An Existential Perspective on the Need for Self-Esteem

Abstract

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people want to feel good about themselves. This desire plays a fundamental role in our lives, affecting virtually everything we do. Sometimes even the distortion of reality and inaccurate perception of ourselves and others is not too steep a price to pay to maintain a positive view of ourselves. In this chapter, we adopt an existential perspective to address some basic questions about the self-esteem motive: What is self-esteem? Why do people need it? How do they get it, lose it, and maintain it? And what role does it play in adaptive goal-directed behavior, psychological dysfunction, and the maximization of one’s capacities?

Keywords: self-esteem, terror management theory, death anxiety, motivation, existential motivation