Where does self-esteem come from? How much control do you have over your confidence levels?
Self-esteem stems from three main sources: your genetic makeup, your past behaviors, and other people’s opinions. Experts including Katty Kay, Claire Shipman, and Nathaniel Branden reveal fascinating insights about how these factors work together to build or diminish your sense of self-worth.
Keep reading to discover the science behind self-esteem and learn how much power you have to change it.
Where Self-Esteem Comes From
Where does self-esteem come from? Let’s explore three factors that influence your self-esteem.
Factor #1: Genetics
First, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (The Confidence Code) note that there’s a significant genetic factor at play. It’s scientifically accepted that five main personality traits—agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion, and openness—make up around 50% of our personalities. Confidence (or healthy self-esteem) and optimism are related to these traits, and scientists estimate that 25-50% of our confidence comes from our genes.
That said, Kay and Shipman emphasize that confidence isn’t a fixed trait—you have to build it. Psychologists believe that your choices and determination account for 50% of the confidence you develop.
Factor #2: Your Past Actions
In The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden contends that your self-esteem is based on your opinion of your past actions. More specifically, your self-esteem both drives and depends on your behavior in a never-ending cycle: Your actions align with your expectations of yourself, which are reinforced by the consequences of those actions.
Since you control your behavior, your choices inevitably affect your self-esteem: You can’t avoid feeling some way about how you choose to behave, and those feelings affect your opinion of yourself. As such, self-esteem can’t be divorced from your behavior; you’ll naturally trust in your own capability and worthiness when you act in ways that support these ideas. That said, self-esteem depends on the pattern of choices you tend to make—not a single choice. Self-esteem isn’t something you achieve once; you work on it throughout your life as it fluctuates.
Factor #3: The Opinions of Others
Finally, experts generally agree that the opinions of others have an outsized effect on your self-esteem—especially for those with low self-esteem. In Transcend, Scott Barry Kaufman states that because we’re a social species, our self-value is largely determined by the perception of our value within a community.
In Self-Compassion, psychologist Kristin Neff elaborates, asserting that humans have a primal need to fit into hierarchical social groups, which keep us safe and provide resources like protection and food. We try to gain acceptance into these groups by either showing that we’re successful (likable and worthy of inclusion) or submissive (willing to do whatever it takes to be included). As a result, we constantly compare ourselves to others to demonstrate either our dominance over or our submissiveness toward others in the group. Because of these instincts, many people spend their lives criticizing and judging themselves by the standards of others.
In particular, the opinions of a child’s primary caregivers have a powerful influence on their self-esteem. In Procrastination, Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen explain that neglectful families harm their children’s self-esteem by depriving them of care or conveying that they’re inferior. Because these children believe they’re unworthy of care, they also believe they’re unworthy or incapable of success. Similarly, high-pressure families make children feel like they need to earn love by being perfect. As a result, these children develop low self-esteem and learn to fear both imperfection and losing love.
On a larger scale, the opinions of a prevailing culture can negatively influence the self-esteem of marginalized groups. Kay and Shipman note that when there’s a stereotype associated with a marginalized group, members of the group feel pressure to embody the stereotype. For instance, there are many stereotypes associated with women that reduce confidence, like the stereotype that women are bad at math.
Exercise: Confront Your Sources of Low Self-Esteem
If you have low self-esteem, you may be repressing negative emotions, struggling to embody someone else’s idea of perfection, and procrastinating on pursuing goals that are meaningful to you. In this exercise, make a plan to confront these bad habits and consciously take healthier actions.
- Describe something in your recent past that you feel like you should’ve done better—something that makes you feel guilty or inadequate. Express how this makes you feel, trying your best to embrace and process negative emotions rather than push them away.
- Who, if anyone, are you trying to impress or live up to by accomplishing this task perfectly? Replace this role model with someone who better represents your values: Imagine the ideal version of yourself and describe how they differ from the image of success you’ve been chasing.
- Come up with a meaningful goal you can accomplish within the next two days that will help you prove to yourself that you’re capable—that there’s no need to cling to any feelings of guilt or inadequacy you described above. To help you live more authentically, make sure this goal is something that you truly believe is a valuable use of your time. Describe how you imagine you’ll feel after achieving this goal, and outline the steps you’ll take in the next two days to make that outcome a reality.
