Self-esteem is one's own evaluation of characteristics perceived by one. During adolescence, the characteristics perceived are based on belief systems and abstract personality dispositions, as well as other cognitive and emotional factors. Characteristics that are often used to define one's self are traits such as athletic skills, peer acceptance, attractiveness, gender roles, academic skills, morality, social support, life problems, popularity, and ethnic identity. All these characteristics are funneled into the mind and create a discrepancy between the true self and the ideal self.
In measuring self-esteem, a global approach is usually taken, utilizing a single measure of one's feelings of adequacy. In reality, global self esteem is actually composed of many specific values and one feels about themselves measuring up to those standards. One's self esteem is particularly sensitive to areas in their life they care most about. For example, if one places heavy importance and priority on academics, they are likely to feel better about themselves when they get an A, rather than a B. A healthy self esteem, one that is positive is usually because one likes and accepts who they are, and generally has more positive feelings about life in general. This usually stems from a healthy self concept (one's perception of themselves) that is realistic, self-generated, integrated across a variety of roles that make sense together, and ...
Self Esteem is discussed, including it's onset, how it changes, including cognitive and emotional factors.