AWA: Academic Writing at Auckland

Extraversion and self-esteem are both well established facets of human personality. In previous studies both high levels of self-esteem and high levels of extraversion have been connected to positive life outcomes. This essay aims to analyse whether these traits are correlated to each other and if so, what are the implications for society. It will use data taken from a national survey between 2004 and 2009 of approximately 7000 Americans aged 35 to 86. Due to previous research in this area a positive correlation between extraversion and self-esteem is expected.

Extraversion is one of the core personality traits identified by Eysenck in his 2 and 3 factor models of personality.  Extraversion is characterised by someone being sociable, active, person-oriented, fun loving and affectionate, (Cervone & Pervin, 2010 p.150). Eysenck claimed that this trait is biologically based and relatively stable throughout a person’s life. This, he showed, is because extraversion and introversion are reflective of different levels of cortical arousal in the brain with introverts being more easily aroused than their extraverted peers. This leads to more inhibited behaviour, where extraverts are more likely to seek more novel and exciting situations. Extraversion has also been included in the big five factor model that was developed by Norman in 1963 and popularised by Costa and McCrae in their NEO-PI-R test. This version of extraversion is very similar to Eysenck’s version but Eysenck felt the traits of openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness could be factor analysed into extraversion and neuroticism.  As the literature used in this essay employs both Eysenck’s models, and the five-factor model of personality, this essay will use these terms interchangeably.

Self-esteem is defined by Siegler and colleagues as a favourable appreciation or opinion of oneself and the feelings that arise as a consequence of this (Siegler, Deloache, & Eisenberg, 2011).  A sample question from the data analysed is “I take a positive attitude towards myself.” Self-esteem is a trait that has been of interest to psychologists for many years because it can be very predictive of life events. There are several scales for measuring self-esteem, with the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale most commonly employed in the literature this essay uses.

It is important to question whether self-esteem and extraversion are related because levels of self-esteem in particular, have long been associated with favourable and unfavourable life events. Research using data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development study found that adolescents with low self-esteem were more likely to develop physical and mental health problems, particularly depressive and anxiety disorders in adulthood. They also found low self-esteem was related to having criminal convictions and lower economic prospects (Trzesniewski et al., 2006 p.384.) In 1977, Bachman and O’Malley demonstrated a positive correlation between self-esteem in tenth grade boys and their level of educational achievement. High school drop outs invariably had lower self-esteem at age 15 and 16 than those who went on to complete post-graduate training. Similarly they found a correlation between occupational status and self-esteem (Bachman & O’Malley, 1977). Extraversion too has been found to have predictive value of positive and negative life events. In a 1993 study of bullying and victimisation in Australian schoolboys it was found that the typical victim of bullying was introverted and had lower self-esteem than his peers (Slee & Rigby, 1993 p372). Another study showed that high self-esteem and extraversion were both related to help seeking behaviours which were ultimately beneficial in the academic setting, (Amrikham, Risinger, & Swickert, 1995 p209). Amrikham went on to suggest that extraversion was masking self-esteem and that perhaps extraversion was influencing the behaviours that lead to high self-esteem. All these studies display the role self-esteem plays in later life events.

The fact that high self-esteem is so predictive of positive life events has led to the development of many programs in the western world with the aim of improving population self-esteem. Levels of self-esteem are relatively easily changed and it is thought that by increasing self-esteem levels of unemployment, substance abuse, mental illness and teen pregnancy will consequentially fall.  Although some researchers have argued that such programs have no real merit (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003 p.4.), others have shown that “for every standard deviation increase in self-esteem the risk for a variety of negative outcomes decreases” (Trzesniewski et al., 2006) . In order for these programs to be successful however, it is important to understand which factors play a part in fostering low or high self-esteem. Motivated by the findings of Slee et al., 1993 and Amrikham et al., 1995 which showed that both extraversion or introversion and levels of self-esteem were implicated in predicting positive and negative life events, this essay will further investigate whether extraversion correlates to, and is a factor in determining levels of self-esteem. Despite several studies to date having already found a positive correlation between these two traits (Francis & James, 1996 p485; Farmer, Jarvis, Berent &Corbett, 2001 p.491) replication is an important part of psychological research so my question remains valid.

After performing a Pearson correlational analysis using SPSS 17.0 a moderate positive correlation of 0.336 was found between extraversion and self-esteem. This result is significant at the level of p<0.001. This shows as extraversion increases, self-esteem increases.

This result is consistent with the findings of Farmer et al., 2001 and Francis et al., 1996. Francis found a significant negative correlation between low self-esteem and extraversion at the level of -0.3244 (Francis et al., 1996, p485). Farmer found a significant positive correlation between extraversion and self-esteem at the level of 0.31 (Farmer et al., 2001, p 491). These results are also consistent with the hypothesis of this essay and demonstrate that extraversion is a factor in determining self-esteem. The results show that an extraverted person is more likely to have high self-esteem than someone who is introverted.

As this is only a moderate correlation this data also supports the idea that self-esteem is the product of many factors.  Self-esteem has also been showed to be related to; appearance, positive peer relationships, cultural identity, academic success and socio-economic status (Siegler et al. 2011), all of which relate to how others treat an individual and contribute to said individual’s non-shared environment. In saying this, like (Amrikham et al. 1995) the findings suggest that a lack of extraversion is behind some of these factors. As posited by Trzesniewski and colleagues, individuals who are more introverted and have low self-esteem tend to be less likely to form supportive peer relationships (Trzesniewski et al., 2006 p 382). Having teachers and parents believe in them is crucial in developing self-esteem in children and has been shown to be highly linked to academic success. Introverts are however, less likely to seek help from teachers (Amrikham et al., 1995, p208) so their academic scores and self-esteem can be affected. Thus, introversion may, in these situations, exacerbate the children and adolescents face problems in developing self-esteem.

Another way that extraversion may be influencing self-esteem is through the way western cultures value extraversion (Francis et al., 1995 p486). As extraversion is a trait that is generally praised in American, British and New Zealand children, those who are more introverted tend to receive greater negative attention from parents and peers. This perception of negative attention can lead to later self-esteem problems. Indeed, as explained in (Chen et al., 1998, p678) behaviourally inhibited children in North America are perceived as socially immature incompetent and psychologically maladaptive.  Chen further describes how North American parents tend to be embarrassed, concerned about and disappointed by their introverted children. These parents tend to be less responsive to their inhibited child and don’t pick up on their needs (Mills & Rubin, 1990 in Chen et al., 1998, p678). Conversely, in China these children are praised and called “Guai Hai Zi” which translates to “good child” in Mandarin. (Chen et al. 1998 pp678).The negative emotions western introverted children face can exacerbate the child’s introversion and them with feelings of low self-worth.

Due to this information it seems to be important to consider extraversion and introversion as a factor when developing programs to increase self-esteem. As shown by Bachman and O’Malley, 1977 self-esteem in 10^th grade was more predictive of life success than adult self-esteem in terms of occupational and educational attainment (Bachman et al. 1977 pp370). Because of this it seems important to focus on altering child and adolescent self-esteem rather than adult self-esteem. Incorporating problems with introversion into self-esteem programs could be as simple as parents and teachers providing support to introverted children and adolescents so they believe in themselves and do not perceive others as acting negatively towards them. The best way to achieve this is by teaching parents and other adults how to alter their behaviour towards the introverted child and accept them for who they are, thus altering the child’s environment to fit them better.

Due to the different way Chinese parents act towards introverted children it would be interesting to further research whether the same correlation exists between self-esteem and extraversion amongst Chinese adults. Because Chinese culture values introversion more than western society, we would expect a weaker correlation between self-esteem and extraversion among Chinese adults. This research has been done by (Schmitt & Allik, 2005) who analysed the self-esteem scores of 53 nations. Overall they found that despite cultural differences, self-esteem levels were almost always above the neutral point. They also found that extraversion was positively correlated with self-esteem with little variance across all but one nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo, (Schmitt et al., 2005 pp637). Although China was not analysed similar eastern collectivist nations like Japan, Hong Kong and Malaysia were. However, these results differ from earlier studies which showed a significant difference between the self-esteem scores of Japanese and Canadian and Japanese and Australian respondents (Campbell et al., 1996; Feather& McKee, 1993 in Schmitt et al., 2005 pp624) so it is important to replicate this research. If a weaker correlation is found we can attribute the moderate correlation found in the USA in part to a lesser acceptance of introversion.

Further research will also be needed as to why only a small percentage of introverted people have low self-esteem. As stated earlier, it is believed to be because those who have high self-esteem despite their introversion received more support from family members and teachers during childhood and adolescence. This could be tested by two groups of children who are inhibited and educating parents and teachers of one of the groups to provide more support while keeping the other group as a control. By later testing both groups self-esteem we could determine whether more support does increase an introverted child’s self-esteem.

This research is limited in that though 7000 individuals were surveyed less than half of them responded to both the self esteem and extraversion measures. It is unclear as to why this is the case and this could affect the validity of the study. It is also not stated which self esteem measure was used which is problematic as some measures, specifically the Coopersmith model has been shown to be biased towards men.

A positive moderate correlation was found between extraversion and self-esteem. This is an important factor to consider when developing programs with the aim of increasing self-esteem. This correlation could be due to the way western society values extraversion or to the way extraversion influences other factors which impact on self-esteem levels.

References

Amrikham, J., H, Risinger, R. T.  Swickert, R. J. (1995). Extraversion: A "Hidden" Personality Factor in Coping? Journal of Personality, 63(2), 189-212.

Bachman, J., G, O'Malley, P. M. (1977). Self-esteem in young men: A longitudinal analysis of the impact of educational and occupational attainment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(6), 365-380.

Baumeister, R., F, Campbell, J. D , Krueger, J. I. I. Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Supplement, 4(1), 1-44.

Cervone, D., Pervin, L. A. (2010). Personality Theory and Research (11 ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

Chen, X., Rubin, K. H. Cen,G. Hastings, P. D. Chen, H. Stewart, S. L. (1998). Child-Rearing Attitudes and Behavioral Inhibition in Chinese and Canadian Toddlers: A Cross-Cultural Study. Developmental Psychology, 34(4), 677-686.

Farmer, R., F, Jarvis, L. L. Berent, M. K. Corbett, A. (2001). Contributions to Global Self-Esteem: The Role of Importance Attached to Self-Concepts Associated with the Five-Factor Model. Journal of Research in Personality, 35, 483-499.

Francis, L., J, James, D. J. (1996). The Relationship Between Rosenberg's Construct of Self-Esteem and Eysenck's Two Dimensional Model of Personality. Personality Individual Differences, 21(4), 483-488.

Schmitt, D., P, Allik, J. (2005). Simultaneous Administration of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in 53 Nations: Exploring the Universal and Culture-Specific Features of Global Self-Esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 623-642.

Self-esteem, n. (1989). OED online Retrieved 14/05/2011 http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/view/Entry/175228?redirectedFrom=self-esteem#eid

Siegler, R., DeLoache, J. Eisenberg, N. (2011). How Children Develop (3 ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

Slee, P., T, Rigby K. (1993). The relationship of Eysenck’s personality factors and self-esteem to bully-victim behaviour in Australian schoolboys. Personality Individual Differences 14(2), 371-373.

Trzesniewski, K., H, Donnellan, M. B. Moffitt, T. E. Poulton, R, Robins, R. W. Caspi, A. (2006). Low Self-Esteem During Adolescence Predicts Poor Health, Criminal Behavior, and Limited Economic Prospects During Adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 42(2), 381-390.

(Amrikham, 1995; Bachman, 1977; Baumeister, 2003; Cervone, 2010; Chen, 1998; Farmer, 2001; Francis, 1996; Schmitt, 2005; Self-esteem, n.," 1989; Siegler, 2011; Slee, 1993; Trzesniewski, 2006)