Self-esteem, in vocational psychology dictionary

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Dictionary of Vocational Psychology

Self-Esteem

Traditionally self-esteem has been understood to be positive feelings of self-regard. Various dimensions of self-esteem have been proposed. Vocational self-esteem may be considered to be positive self-regard as it relates to one's value as a worker, or at least one's self-worth as a worker. Discussions self-esteem suggest that there are two kinds of high self-esteem: secure and fragile (Kernis, 2003). Kernis identifies other types of high self-esteem: defensive high, genuine high, high explicit, implicit positive, contingent high, true high, unstable high, and stable high. The impact of most of these various types of high self-esteem on vocational behavior and experience has yet to be examined, but it seems an important issue. For example, self-esteem is likely to have a strong impact on job satisfaction, job tenure, effort and performance at work, and quality of relations with coworkers. Vocational self-esteem may be differentiated from vocational self-efficacy, which has in recent years received substantially greater attention in research.

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