Aggression: n. pursuing a goal(s) forcefully and/or threateningly which may include (body contact and/or violence) and/or a ((verbal threat(s) and/or verbal attack(s)) and/or physical attack(s))
Esteem: v. to respect and admire
Selfesteem: v. to respect and admire oneself
Respect: v. to sense and frequently communicate that a human has (much value and/or moral goodness) and/or (much skill(s) in a (profession and/or activity)) and/or is experienced and has few severe personality flaws and the human is dependable
Admire: v. to sense respect and attraction and to sense a relatively large intensity pleasure because of (good and/or moral behavior) and/or professional excellence
One real example of psychologists trying to link high or low selfesteem to aggression shows how easy it is to get contradictory results. Baumeister 1999, 2000, 2002, 2007 claimed to show that high selfesteem is linked to greater aggressiveness and Donnellan 2005 and Trzesniewski 2006 claimed to show that low selfesteem is linked to greater aggressiveness.
Psychologists never accurately define what they mean by aggression and selfesteem which is what I have done and then try to set up questionnaires which supposedly measure the degree and type of aggression and selfesteem. Without an accurate definition of the words that they are using they are frankly groping in the dark. Frankly the two concepts are so complex that no validated correspondence between them is possible since there are too many interdependent variables at play.
Aggression can be physical and/or mental and this means that combinations of both approaches are possible. There is physical violence in various degrees of intensity and type, there are verbal threats in various degrees of intensity and type, there are verbal attacks in various degrees of intensity and type, and there are physical gesture threats in various degrees of intensity and type and then there are combinations of these aggressions which constitute the total possibilities of aggressive behavior. How can you possibly verbally determine the degree of aggressiveness and the type of aggressiveness that you are questioning about with any degree of accuracy? It is mission impossible.
Attempting to find some link or correspondence between selfesteem and aggression is even more problematic and impossible to do. Selfesteem is respecting and admiring yourself which means that you are personally judging your value and/or moral goodness which also means that you are judging how skilled you are in your job or profession and/or daily life. You are also making a personal assumption that you have minor personality flaws. Personality flaws theoretically should lower your selfesteem if you have many personality flaws. Of course you could be delusional and assume that you have no personality flaws so your selfesteem evaluation on a questionnaire would not be remotely connected with the reality of your life.
How intensely do you admire yourself and what things do you admire yourself for? Can you really determine how much or the intensity with which you admire yourself and for what things in life from a questionnaire?
So how many variables are at play when discussing aggression and selfesteem? An uncontrollable boatload. Further you could ask the question whether introverts or extroverts have higher selfesteem and who are more aggressive? You would probably assume that extroverts are more aggressive socially than introverts and maybe also assume that they have more selfesteem.
While sociable celebrities could be considered aggressive with high selfesteem you could also assume that introverts have higher selfesteem than your common extrovert because they frankly don’t want to put up with social drama, are more selective in their friendships, and are often very competent workers proud of their work. Unless you are talking about shy introverts who may indeed have less selfesteem than the average population I would venture to say that indeed common introverts in general may have more selfesteem than your common babbling extrovert.
In conclusion: For a given individual you can probably evaluate his or her degree of aggressiveness and selfesteem relatively accurately given enough exposure to them over a period of time. However, when you try to make correspondences between exceedingly complex psychological concepts and try to make general assumptions about them in a general population then you are doomed to fail miserably most of the time. Other psychological studies about hope, love, happiness, etc. are just as impossible to do and get verifiable results. Not only do cultural differences affect the outcome but other variables such as age, gender, current and past emotional state, financial status, job or career, family, morality, health, etc.
There are frankly too many variables interacting when it comes to human interaction so a scientific approach is frankly not even remotely possible.
Psychologists like to sound scientific by using correlational or statistical numbers but they a not being at all being objective and their results show a very subjective bias which is just not valid worldwide for all kinds of human populations.
If you liked this evergreen truth blog then read more of them, about 4400 so far, or read one or more of my evergreen truth books, especially EVERGREEN TRUTH, rays of truth in a human world filled with myths and deceptions.
For a complete readily accessible list of blogs and titles go to twitter.com/uldissprogis.
Enjoy!!!!!!
If you enjoyed this blog then here is a list of my most popular ones which you may also enjoy!!!
uldissprogis 