What makes us feel good about ourselves?
In the previous article, we saw that a global self-esteem score tells us whether we generally evaluate ourselves positively or negatively, but not what that evaluation is built on or how it functions in our lives.
That leaves a more practical question: What actually helps us develop a healthy relationship with ourselves?
Self-worth and self-efficacy: two connected dimensions
Two dimensions are especially important here: self-worth and self-efficacy. Self-worth concerns our sense of value as a person, while self-efficacy concerns our belief that we can act effectively to deal with a particular task or achieve an outcome.
You can struggle at something without feeling that you are a lesser person, just as being highly capable or accomplished does not necessarily make you feel valuable. The two can reinforce each other, but neither automatically guarantees the other.
Because self-worth and self-efficacy are closely related to self-esteem while still representing different dimensions, it can be useful to work on them separately. We can set goals that strengthen our sense of worth as people, and other goals that strengthen our sense of capability: becoming better at something, developing a skill, solving problems, or taking on challenges we once found difficult. In this way, improving how we feel about ourselves does not have to depend on a single source. We can build both the sense that we are valuable and the confidence that we are capable.
Contingencies of Self-Worth (CSW) theory also shows that people base their sense of value on different areas of life, and the consequences of doing so can vary considerably. Research has identified seven major domains on which people base their self-worth: academic competence, appearance, competition, family support, God’s love, virtue, and others’ approval.1
What happens when our self-worth depends on different areas of life?
When our sense of self-worth depends on outcomes in a particular area of our lives, success or failure in that area can influence how we feel about ourselves. This is not necessarily unhealthy. The consequences depend not only on how strongly our sense of worth depends on a particular area, but also on what that area is, since research has revealed important differences across domains.
Research has found that, on average, the effects tend to be less favorable when our sense of worth is tied to more external sources than when it is tied to more internal ones. Studies have found that stronger dependence on external sources is associated with greater vulnerability to depressive symptoms and greater instability in self-esteem, while more internal sources tend to show more favorable or neutral patterns.3 The particular area on which we base our self-worth therefore matters, rather than dependence on anything being simply good or bad.
Appearance, approval, and competition
Appearance, approval, and competition illustrate some of the risks associated with external foundations. When our self-worth is tied to our appearance, feeling unattractive can become a blow to how we perceive ourselves. When it depends heavily on approval, criticism or rejection can affect us more strongly because other people’s reactions become tied to our sense of value. And when it depends on competition, losing or being outperformed can make us question our own worth, making it harder to treat the result as useful feedback and focus on how we can improve.
Research has found that stronger dependence on these external sources is associated with greater vulnerability to depressive symptoms and greater instability in self-esteem. This does not mean that caring about our appearance, wanting to be liked, or enjoying competition is unhealthy by itself. The problem arises when our dependence on these areas reaches an unhealthy level, making success or failure in them disproportionately influential for our self-esteem.
Internal sources of self-worth
Research has found a more favorable pattern for internal sources of self-worth. In the original CSW research, virtue and God’s love were not associated with increases in depressive symptoms, unlike the external sources studied.
Other research has found that people whose self-worth is more strongly oriented toward virtue, while being less dependent on external domains, can show higher well-being, purpose, meaning, and prosocial qualities.
This does not mean internal sources are automatically healthy. We can hold ourselves to excessively high or rigid standards, or respond to falling short with harsh self-criticism and shame. Research on perfectionism distinguishes between striving for high standards and the more destructive pattern of responding to shortfalls with self-condemnation.4
Imagine that we make a decision that goes against our own moral standards. It is reasonable to feel disappointed in ourselves and to recognize that we should have acted differently.
There is an important difference between:
“I acted against something I believe is right. That matters, and I need to take responsibility and do better.”
and:
“I acted against something I believe is right. This proves I am a bad person.”
The first takes the mistake seriously while leaving room to learn and improve. The second turns one mistake into a judgment about who we are as a person.
Research on virtue-based self-worth suggests that this distinction matters. Larger drops in self-worth after falling short of important standards have been linked to more depressive symptoms.
Faith-based self-worth
God’s love is the second internal source identified in the CSW framework. For people who hold this belief, their sense of worth can be influenced by whether they feel loved and accepted by God. In the research, dependence on God’s love showed a more favorable pattern than several external sources, with no association with increases in depressive symptoms.
But how a person sees God can make a difference. Research suggests that viewing God as loving and accepting is linked to better psychological outcomes, while viewing God as highly demanding or perfectionistic is linked to more difficulties.5
Relationship Based Self-Worth
Family support is another area people can tie their self-worth to, but they do not show the same pattern as appearance, approval, or competition. Research has generally found more favorable associations for this source of worth, although criticism or conflict within the family can still affect self-esteem more strongly when our sense of worth depends heavily on how our family sees us.
A similar pattern appears with romantic relationships. When self-worth is highly contingent on a relationship, everyday ups and downs can produce sharper rises and drops in how people feel about themselves. Research also shows that people in this position can feel highly committed to the relationship without feeling more satisfied or close.7
None of this means relationships are unimportant. Feeling connected to others matters. Self-Determination Theory identifies relatedness—the need to feel close to and cared for by others—as one of three basic psychological needs, alongside autonomy and competence.6
Self-efficacy and competence
Our sense of capability can influence how we experience ourselves more broadly. When we repeatedly succeed at things that matter to us, we build a belief that we can handle challenges, solve problems, and make things happen. That experience can contribute to feeling more positive about ourselves, even when we never consciously think of our worth as depending on being good at a particular thing.
This connection also appears in how global self-esteem is measured. The most widely used measure of global self-esteem in research includes the statement, “I am able to do things as well as most other people.”
This points to a basic human psychological need: the need to experience ourselves as capable of dealing effectively with the demands of life and making progress in areas that matter to us. In Self-Determination Theory, this need is referred to as competence.
Competence as a basic psychological need
Satisfying this need involves experiencing ourselves as effective and capable of dealing with challenges and making progress. Research links greater satisfaction of the need for competence with greater well-being, including more positive emotions and fewer negative ones. In everyday life, this can come from experiences such as learning a skill, solving a difficult problem, or seeing ourselves make progress at something that matters to us.
Self-efficacy is closely connected to competence because believing that we can handle a challenge contributes to experiencing ourselves as capable and effective. At the same time, successfully handling challenges gives us experiences that strengthen our self-efficacy. In this way, the two can reinforce each other: feeling capable encourages us to take on challenges, while successfully mastering them provides further evidence that we are capable.
Learning a skill, solving a difficult problem, or gradually becoming better at something can therefore feel rewarding in its own right. We do not necessarily need praise, status, or success to make the experience satisfying.
Performance versus mastery
How we approach competence matters as well. A mastery orientation focuses on learning, improving, and developing our abilities. A performance orientation focuses more on demonstrating our ability, such as proving that we are competent or doing better than others. Research generally finds that mastery-oriented goals are associated with more adaptive patterns of motivation and learning, while performance goals can become less helpful when success is mainly about proving our ability or avoiding looking incompetent.2
This distinction matters for self-esteem because the two orientations give success and failure different meanings. With a mastery orientation, success shows that we are making progress, while failure gives us information about what we still need to learn. When performance is the main concern, failure can instead feel like evidence that we are not capable enough. Pursuing competence does not require us to stop caring about performance; it means that performance does not have to be the main reason we pursue it.
Healthy Self-Esteem
Taken together, these findings point to a form of self-esteem that does not require us to stop caring about achievement or become indifferent to our shortcomings. The Contingencies of Self-Worth research shows that the foundations on which we stake our worth matter, while research on mastery orientation shows that we can pursue competence by focusing on learning and improvement rather than using performance mainly to prove ourselves.
This also helps explain why extreme achievement can become counterproductive. We may accomplish a great deal while still depending on success to feel good about ourselves. When achievement becomes our main focus, we may also neglect other important needs. Taking care of our basic psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness is just as important. A life organized entirely around proving our competence can satisfy one need while neglecting the others.
A healthier form of self-esteem allows us to value achievement, competence, relationships, and personal development without making any one of them a condition of our worth. We can want to become better without believing that we must become better before we can value ourselves. We can care about achievement, develop our abilities, and take our shortcomings seriously without treating failure or limitation as evidence that we are lesser people.
Healthy self-esteem therefore does not mean thinking highly of ourselves no matter what, nor does it mean constantly achieving more to feel worthy. It means being able to value ourselves while honestly recognizing our strengths and limitations, pursuing goals that matter to us, learning from failure, and making room for autonomy, meaningful relationships, and a life that is genuinely our own.
But this still leaves a deeper question. Understanding what helps us develop a healthier sense of self-worth does not tell us what, ultimately, makes a person worthy of value.
That is a philosophical question rather than a psychological one. Psychology can help us understand how self-worth develops, what influences it, and what makes it more or less healthy.
Where We’re Going Next
Our relationship with ourselves is also shaped by how we understand and respond to our emotions. Next, we’ll look at emotional intelligence and the role it plays in our psychological well-being.
Over the past two years, I’ve studied the scientific literature on motivation, psychology, neuroscience, and behavior change with one goal: to separate evidence from myths, oversimplifications, and unsupported claims.
That work became The Psychology of Behavior Change—a research-based course that expands on these ideas through practical lessons and evidence-based strategies designed for everyday life.
References
- Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R. K., Cooper, M. L., & Bouvrette, A. (2003). Contingencies of self-worth in college students: Theory and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 894–908. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.894
- Diaconu-Gherasim, L. R., Elliot, A. J., Zancu, A. S., Brumariu, L. E., Măirean, C., Opariuc-Dan, C., & Crumpei-Tanasă, I. (2024). A meta-analysis of the relations between achievement goals and internalizing problems. Educational Psychology Review, 36, 109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09943-5
- Liu, C.-H., & Huang, P.-S. (2018). Contingencies of self-worth on positive and negative events and their relationships to depression. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2372. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02372
- Stoeber, J., et al. (2023). The relationships between perfectionism and symptoms of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2023.2277121
- Stulp, H. P., Koelen, J., Schep-Akkerman, A., Glas, G. G., & Eurelings-Bontekoe, L. (2019). God representations and aspects of psychological functioning: A meta-analysis. Cogent Psychology, 6(1), Article 1647926. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2019.1647926
- Vansteenkiste, M., Ryan, R. M., & Soenens, B. (2020). Basic psychological need theory: Advancements, critical themes, and future directions. Motivation and Emotion, 44, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09818-1
- Wood, J. V., Forest, A. L., Friesen, J. P., Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & McNulty, J. K. (2024). Self-esteem and romantic relationship quality. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3(1), 27–41. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00247-z
