Is High Self-Esteem Beneficial? Revisiting a Classic Question

Debates about the benefits of self-esteem have persisted for decades, both in the scientific literature and in the popular press. Although many researchers and lay people have argued that high self-esteem helps individuals adapt to and succeed in a variety of life domains, there is widespread skepticism about this claim. The present article takes a new look at the voluminous body of research (including several meta-analyses) examining the consequences of self-esteem for several important life domains: relationships, school, work, mental health, physical health, and antisocial behavior. Overall, the findings suggest that self-esteem is beneficial in all these domains, and that these benefits hold across age, gender, and race/ethnicity, and controlling for prior levels of the predicted outcomes and potential third variable confounds. The meta-analytic estimates of self-esteem effects (which average .10 across domains) are comparable in size to estimates for other hypothesized causal factors such as self-efficacy, positive emotionality, attachment security, and growth mindset, and larger than some generally accepted pharmaceutical interventions. Discussion focuses on several issues that are critical for evaluating the findings, including the strength of the evidence for making causal inferences, the magnitude of the effects, the importance of distinguishing between self-esteem and narcissism, and the generalizability of the results. In summary, the present findings support theoretical conceptions of self-esteem as an adaptive trait that has wide-ranging influences on healthy adjustment and adaptation, and suggest that interventions aimed at boosting self-esteem might, if properly designed and implemented, benefit individuals and society as a whole. Public Significance Statement The findings of this review indicate that having high (vs. low) self-esteem has wide-ranging positive consequences, including better social relationships, more success at school and work, better mental and physical health, and less antisocial behavior. Consequently, well-designed and properly implemented self-esteem interventions might benefit individuals and society as a whole.