Self‐Esteem as a Complex Dynamic System: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Microlevel Dynamics

Abstract

The variability of self-esteem is an important characteristic of self-esteem. However, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie it. The goal of the current study was to empirically explore these underlying mechanisms. It is commonly assumed that state self-esteem (the fleeting experience of the self) is a response to the immediate social context. Drawing from a complex dynamic systems perspective, the self-organizing self-esteem model asserts that this responsivity is not passive or stimulusresponse like, but that the impact of the social context on state self-esteem is intimately connected to the intrinsic dynamics of self-esteem. The model suggests that intrinsic dynamics are the result of higher-order self-esteem attractors that can constrain state self-esteem variability. The current study tests this model, and more specifically, the prediction that state self-esteem variability is less influenced by changes in the immediate context if relatively strong, as opposed to weak, self-esteem attractors underlie intrinsic dynamics of self-esteem. To test this, parent-adolescent dyads (N = 13, M age = 13 6) were filmed during seminaturalistic discussions. Observable components of adolescent state self-esteem were coded in real time, as well as real-time parental autonomy-support and relatedness. Kohonen's self-organizing maps were used to derive attractor-like patterns: repeated higher-order patterns of adolescents' self-esteem components. State space grids were used to assess how much adolescents' self-esteem attractors constrained their state self-esteem variability. We found varying levels of attractor strength in our sample. In accordance with our prediction, we found that state self-esteem was less sensitive to changes in parental support and relatedness for adolescents with stronger self-esteem attractors. Discussion revolves around the implications of our findings for the ontology of self-esteem.

Do I Need to Be Positive to Be Happy? Considering the Role of Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, and Psychological Distress in Portuguese Adolescents’ Subjective Happiness

“…From a “producers of their own development” perspective (Seiffge-Krenke et al., 2010), we can now better understand the importance of self-esteem in this process of self-construction and identity definition generally associated with an in-depth self-focused process in adolescence. Besides its relation with subjective happiness and related variables in this study, our results involving self-esteem also reinforce new emergent research aimed at understanding the dynamics of state self-esteem in adolescents, concerning contextual variables (de Ruiter, Hollenstein, van Geert, & Kunnen, 2018).…”

Development of adolescents’ self-esteem and general academic self-concept: perceived classroom climate makes a difference

“…In contrast, other researchers assumed intrinsic forces to initiate internally generated patterns of variability in self-esteem (Fortes et al, 2003; Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Wong et al, 2016). The dynamic system approach takes into account both intrinsic and extrinsic forces to explain intraindividual variability in self-esteem and underlines the importance of the interplay between these forces (De Ruiter et al, 2017; de Ruiter et al, 2018; van Geert & Steenbeek, 2005). According to this view, the extrinsic effects on self-esteem do not function in the sense of a simple stimulus-response paradigm but in connection to the intrinsic dynamics of self-esteem.…”

“…According to this view, the extrinsic effects on self-esteem do not function in the sense of a simple stimulus-response paradigm but in connection to the intrinsic dynamics of self-esteem. For example, De Ruiter et al (2018) found that state self-esteem variability was less dependent on the immediate context if strong intrinsic dynamics of self-esteem were present.…”

Mind as “E”nteraction: Towards the Complexity Hypothesis

“…Complex systems can manifest in various domains such as nature, society, and technology, characterised by self-organisation, adaptation, emergence, and nonlinear dynamics (Mitchell and Newman, 2002;Goldstein, 2011;Ladyman, Lambert and Wiesner, 2013;Ladyman and Wiesner, 2020). 3 In cognitive science, CST is employed in the study of cognition in general (Thelen and Smith, 1994), and specifically language development ( Van Geert, 2008; " Van Geert and Verspoor, 2015;Hiver and Al-Hoorie, 2019); cognitive development ( Van Geert, 2011;Serra and Zanarini, 2013); meaning making in identity development (Kunnen & Bosma, 2000;Van der Gaag, et al, 2020;Branje et al, 2021); self-esteem (de Ruiter et al, 2018); adolescent development (Lichtwarck-Aschoff and van Geert, 2004); dyadic play (Hesp Hesp, Steenbeek and van Geert, 2019); risk behaviours in adolescence (Schuhmacher, Ballato & Van Geert, 2014); scaffolding in educational processes (Steenbeek and van Geert, 2020;Menninga et al, 2021); learning-teaching trajectories (Steenbeek and van Geert, 2013).…”