This book is an in-depth examination of self-esteem--people's positive and negative evaluation of themselves as a person. Beginning with self-esteem's conceptualization and measurement, the book carefully examines the role of self-esteem in society and within and across various domains and contexts of the human experience. Inspired by the seminal work on self-esteem carried out by American social psychologist Morris Rosenberg, the book serves as a comprehensive statement on self-esteem theory and research in the late 20th century, with an eye toward the direction it will take in the 21st century.

Self-esteem is an academic and popular phenomenon, vigorously researched and debated, sometimes imbued with magical qualities, other times vilified as the bane of the West's preoccupation with self. Though thousands of articles have been devoted to the topic, and bookshops work to feed the public's appetite for advice on revealing, enhancing and maintaining self-esteem, conflicting claims and findings have placed the field in disarray. In a very real sense, self-esteem is a victim of its own popularity. This book seeks to add clarity to a concept earlier examined by such notable self theorists as Morris Rosenberg but eminently worthy of re-examination and extension. We do this by asking some leading thinkers on self-esteem theory, measurement and application to assess what we know about self-esteem, and link it to important aspects of society and the human experience.