ISSUES
: Body Confidence
Chapter 2: Self-esteem
33
When do children show evidence of self-
esteem? Earlier than you might think
An article from
The Conversation
.
By Dario Cvencek, Research Scientist, University of Washington, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Professor
and Co-Director, Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington and Anthony
G. Greenwald Professor of Psychology, University of Washington
A
YouTube clip called ‘Jessica’s
Daily Affirmation’ recently
went viral. The clip shows
a four-year-old Jessica standing in
front of the bathroom mirror saying
what makes her happy about herself.
Many youngsters, like Jessica, seem
to exude positive feelings about their
abilities – they happily report that
they are good at running, jumping,
drawing, maths or music.
However, the belief in being good
at certain concrete skills could be
different from a more general sense
of self-worth or what scientists call
“positive self-esteem” For example,
at early ages, children can report “I’m
good at running” or “I’m good with
letters”. But preschoolers might not
be able to answer questions about
their overall sense of self-worth.
So, when do kids develop a sense of
self-esteem and how can we measure
it?
Our research has developed new
ways to study what kids think about
themselves. Parents, make a note: our
results show that most kids develop a
sense of self-esteem – feeling good
or bad about oneself – as early as
age five, before they even enter
kindergarten.
Measuring self-esteem in
young children
Measuring children’s self-esteem can
be challenging because it seems to
require a certain level of introspection
and verbal abilities. We found a way
of getting around this by measuring
children’s deeper and more implicit
sense of self-esteem, something
that did not require answering verbal
questions.
For example, in adults, self-esteem is
often measured by asking people to
rate their agreement with statements
such as, “I feel that I am a person of
worth, at least on an equal plane with
others,” or “I take a positive attitude
toward myself.”
But preschoolers have difficulty
answering such verbal questions.
Cognitive and verbal skills required for
such answers do not develop before
age eight.
So, rather than relying on asking
children verbal questions, we
developed a new tool called the
‘Preschool Implicit Association Test’
(the PSIAT) to measure children’s
implicit self-esteem. The value of this
measure was that it did not require
children to verbally describe how they
felt about themselves.
Here’s how we did it.
We gave two sets of small coloured
flags, each set symbolizing ‘me’ and
‘not me’, to 234 children.
These children then were asked to
respond to a series of ‘good’ (fun,
happy and nice) and ‘bad’ (mad, mean
and yucky) words from a loudspeaker
by pressing buttons. This procedure
measured how closely the children
associated the ‘good’ words with the
‘me’ flags.
This procedure is a variation of the
adult Implicit Association Test, a
social psychology measure widely
used to reveal hidden biases in
adults about race, religion, self and
other topics by asking participants
to quickly categorise words from
different categories.
We found that more than 90 per cent
of five-year-old preschoolers linked
themselves with the ‘good’ words,
which indicated positive self-esteem.
It also showed us that most kids
develop a measurable sense of self-
esteem by age five.
Our test provides researchers with a
reliable way of examining the earliest
glimpses of howpreschoolers develop
a sense of their self-worth.
People with high self-esteem
more resilient
So, why is self-esteem important for
children?
A healthy self-esteem can provide
an emotional buffer to setbacks
and enable children to develop
resilience toward failures. In adults,
self-esteem has been shown to
predict an individual’s reactions to
success and failure. People who
have high self-esteem persist more
after experiencing a setback than do
people who have low self-esteem.
In young children, such a relationship
between resilience and self-esteem
may be especially important to early
learning and education.
For example, few first graders
consistently score 100 per cent on
all tests, and few preschoolers are
as skilled as their older siblings. We
believe that such micro-setbacks can
be buffered by positive self-esteem.
Because self-esteem tends to
remain relatively stable across one’s
lifespan, its early establishment could
potentially provide a lifelong emotional
buffer in the face of everyday failures
and challenges.
The importance of self-
esteem
How do children develop their sense
of self-esteem?
Young kids care a lot about others
‘like me’, and this may even start in
infancy. We also know from other
research that infants and toddlers can
judge the extent to which others are
like them along several dimensions.
This lays the foundation for
developing social relationships and a
sense of belonging. These feelings,
