U. of Gothenburg Substantiates Al Fin Theory of Self Esteem

Current popular psychology books distinguish between self-esteem and self-confidence. It is also believed that it is possible to improve self-esteem without there being a link to how competent people perceive themselves to be in areas they consider important.

This is in stark contrast to the results of a new study carried out by researcher Magnus Lindwall from the University of Gothenburg's Department of Psychology and colleagues from the UK, Turkey and Portugal. _SD

The Al Fin theory of self esteem simply states that a child must acquire competence in order to feel confident. Once the child feels competence-inspired confidence, true self esteem is apt to follow. Promoting self-esteem without competence-based confidence is damaging to a child's mental and emotional growth process.

This theory contradicts a large body of popular psychology work -- which is largely implemented in theories of education and child psychology. The damage that has been done to generations of children who have been misguided and badly raised as a result of these educational and psychological methods, is incalculable.

Now research from the University of Gothenburg confirms Al Fin's theory.

The current study, involving 1,831 university students from the four countries, focuses specifically on self-perception of the body -- for example, how strong or fit the test subjects consider themselves to be and how attractive they believe their bodies to be...

..."In general, our study -- along with plenty of other research in the field -- paints a completely different and more complicated picture of self-esteem than that set out in best-selling popular psychology books," says Lindwall. "These books are often based on a person's own experiences and anecdotes rather than systematic research. Self-esteem is just not as simple as that, otherwise interest in the concept wouldn't be so great." _SD

Of course, Al Fin got his ideas from people such as William James, Maria Montessori, and so on -- in other words, from the giants of early psychology, education, and childhood development. How tragic that politically correct psychology and university schools of education aided by a monolithic system of government education, have conspired to regress and pervert education, child psychology, and child-rearing to the destruction of generations of children.

Al Fin has been calling for a complete re-working of theories of education and child-rearing for many years -- in part based upon his theory of self esteem. The tragedy is that all of this devastation and destruction of competence could have been prevented. Our societies would be doing far better if that had been so.