Self-Esteem and Collective Self-Esteem as Predictors of Depression

Self-esteem is a term that reflects a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of her or his own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs (for example, I am competent, I am worthy) and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. Self-esteem is a confidence in onself, a satisfaction of what one is and the self-respect that confidence brings. It is the appraisal or assessment of a person on one's self worth. It encompasses belief about one's capacity and worthiness. Self-esteem is a complex phenomena consisting of three components- competence,worthiness, self-evaluation. Competence means self-esteem is tied to and reflected in a particular class of behavior, namely behavior that is effective or successful. It has been found that there is negative relationship between self-esteem and anxiety (Pyszczynski et al., 2004). Moreover, individuals with high self-esteem and low anxiety are more inclined to engage in mastery behaviors. Low level of self-esteem has been linked to behavioral problems and poor school performance (Agarwala & Raj, 2003). It is related with serious issues such as teenage pregnancy (Crockenberg & Soby, 1994), suicides (Choquet, Koves & Poutignat, 2000; Bhattacharjee & Deb, 2007; NCRB, 2007) and maladjustment.Luhtanen & Crocker (1992) emphasized the importance of collective self-esteem. Collective self-esteem refers to the feelings and evaluations of the worthiness of a social group-such as racial, ethinic, or work group of which one is a member (Coming, 2002; Jetten, Branscombe & Spears, 2002; Rahimi & Fisher, 2002). DeCremer and Oosterwegel (1999) found that subjects with collective self-esteem tended to view in-group members more positively than those with personal self-esteem. The high collective self-esteem individuals also seemed to expect more in-group cooperation. The impact of collective self-esteem on psychological functioning such as intergroup evaluation (Andreopoulou & Houston, 2002), in-group bias (Aberson & Howanski, 2002), coping styles (Constantine, Donnelly & Myers, 2002) has been studied. Some evidence shows that collective self-esteem is a potentially strong predictor of mental health such that collective self-esteem is a potentially strong predictor of mental health such as life satisfaction (Crocker et al., 1994; Mokgathe & Schoeman, 1998) and distress (Bizman, Yinon, & Krotman, 2001; Katz, Joiner, & Kwon, 2002).Self-esteem and collective self-esteem are viewed as vicious cycle. Low self-esteem and collective self-esteem result among many behavioral problems and depression is among one of them. Depression among adolescents has become a very common problems and rate of depression is increasing day by day (SAMSHA, 2012). The literature survey depicts that self-esteem and collective self-esteem play a very important role in every individual's personality. Low level of self-esteem and depression create hindrance in balanced and positive development of personality. There is dearth of researches which examine the relationship between depression and collective self-esteem but low self-esteem and depression are negatively correlated, it has been found in many researches.The Current study aimed to examine relationship between self-esteem, collective self esteem and depression in adolescents and also to examine role of self esteem and collective self esteem in predicting depression.Hypotheses1. There is a negative relationship between self-esteem, collective self esteem and depression.2. There is a positive relationship between self-esteem and collective self-esteem.3. Self-esteem and collective self-esteem are significant predictors of depressionMethodSampleInitially Beck's Depression Inventory (1996) was administered on 800 undergraduate students in the age range of 17-23 years, selected from Agra and Firozabad, India. Among 800 participants 334 had low level of depression and 179 had high level of depression. …