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After reading this article you will learn about the relationship between self-esteem and stress.
Self-esteem, is a personal and subjective evaluation by a concerned individual of his own value and worth as an individual.
By and large, it has emerged from most research that each person arrives at a general and relatively lasting assessment of oneself and develops a certain degree or kind of “self-esteem” which has been found to play an influential role in a variety of behavioural situations including inter-personal attraction, adjustment and academic performance, susceptibility to persuasion, qualities of leadership, and volatile behaviour.
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There are also studies which have shown that while a person’s ‘self-esteem’ is a fairly enduring variable, nevertheless it can be manipulated through communication and feedback like those of Aronson & Metty, McMillan & Reynolds, Freidman & Doob. Such a possibility of manipulating self-esteem certainly opens up possibilities of its impact on social behaviour.
Clinically, there has been evidence to show that while stress behaviour can be influenced by a level of self-esteem, nevertheless, prolonged experience of stress in turn, may have a reverse effect on self-esteem itself.
Janis comments that prolonged and continuous experience of stressful and frustrating situations may lead to an accumulation of stress, resulting in decreased stress tolerance, wherein very often the individual begins to feel that every minor problem is very serious.
Thus, continuous exposure to stress and frustrating situations can very much lower an individual’s self-esteem, often resulting in a loss of a sense of competence and naturally self-confidence.
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The logical outcome, of course, is decreased performance. A person with lower self-esteem very often adjusts his performance to suit his degree of self-esteem as shown by Aronson & Carlson. Studies have shown that under-stress individuals are more amenable to change their attitudes. Such a relationship has been corroborated by laboratory experimental studies both at a physiological level and also self-reported accounts of fear by Helmrich et al, and Helmrich & Hamilton.