own, but it won’t be intense and crippling.

Beattie was right about her underlying point: It isn’t helpful to view failure as a dirty word. And neither is it helpful to view failure as one’s identity or as a permanent condition.

Psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on mindset reinforces this point. She explores the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you see failure as evidence that you’re just not smart or talented enough to succeed—a view that can lead to what Seligman calls learned helplessness. With a growth mindset, failure simply means you aren’t fulfilling your potential yet.

Beattie’s term deferred success sounds a lot like Dweck’s insistence that there’s a difference between “I can’t do this,” and “I can’t do this—yet.” The latter outlook leaves a lot of room for optimism. “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset,” explains Dweck. “This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

“‘Becoming is better than being.’ The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.”

As children develop this growth-oriented perspective, they come to view challenges not as threats to their self-worth but as opportunities to improve. Seligman’s research aligns with Dweck’s. “There is no effective technology for teaching feeling good which does not first teach doing well,” he writes. “Feelings of self-esteem in particular, and happiness in general, develop as side effects—of mastering challenges, working successfully, overcoming frustration and boredom, and winning. The feeling of self-esteem is a byproduct of doing well.” Valuing growth and learning helps us master skills, overcome challenges, and make meaningful contributions in our communities and beyond.

But is it possible to have too much self-esteem? If we have high self-esteem, aren’t we in danger of becoming a society filled with narcissists?

Narcissism vs. Healthy Self-Esteem

As Schiraldi points out, self-esteem shouldn’t be viewed as though it’s measured in volume: We don’t have “a lot” or “a little.” Rather, we have healthy or unhealthy views of ourselves. Yet concerns about excessive self-focus are legitimate. Clinical narcissism—characterized by patterns of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy—is a genuine psychological disorder. Still, there’s an important distinction between diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and more common forms of self-centeredness.

Lilian G. Katz, who specializes in early-childhood education, cautions that some approaches to boosting self-esteem might “inadvertently cultivate narcissism” if they emphasize self-centered activities without placing value on empathy and responsibility toward others. She writes that people with narcissistic tendencies “often complain that their lives are empty or meaningless, and they often show insensitivity to the needs of others.” In fact, these two complaints are connected: Attending to the needs of others is an important key to finding meaning in life. As developmental psychologist William Damon writes, “one cannot ‘find’ self-esteem in isolation from one’s relations to others because it does not exist apart from those relations.” This doesn’t mean our self-view depends on how others view us. Rather, our self-worth is directly tied to the value we place on others.

“One cannot say that ‘I respect myself simply because I am a person, yet I have no respect for other persons.’”

Unfortunately, not everyone has the same access to this healthy foundation, and there are other influences on our self-view. Seligman points to a number of these, ranging from genetics to pessimistic criticism from influential people in our lives, as well as trauma, abuse, grief, loss and other experiences of extraordinary helplessness.

These elements can lead to fixed mindsets and pessimistic worldviews, which is why community interventions are so important. Community support systems are critical services that benefit everyone, not just those who use them. They help build a society where everyone can become a contributing member.

The Role of Community

A common misconception is that social programs discourage people from improving their situation—that they encourage dependency and diminish self-reliance. In fact, done well, social programs can create an upward spiral of self-esteem, growth mindset and self-motivation. Both formal programs and simple interpersonal acts of kindness can help set this in motion.

Well-targeted support can give people a greater sense of confidence in their abilities and their value. For instance, financial support can relieve people of the need to focus on immediate concerns about survival, so they have time and resources to concentrate more effort on developing skills for growth. Community programs can then create opportunities to connect with others, learn new skills, and contribute these skills to the community. Each positive social interaction and accomplishment can further boost confidence and self-worth, encouraging people to take on ever greater challenges.

The importance of community support is echoed across a range of religious traditions, which have much to say about the foundations of human worth and the relationship between authentic self-regard and care for others. The teachings of Jesus, for instance, emphasize both inherent human dignity and the importance of seeing to the needs of other people, suggesting that proper self-regard and compassionate care for others are complementary, not contradictory.

These perspectives negate individualistic bootstrap approaches to self-esteem and find reinforcement in calls to carry one another’s burdens and support widows, orphans and the poor, generously giving help when and where it’s needed. That is, after all, what each of us hopes for when we’re the ones struggling.

It comes down to treating others as we want to be treated, and to do that, we must recognize everyone has the same intrinsic worth. But not everyone starts out with equal access to resources that allow them to invest in and demonstrate that worth. The mandate for communities, then, is that those who need help should have their needs met: to be welcomed into the community and to be given meaningful roles, a genuine path to mastery, and recognition of their fundamental human value.

Of course, being on the receiving end of help isn’t always easy—it can be a source of positive reinforcement and encouragement or a source of stigma, depending on the approach and the surrounding culture.

Educational psychologist Kristin Neff explores some of these concepts in her research on self-compassion, which distinguishes between self-esteem based on comparison with others (a competitive view) and self-compassion based on shared humanity (a cooperative view). We can boost resilience by exercising the humility required to recognize our common struggles, which can help us treat ourselves with the same kindness that we would show to others. “If we can compassionately remind ourselves in moments of falling down that failure is part of the shared human experience,” she writes, “then that moment becomes one of togetherness rather than isolation.”

In whatever role we hold—parents, teachers, friends, employers—we have the opportunity to foster healthy self-esteem. Doing so requires a delicate balance of honesty and kindness, humility and mutual regard, challenge and support, personal growth and collective responsibility. Achieving this balance means recognizing that two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time: As individuals, we bear responsibility for our own growth. As social beings, our lives are made meaningful through connection, contribution and service to others.

As Seligman, Dweck and many other researchers have concluded, the idea isn’t to simply make people feel good about themselves. It’s to create conditions where we all can genuinely do well, encouraging one another to face challenges with resilience and learn from failure without being distressed or defined by it. Ultimately, the goal is to see ourselves as people motivated to do well and to contribute meaningfully to something larger than ourselves.