TITLE
A Child’s Lifelong Self-Esteem Emerges Earlier Than We Thought
Children may form a sense of their “overall goodness” by preschool
DESCRIPTION
Psychology has taught that self-esteem develops through out childhood. A new study reports that a child’s self-esteem may establish itself by kindergarten age of about 5 years old. “So for their study, Cvencek and his colleagues designed a new test, called the Preschool Implicit Association Test (PSIAT), to measure children’s positive feelings toward themselves. The researchers administered the test to 234 five-year-old boys and girls living in Washington state.” The testing found that the preschool children were already associating themselves with “good” words and “bad” words. The author points out that the issue of self-esteem is malleable (can change over time) but is viewed as a stable trait. When interviewed and asked what parents and teachers can do to bolster healthy self-esteem, the research responded that “the warm, supportive connections a child develops with others are probably the most important factor.”
SOURCE
Huffington Post, November 4, 2015, by Carolyn Gregoire
Original Source: Cvencek, D, and others (2016)Implicit measures for preschool children confirm self-esteem’s role in maintaining a balanced identity, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 62, January 2016, Pages 50–57.
LINK TO RESOURCE
(shortened URL) http://tinyurl.com/q2h26qa
link to original study: http://ilabs.washington.edu/sites/default/files/CG%26M%20%282015%29%20Self_Esteem_JESP.pdf
Shortened url to original study: http://tinyurl.com/nmm579y
CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
•What is self-esteem?
•How does self-esteem develop? And how is it measured?
•What is the import of a study such as this one?
•What is needed to foster a healthy self-esteem?
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