SELF-ESTEEM: IS THERE A DARK SIDE

 
In psychology, self-esteem is regarded as an essential part of success. When there are low levels of self-esteem, an individual is likely to face defeat or depression. It can further lead to
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bad decisions and failure. On the other hand, when self-esteem is excessively high, one can end up being destructive to others, which can impact their relationships. As such, self-esteem on the extreme ends can cause problems, and thus, the best way is to strike a balance in the middle. Self-esteem can, therefore, be described as an individual's overall sense of personal value or self-worth. Whereas high self-esteem is a good thing that can make people feel powerful or even act as a source of admiration, there is always a dark side which many people fail to appreciate. The dark side is usually revealed when individuals show excessive confidence levels, which can lead them to risky and antisocial behavior that have significant implications on their relationships.
High Self-Esteem
Understanding the dark side of self-esteem requires the appreciation of some attributes or characteristics held by people with the trait. First, these individuals are not perfectionists. Find-ing perfection is about seeking approval and avoiding getting hurt. However, these people do not need to get approval from anyone and are ready to get hurt in the process. They also possess a strong sense of self-meaning: they believe that they are worth other people's attention, time, and respect. They also show good skills remaining aware of their motives and intentions. Trzesniew-ski et al. (2013) asserted that they show an immense sense of self-love both physically and emo-tionally and take full responsibility for their lives. Ultra positive perception about the self has been associated with several problems related to the psychological health. For instance, research has shown that high self-esteem can be a cause of the violent or aggressive behavior. Before as-sessing some of the dark sides of high self-esteem, it is critical to analyze one of its most signifi-cant characteristics that is excessive confidence.
Excessive Confidence
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Individuals with high confidence or elevated self-esteem risks engaging in reckless and risk-taking activities expose themselves to accidents, drug abuse, excessive eating, and smoking amongst other hazardous types of behavior. An overconfident person is also likely to suffer from antisocial behavior such as showing self-centeredness, bullying less confident people, and think-ing that they are always right. It can also lead a person to becoming a narcissistic individual be-ing glorified due to their confidence, but in the real sense, they are incompetent deep within. Such individuals often rise to the top at the expense of others, who might be less confident but competent. As such, this has led to the birth of a particular culture in the Western world where people tend to promote higher levels of self-belief rather than awareness, which is an alarming trend. An important note is that when a world becomes full of individuals who pretend to be bet-ter than they are, more con-artists and charlatans emerge. However, one should remain cognizant of Mark Twain's assertions that "to succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confi-dence” (Trzesniewski et al., 2013). Confidence is, therefore, a double-edged sword that explains the human condition. When it is present in low amounts, the human beings are almost handi-capped. However, when they are excessively high, individuals are likely to ignore certain short-comings that can act as hurdles towards the achievement of a goal.
The Fragility of High Self-Esteem
One of the downsides of high self-esteem is the fact that one is likely to depict fragile be-havior. Michael Kernis, a researcher in psychology, intimated that "people with fragile high self-esteem compensate for their self-doubts by engaging in exaggerated tendencies to defend, pro-tect, and enhance their feelings of self-worth” (Borton et al., 2012). Therefore, a person with high self-esteem can depict instability in behavior leading them to fluctuate from one tendency to
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the other within a single day. Such attributes have been associated with the tendency of an indi-vidual to be overly defensive. Most researchers have also intimated that having fragile high self-esteem is similar to having low self-esteem. Fragile self-esteem is usually compared to secure self-esteem which involves an individual showing stable behavior. Fragility in self-esteem is as-sociated with verbal defensiveness because they are prone to potential threats which they find difficult to counteract. Borton et al. (2012) illustrated that fragility in high self-esteem can also be a strategy that one utilizes to compensate for their self-doubt by involving themselves in exag-gerated tendencies which will ultimately cause them to pr