Do I Actually Have High Self-Esteem… or Just a Western Bias?
One concept I want to talk about is self-enhancement, which is the tendency to see ourselves positively. Apparently, this is much more common in Western cultures, which honestly didn’t surprise me, but it did make me reflect on my own thinking. I’ve always been told things like “be confident,” “believe in yourself,” or “focus on your strengths.” These messages feel normal, but they’re culturally specific. In more collectivistic cultures, there’s more emphasis on self-improvement and being aware of your weaknesses instead of constantly boosting your self-esteem. Thinking about how I respond to negative feedback, I could immediately see this in myself. My first instinct is usually to soften it like telling myself it’s not a big deal, or shifting my focus to something I’m good at. I’ve always seen that as just staying confident, but now I can recognize it as a form of self-enhancement. And what’s interesting is that I never consciously learned to do that, it just feels automatic, which probably means it’s been reinforced over time by my environment.
What I found really interesting is the idea of “face,” which is about maintaining social value in the eyes of others. That feels very different from how I usually think about myself, which is more internal. It made me realize that in some cultures, how others see you might matter more than how you see yourself. That honestly made me question something I’ve always taken for granted; is having high self-esteem actually better, or is it just what I’ve been taught to value? Maybe constantly trying to feel good about yourself isn’t the only, or even the best, way to grow. It could be that being more aware of your weaknesses and working on them , even if it feels uncomfortable, is just as important and maybe even more meaningful in the long run.
