Threatened Egotism

Threatened Egotism

Jason M. Hawes

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

           

            The article titled “Violent Pride” was very interesting. The connection between low self-esteem and aggression seemed intriguing. When I first started reading the article I was surprised that so many individuals with varying degrees of power over a child would worry about criticizing them. According to the article their belief was that if they negatively critique a child then they may cause the child to act out in aggression.

            Thus, low self-esteem is supposed to be directly linked to violence. This theoretical perspective does seem to make sense at first. One would think that if an individual had low self-esteem, perhaps that person would have less to loose. That person would act out violently without the loss of anything. The higher sense of self-worth that an individual has, perhaps that person would not want to risk the loss of someone without a sense of self-worth. We can look at social construct theory or the value an individual holds in society. It seems to me that the more value an individual assigns him or herself is directly correlated to the way he or she is willing to conduct him or herself.

            This article demonstrated that low self-esteem theory is incongruent with what we have learned about self-esteem and aggression. Threatened egotism is a new concept that was introduced in this article. An individual’s ego can become threatened when someone else challenges his or her own beliefs/values/morals/folkways/desires. Once challenged, the individual may become aggressive due to the challenge. The article also presented another interesting concept. An individual can also threaten his or her own belief system/values. This can create aggression that may be directed inward upon oneself or outward towards others. Once we pit ourselves against our own values, we create an internal struggle. This struggle can manifest itself into anger. This is exactly why self-help books have been proven to be problematic, rather than an easy solution for the reader.

            It was very thought provoking how they conducted the research associated with aggression. It was astonishing how the third party in the trial was not persecuted. I would have thought for sure that the agitated individual would have misdirected his or her anger against the stranger at hand. Instead, the research showed that the anger was directly linked towards the individual he or she thought had given the negative score/feedback.  

            Before reading this article I did believe that self-esteem varied at times for individuals given certain life events. I was surprised to read that research has shown that it stays consistent without regard of whatever life throws at us. Life events still cause our self-esteem to mildly fluctuate but we still remain stagnant with what we originated with. This begs the question of how we look at our own self-concept and the personal stories and ideations that we carry. 

            I also found it interesting that men have a higher level of self-esteem than women. I would have been very interested in reading the author’s perspective on the reasoning behind this. I believe as a society, we hold men to a hierarchy in life. Women fall below men still in our society and are rated as a large category to be less aggressive. It would have been very interesting if the author looked at the gender biases that each sex lives up to. Men are breed to be aggressive so perhaps we have created this behavior socially rather than the behavior being part of this theory.

            I do believe as this article suggested that we hold dearly to our valued sense of identity. We are true to our own beliefs regardless of the light others hold us in. We are quick to end our lives once we feel there is maleficence in our own traits or expectations.  The Chinese culture is a great example. They hold each other accountable for such a grandeur of self-respect that if something should go wrong, they cannot live another day due to the shame associated with the loss of whatever has occurred.

References

Baumeister, R. F. (2006). Violent Pride. Scientific American Mind, 17(4), 54-59. doi: 10.1038/scientificamericanmind0806-54

Hacker, D. (n.d.). Rules for Writers - Tabbed Edition. 6th Edition. Retrieved May 20, 2012, from http://www.valorebooks.com/textbooks/rules-for-writers-tabbed-edition-6th-edition/9780312485733

Hacker, D., Sommers, N. I., Jehn, T. R., Rosenzweig, J., & Carbajal, V. H. (2008). Rules for writers. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.