Defining Self-Esteem and Its Structure
Self-esteem is a global evaluation of one's own worth, competence, and significance, and it is most commonly measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), developed by Morris Rosenberg in 1965. Self-esteem is not a single dimension. It is distinguished into global self-esteem and domain-specific self-esteem, the latter covering areas such as academic performance, physical appearance, and social ability, where a person may stand high in one domain and low in another. A further distinction matters as well, that between trait self-esteem, a stable individual difference, and state self-esteem, which fluctuates with circumstances. Childhood caregiving experience exerts a large influence on how self-esteem forms, and self-esteem is closely tied to the self model within attachment theory's internal working models, that is, to the question of whether one is worthy of being loved. People with secure attachment tend to hold higher self-esteem, and people with anxious attachment tend to hold lower self-esteem.
Self-Esteem and the Dynamics of Relationships
Self-esteem influences the formation and maintenance of relationships along several fronts at once. According to the risk regulation model of Murray and colleagues, people low in self-esteem carry a strong fear of rejection and find it hard to believe that their partner truly loves them, which makes them prone to defensive behavior: keeping emotional distance, seeking reassurance excessively, or acting on jealousy. Ironically, these defensive behaviors degrade the quality of the relationship and become a self-fulfilling prophecy that confirms the low self-esteem they arose from. People high in self-esteem, by contrast, trust their partner's affection, can show vulnerability within the relationship, and are more likely to resolve conflict constructively. There is a limit to this, however. Self-esteem that runs excessively high, in the form of narcissism, can become a problem in its own right, showing up as a lack of empathy for the partner or as domineering behavior. What benefits a relationship most is stable high self-esteem, an intrinsic sense of one's own worth that does not depend on external evaluation for its footing.
What Self-Esteem Implies for Compatibility Assessment
Self-esteem is not a trait that shows on the surface the way personality traits or attachment style do; it works behind them as a condition that shapes how a relationship goes. In terms of the Big Five, self-esteem correlates positively with extraversion and conscientiousness and negatively with neuroticism. For a couple's compatibility, both the level of each partner's self-esteem and its stability affect the dynamics between them. Where both partners hold stable self-esteem, they can respect each other's independence while still maintaining intimacy. Where one partner's self-esteem is low, patterns readily emerge in which that partner either becomes excessively dependent on the other or, in the opposite direction, defensively withdraws to a distance. Behavior that comes out of low self-esteem is easily mistaken for affection wearing thin. When a partner suddenly pulls away, or asks again and again to be reassured, what deserves a second look is not whether their feelings have changed but whether a fear of rejection is at work in the form of a defense. Read that way, saying out loud what you value in them, sharing in their successes, and letting a decision they made on their own stand are not mere encouragement; they act directly on that fear.