by Alfie Kohn
9. O’Mara, p. 184. Also see Valentine et al.
10. Baumeister et al. 2003, p. 14. Oddly, Baumeister continues to tell interviewers that “self-esteem is a result, not a cause” (Stein, p. 28), even though his own review of the research challenges this simplistic statement. Twenge (2006, p. 65), too, offers the unsupported view that “self-esteem does not cause high grades—instead, high grades cause higher self-esteem.”
11. One group of researchers argued in the early 1980s that two variables—social class and academic ability—account for most of the variance in self-esteem and in performance. See Maruyama et al.
12. DuBois and Tevendale, p. 110. Of course, plenty of other things, too, have an impact on both self-esteem and achievement.
13. O’Mara et al., p. 185.
14. See Kohn 1992, esp. Chapter 5.
15. Children do not come to believe they are important, valued, and capable just because they are told this or made to recite it. But programs that are ineffective and, in some cases, verge on self-parody are sometimes used to discredit the whole enterprise of enhancing kids’ self-esteem—indeed, the very idea of self-esteem. And some traditionalists don’t stop there: They dismiss any school-based efforts to deal with children’s emotional lives or address anything beyond narrowly defined academic skills. The case for attending to students’ social and emotional needs at school is overwhelming, even if one is interested only in academic outcomes. For three of many examples, see Flook et al.; Reyes et al.; and Zins et al.
16. First review: Haney and Durlak (quotation on p. 430). Second review: O’Mara et al. (quotation on p. 195).
17. Baumeister has also argued that because (a) men commit more crimes than women and (b) men tend to score higher on measures of self-esteem (“although the difference is not large and may be diminishing in the modern world”), it follows that there’s something undesirable about high self-esteem (Baumeister et al. 1996, p. 13). Even more outrageously: Black men now rape white women more often than white men rape black women—a shift that coincided with “efforts to boost self-esteem among Blacks” (ibid., p. 14).
18. Twenge 2006, p. 224. Here she assumes that making demands, which of course is just part of what it means to be a young child, reflects a particular view of the self. She also applies the concept of self-esteem (which was developed with reference to adults and older children) to toddlers, whose basic sense of self isn’t even fully formed. And she continues, “Even as children grow older, most are confident and self-assured”—a statement that could charitably be described as bizarre.
19. Otway and Vignoles, p. 104.
20. Gilligan quoted in Weissbourd, p. 13. Interestingly, Baumeister seems to accept another writer’s proposition that “to avoid certain negative emotional states, such as shame, dejection, sadness, and disappointment with oneself, the [aggressive] person refuses to contemplate information that reflects unfavorably about the self” (p. 11). What he never explains is how that profile is consistent with having high self-esteem. At another point, he insists that “only the person with a highly favorable opinion of self will be inclined to seek out risky situations to prove his or her merit” (p. 7). But why would such a person need to do so? Those who are easily threatened and inclined to lash out are more likely to hold a tenuous opinion of themselves.
21. Rosenberg quoted in Donnellan et al., p. 333.
22. See p. 201n57.
23. Tracy et al., p. 209.
24. “A robust relation between low self-esteem and externalizing problems . . . held for different age groups, different nationalities, and multiple methods of assessing self-esteem and externalizing problems” (Donnellan et al.; quotation on p. 333).
25. Ryckman et al.; quotation on p. 91. This replicates another study published four years earlier by Ryckman and a different group of collaborators.
26. Greenberger et al. Three years later, these researchers looked separately at exploitive and non-exploitive entitlement. Self-esteem was negatively correlated with the former and positively correlated with the latter. See Lessard et al.
27. Baumeister et al. 2003, p. 24. Also see pp. 5–6, 21.
28. Self-esteem tends to increase through adulthood until about age sixty (see p. 201n58). As for now-versus-then comparisons, see the research findings from several groups of scholars that contradict Twenge’s claims, which I described on pp. 28–29.
29. Lerner, p. 15.
30. Krauthammer.
31. Twenge and Campbell 2008.
32. See Kohn 2000, which, in turn, cites many other sources.
33. You can check this yourself at www.nationsreportcard.gov. Also see Berliner and Biddle; Rothstein; and many writings by the late Gerald Bracey.
34. Kohn 2013.
35. For two of many examples, see Zhao; and the comments of Byong Man Ahn, South Korea’s former minister of education, science, and technology, quoted in Cavanagh.
36. It’s important to add that self-esteem isn’t important only for its contribution to academic performance. Quality of life and joy in learning are ends in themselves.
37. Twenge 2006, p. 57; Ehrensaft, p. 123.
38. See pp. 216–17n11.
39. Baumeister et al. 2003, p. 39.
40. Twenge: 2006, p. 66. The columnist: Leo. (Note how he conflates being lovable with being perfect.)
41. Powers, p. 8.
42. Interested readers might look up the work of Gordon Allport as well as findings concerned with the fundamental human impetus to attain a sense of competence (Robert White), to be self-determining (Richard deCharms, Edward Deci, and others), to satisfy our curiosity (D. E. Berlyne), and to “actualize” our potential in various ways (Abraham Maslow).
43. Twenge 2006, p. 66; Powers, p. 8.
44. Kernis et al. 2008, pp. 478, 479. For more about the importance of stability or fragility in evaluating self-esteem, also see Kernis; Kernis et al. 1993; and Seery et al.
45. Kernis et al. 2000, p. 245.
46. On this point, see Tracy et al., especially p. 4; and Deci and Ryan 1995. One difference between the two syndromes, though, is that people with unstable self-esteem may not be aware of that fact, whereas people with contingent self-esteem know what has to happen in order for them to feel good about themselves (see Kernis et al. 2008, p. 501).
47. For example, see Crocker and Knight; and Crocker and Wolfe.
48. Crocker and Knight, pp. 200, 202.
49. Crocker and Wolfe cite eight studies to substantiate that first list of unhappy consequences, from anxiety to depression (p. 614). Since then, Burwell and Shirk also found that contingent self-esteem, even more than low self-esteem, is a risk factor for depression in adolescents.
50. Helplessness: Burhans and Dweck. (The finding that “children who had expressed a sense of contingent self-worth were significantly more helpless” was replicated in a subsequent study by Kamins and Dweck, described in Dweck, p. 115.) “Maladaptive perfectionism”: Soenens and Vansteenkiste. Impact of bullying: Ghoul et al. Drinking: Neighbors et al.
51. Narcissism: Assor and Tal, p. 257. Materialism: Ku et al., pp. 83–84. Effects on parenting: Eaton and Pomerantz; Grolnick et al.; and Ng et al.
52. Miller, p. 58.
53. Chamberlain and Haaga.
54. Also, the reactions of “pleasure following success and disappointment following failure . . . are not colored with defensiveness or self-aggrandizement” in people with stable, unconditional self-esteem (Kernis et al. 2008, p. 500).
55. Harter, p. 101. Emphasis added.
56. See Wuyts et al.
57. Young-Eisendrath, p. 27.
58. Fromm, pp. 41–42.
59. Assor et al.
60. Roth et al.
61. Kindergarteners: Roth and Assor. Young adults: Roth. Teenagers: Assor and Tal. (Quotation on p. 257.)
62. In a study of three hundred middle schoolers, students had lower self-esteem and less intrinsic motivation to learn if they felt their teachers’ acceptance of them was contingent on
their achievement or on having met the teachers’ expectations (Makri-Botsari).
63. Crocker and Wolfe, p. 617.
CHAPTER 7
1. Bowles and Gintis, p. 39.
2. Mischel 1968, especially chapters 2 and 3.
3. A “remarkably consistent finding” in delay-of-gratification studies, at least those designed so that waiting yields a bigger reward, is that “most children and adolescents do manage to delay.” In one such experiment “83 out of the 104 subjects delayed the maximum number of times.” This suggests either that complaints about the hedonism and self-indulgence of contemporary youth may be exaggerated or that these studies of self-control are so contrived that all of their findings are of dubious relevance to the real world—perhaps because “tiny amounts of snack food . . . may be insufficient incentives to seriously engage the motivational system of preschool children or, at least, to engage tendencies toward impulse overcontrol or undercontrol” (Funder and Block, pp. 1048, 1049).
4. Mischel 1996, p. 209.
5. Mischel 1996, p. 212. See also Mischel et al. 1988, p. 694.
6. Incidentally, other research (with adults) has found that when people opt for a small sum of cash right away instead of waiting for a larger amount, it may simply be due to their mood at the time—sadness is associated with impatience—rather than to an enduring character trait like willpower or the capacity to defer gratification (Lerner et al.).
7. Mischel et al. 1988.
8. A few years before Mischel’s experiments, Stanley Milgram convinced ordinary volunteers to deliver what they thought were painful electric shocks to other people when they were instructed to do so by an experimenter in a lab coat as part of a “teaching” exercise. But contrary to popular belief, Milgram’s main objective wasn’t to prove how readily people will obey authority, even to do things that seem appalling. Rather, he was interested in “how obedience is responsive to modifications in the immediate situation” (Blass, p. 41). As Milgram himself mused, “Often, it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act” (quoted in Blass, p. 41). For example, will people still cause someone pain if they can hear that person crying out? If he’s in the same room with them? If they have to force his hand onto the electrical device? More subjects refused to carry out instructions with each of these iterations of the experiment. The less remote one’s victim, the less willing one is to make someone suffer, even if it means defying authority—a rather different moral than the one normally derived from these experiments (Milgram, pp. 34–36).
9. Lehrer 2009a, p. 27.
10. Mischel 1996, p. 212. This uncertainty about the direction of the causal arrow is reminiscent of how helicopter parenting actually may not make kids anxious; instead, anxious kids may elicit that style of parenting, as I pointed out above, on page 68).
11. Mischel 1996, p. 211.
12. Mischel 1996, p. 214. See also Shamosh and Gray.
13. See, for example, Duckworth and Seligman 2005; Duckworth et al. 2012; Tough 2012.
14. Shoda et al.
15. Shoda et al., p. 985. They add that the ability to put up with delay so one can make that choice is valuable, but of course this is different from arguing that the exercise of self-control in itself is beneficial.
16. Finkelstein et al.
17. Otto et al., p. 136.
18. Kidd et al.; quotations appear on pp. 110, 113.
19. Moffitt et al. The strength of those associations was reduced when the researchers controlled for socioeconomic status and intelligence, although many of the associations remained statistically significant. The questions used to identify self-control in this study merit a closer look, however. Bundled into that concept were measures of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and aggression—a profile that goes beyond what we generally have in mind when we say that a child “lacks self-discipline” and one more likely to predict difficulties in adult life.
20. Block, pp. 8–9, 195; Block and Block 2006b, p. 318. The late social critic Philip Slater described it this way: “Where internalization is high there is often a feeling that the controls themselves are out of control—that emotion cannot be expressed when the individual would like to express it. Life is muted, experience filtered, emotion anesthetized . . .” (pp. 24–25).
21. Tough 2012 (book), 2009 (article). Two neuroscientists: Aamodt and Wang. Discussions for educators: Rogus, p. 271. Rogus’s article appeared in a special issue of an education journal devoted entirely to the topic of self-discipline. Although it featured contributions by a wide range of educational theorists, including some with a distinctly humanistic orientation, none questioned the importance of self-discipline.
22. Self-Discipline in 10 Days (Bryant) is for real, and it was not even published by Self-Parody Press.
23. Letzring et al., p. 3.
24. Mischel 1996, p. 198.
25. Peterson and Seligman, p. 515. This sentiment was echoed by Angela Duckworth (2011, p. 2639)—about whom more in a moment.
26. Tangney et al., p. 296.
27. For example, see Zabelina et al.
28. Letzring et al. At the very end of their article, Tangney et al. concede that some people may be rigidly overcontrolled, but the authors immediately and audaciously try to define the problem out of existence: “Such overcontrolled individuals may be said to lack the ability to control their self-control” (p. 314).
29. Block and Block 2006b, p. 318.
30. Less spontaneity: Zabelina et al. Preschoolers: Block and Block 2006a. The studies on drug use and depression (by Block and his colleagues) are summarized in Funder, p. 211. Anorexia: Halse et al. Decisions made quickly: Dickman and Meyer.
31. In fact, “If I have a hard assignment to do, I get started right away” is an actual item on a standard measure of effortful control (EC) used by researchers, who typically assume that EC is a desirable characteristic without qualification.
32. The fact that something resembling self-discipline is required to complete a task doesn’t bode well for the likelihood of deriving intellectual benefit from it. Learning, as I mentioned earlier, depends not only on what students do but also on how they regard and construe what they do. This may explain why the data generally fail to show any academic benefit to assigning homework, particularly in elementary or middle school (see Kohn 2006). Yet it’s generally assumed that students will somehow benefit from performing tasks they can’t wait to be done with, as though their attitudes and goals were irrelevant to the outcome.
33. D. Shapiro, pp. 34, 44.
34. Funder, p. 211.
35. Regarding the way that “disinhibition [is] occasionally manifested by some overcontrolled personalities,” see Block, p. 187.
36. Polivy, p. 183. She adds: “This is not to say that one should never inhibit one’s natural response, as, for example, when anger makes one want to hurt another, or addiction makes one crave a cigarette.” Rather, it means one should weigh the benefits and costs of inhibition in each circumstance. This moderate position contrasts sharply with our society’s tendency to endorse self-discipline across the board.
37. Funder, p. 211.
38. “Adaptive human functioning is to be found not in self-control generally but rather in flexible control processes. Effective self-regulation involves the ability to control or to lose control in response to the changing circumstances of the environment and one’s own affective reactions and changing priorities” (King, p. 58).
39. Ryan et al., p. 587.
40. Vansteenkiste et al.
41. The broad heading for this model and related empirical investigations is “self-determination theory” (SDT). For details, including a bibliography, see www.selfdeterminationtheory.org.
42. On the connection between conditional self-esteem and the data showing inferior results for introjected internalization, see Assor et al. 2009.
43. See Roth et al.
44. Personal communication, June 2008.
46. This was shown in two sets of three experiments each, conducted independently by Moller et al. and Muraven et al. And it builds on research showing that people are more successful at activities that require self-discipline, such as losing weight, quitting smoking, or exercising, when they feel less controlled.
47. In a series of studies, only people who already thought of willpower as a limited resource—or who were led by the experimenter to believe this—showed ego depletion. They did as well or better on a second task if they were told instead “Sometimes, working on a strenuous mental task can make you feel energized for further challenging activities” (Job et al.).
48. Emblematic of this shift is Paul Tough’s 2012 book How Children Succeed, which opens with a declaration that what matters most for children isn’t their academic proficiency; it’s qualities like “persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence” (p. xv). But that’s the last the reader hears about curiosity or self-confidence, neither of which appears in the index. By contrast, there are lengthy entries for “self-control” and “grit,” which occupy Tough for much of the book.
49. Duckworth et al. 2007, p. 1100.
50. The first quote is from Duckworth 2013; the second is from Perkins-Gough, p. 16.
51. Duckworth quoted in Lehrer 2009b, p. D2.
52. For example, one educator has written a pamphlet called Fostering Grit that includes a six-step strategy for teaching students to persist at anything they do, regardless of the value of the task. The author’s premise, moreover, is that “teaching children how to respond to frustration and failure requires that they experience frustration and failure,” so they are deliberately made to experience these things (Hoerr 2013).
53. This point also applies to self-discipline. The late Fred Rothbaum, a psychologist at Tufts University, speculated that Milgram’s experimental subjects had to exercise considerable self-discipline in order to obey orders to shock someone, forcing themselves to overcome their natural inclination to avoid causing harm (personal communication, June 2008).
54. McFarlin et al.; quotation on p. 152. Also see King.