Maybe Taylor Swift was onto something here … as she usually is.
| Bottom line up front: Everyone struggles with self-esteem |
Listen, we all have those moments. We look in the mirror and don’t love what we see. Maybe we keep having flashbacks to a moment where you snapped when you shouldn’t have. Or, you just feel completely out of place in a room filled with all your friends. We’ve all been there. Even the most confident of the population (think Zendaya or Chris Evans) have had the impeding thoughts of low-self esteem. You are not alone.
As someone who used to, and sometimes still does, struggle with the idea of anyone having a positive image of themselves, accepting things like compliments and affirmations can be hard. Whenever I would be hard on myself for not getting a better grade on an assignment or criticizing my seemingly always tangled hair, I figured that it was an isolated conversation between me, myself, and I. However, little did I know: that was very much far from the case.
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Personality
Before we dive deeper into that, let’s take a step back.
Which Hogwarts house are you in? Which one do you really think you should be in? What’s your Myers-Briggs score? Which dessert did that Buzzfeed quiz tell you you were most like? As a Slytherin ENTJ who identifies most with cheesecake, I’ve always enjoyed being able to align myself within other groups. While trying to figure out which dessert you are most alike might seem silly, researchers have been able to find a more scientific way to capture personalities into a set of core traits called The Big Five. These traits, negative affectivity, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, encompass all of the specificities that come with people’s individual personalities. If you’re interested in learning more about your personality traits in a deeper way than a Buzzfeed quiz, check out this questionnaire here!
Ok, back to that whole self-esteem conversation.
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| Bottom line up front: negative personality traits are affecting your relationships. |
Psychologist Sandra Murray, a professor at the University of Buffalo, did research into the specifics of low-self esteem and its influence on negative affectivity personality traits. They found that people with lower self-esteem believe that their partners think more poorly of them than they actually do.
Wait, what?
Sandra and her colleagues found that people who have low self-esteem underrate their self-images from the point of view of their partners. They believe their partners think worse of them than they actually do. This, in turn, causes people to conduct actions that damage the integrity of the overall relationship.
Whether it’;s being extremely cautious and self-preserving, sensitive to criticism, brushing off compliments, or outwardly expressing negative emotions, low self-esteem can push us into places we never even noticed.
Ok…what can I do about this?
First, don’t panic. You’ve probably heard the saying, “you get out what you put in”. Maybe this was in the context of studying for a major exam or training for the upcoming championship game. But, it can also be said in the context of self-esteem too. Next time you find yourself saying negative things to yourself in the mirror or brushing off a compliment from your significant other, stop. While it might be uncomfortable and hard to accept positive affirmations when you feel unworthy of them. However, improving your self-esteem will not only help your self-confidence, but also improve the relationships you have with others.