Rough Draft and Reflection Journal
Running Head: PREPARING FOR THE FINAL PAPER 1
PREPARING FOR THE FINAL PAPER 2
Preparing for the Final Paper: Seeking the Truth
Jennifer Coles
PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology
Instructor Matthew Hubbs
October 20, 2019
Part 1: The Annotated Bibliography
Topic: Low self-esteem is a major cause of psychological problems.
Bajaj, B., Robins, R. W., & Pande, N. (2016). Mediating role of self-esteem on the relationship between mindfulness, anxiety, and depression. Personality and Individual Differences, 96, 127-131.
This article aims to determine the relationship between the mediation effect of self-esteem and mental issues such as depression, mindfulness and anxiety. Four hundred seventeen undergraduate students participated in this study by filling in questionnaires that assessed various psychological disorders. The results show that mindfulness was closely related to various psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. A structured equation modeling showed that self-esteem exerted mindfulness effects on depression and anxiety. This study is closely related to the present topic as it shows that psychological problems are closely related to self-esteem. The study, however, does not provide in-depth discussion of the link between mental disorders and self-esteem rather than anxiety and depression.
Garofalo, C., Holden, C. J., Zeigler‐Hill, V., & Velotti, P. (2016). Understanding the connection between self‐esteem and aggression: The mediating role of emotion dysregulation. Aggressive behavior, 42(1), 3-15.
The authors of this article aimed to extend the existing knowledge on the relationship between self-esteem and aggression by studying the emotion dysregulation mediation role among community participants and offenders. The sample size includes 197 community individuals and 153 offenders. The participants completed self-report measures of trait aggression, emotion dysregulation and level of self-esteem. Findings showed that community participants had higher self-esteem levels as compared to the offenders as well as lower levels of hostility and emotional non-acceptance levels. Emotional dysregulation asserted that self-esteem is closely associated with hostility, physical aggression and anger; however, the study was biased as there were more community participants than the offenders.
Brechan, I., & Kvalem, I. L. (2015). Relationship between body dissatisfaction and disordered eating: Mediating role of self-esteem and depression. Eating behaviors, 17, 49-58.
The main aim of this article was to evaluate whether depression and self-esteem are accessories to development of disordered eating behavior. If there is a link between dissatisfaction on disorder eating and self-esteem, then interventions measures for the condition can focus more on depression and self-esteem. The study also hypothesized that more disordered eating is associated with lower self-esteem. The findings of this article show that that self-esteem is a considerable mediator. This is because it had a direct effect on compensatory behavior and restrained eating. While binge eating may be as a result of depression, compensatory behavior is dependent of body image and self-esteem. However, the paper did not pay close attention to the relationship between depression and self-esteem.
Part II: The Introduction Paragraph
Low self-esteem causes people to have a negative opinion about them. People with low self-esteem normally feel unsatisfied and unhappy about themselves. Such people normally consider themselves to be inferior to their peers and downplay their positive qualities. Low self-esteem is an important part of psychological health and has been widely used by medical practitioners for diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. Research in this topic has faced many challenges because of the lack of consensus on the definition of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is one of the main causes of psychological conditions because it causes people to develop low resilience, self-harming behaviors and lack of self-care.
Part III: The (Brief) Outline
Introduction:
Low self-esteem causes people to have a negative opinion about them. People with low self-esteem normally feel unsatisfied and unhappy about themselves. Such people normally consider themselves to be inferior to their peers and downplay their positive qualities. Low self- esteem is an important part of psychological health and has been widely used by medical practitioners for diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. Research in this topic has faced many challenges because of the lack of consensus on the definition of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is one of the main causes of psychological conditions because it causes people to develop low resilience, self-harming behaviors, and lack of self-care.
I. Low Resilience
1. Feeling of hopelessness
a. People with low self-esteem feels like no one cares for them and this makes them more susceptible to psychological conditions.
2. Do not know how to handle challenging life events
a. Low-self-esteem makes people lack ways to handle difficult situations in life.
3. Fear to try
a. People with low self-esteem fear discussing their situation with people thinking that others will look down on them.
II. Self-harming behaviors
1. Eating disorder
a. People with low self-esteem have difficulties with eating because they do not believe in what they are doing.
2. Drug Abuse
a. People may do anything to regain their confidence including taking drugs.
3. Suicide
a. People with low self-esteem develop suicidal thoughts because they feel unwanted in society.
III. Lack of self-care
1. Abusing themselves
a. Individuals with low self-esteem engage in behaviors that risk their lives.
2. Relationship problems
b. They tolerate all behaviors from their partners as they consider themselves unloved.
3. Addiction and alcohol abuse
c. They may drink alcohol just to forget what is happening around them and this may cause psychological problems.
Conclusion
In conclusion, low self-esteem is one of the main causes of psychological conditions because it causes low resilience, self-harming behaviors and lack of self-care. Low self-esteem may have been caused by many factors such as an unhappy childhood, poor treatment from a partner, or poor academic performance among others. If one does not have a strong they may develop psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Based on the outline that I have provided above, I believe it will be easy to write my final paper. The challenge that I have encountered while completing this assignment is deciding which articles to include in my annotated bibliography. This is because most of the articles that I came across did not provide the relationship between self-esteem and psychological problems.
There are various questions that I have concerning this topic. They include
1. Does self-esteem cause the same effects on different psychological problems?
2. What could be the symptoms that a psychological condition has been cause by low self-esteem?