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....Rather than seeing self-esteem as something that flows from good performance, they made self-esteem the first priority, assuming that good performance would flow from an inflated level of self-satisfaction. It's like those no-score ball games. The goal is good feelings. Everyone plays, no one loses, every kid gets a trophy. It's like the teachers' contracts --- no scorecard, no linking of pay hikes to performance, everyone's a winner. It's a mind-set that sees score-keeping as too judgmental, too oppressive, too capitalist, too likely to deliver inequality and injured self-images, whether it's with pay or on the ball field....

GAINESVILLE, Fla. ? Women who undergo breast enlargement often see a sizable boost in self-esteem and positive feelings about their sexuality, a University of Florida nurse researcher reports. Although plastic surgery should not be seen as a panacea for feelings of low self-worth or sexual attractiveness, it is important for health-care practitioners to understand the psychological benefits of these procedures, says Cynthia Figueroa-Haas, a clinical assistant professor at UF?s College of Nursing who conducted the study. The findings ? which revealed that for many women, going bigger is better ? appear in the current issue of Plastic Surgical Nursing. ?Many...

Judges: No proof 'murderous coward' label affected verdict in murder trial - If the label fits, wear it. That is the conclusion of judges on the state Court of Criminal Appeals about Knox County killer Christopher Shane Harrell's argument that his rights were violated when a prosecutor called him a "murderous coward." "We conclude that the state's reference to the defendant as a 'murderous coward' did not affect the verdict and prejudice the defendant," the court opined. "The state presented a strong case against the defendant, and much of the evidence was undisputed." Harrell is locked away for life for...

The study, conducted by five psychologists, examined the responses given by 16,475 college students, between 1982 and 2006, on a written personality test called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.....But the real source of today's narcissistic personalities, it seems to me, is the "liberation" movement of the 1960s (actually the late 1950s to early 1970s)....

The chickens have come home to roost. The first generation of students swaddled in the insanity of the self-esteem movement have emerged on the scene as arrogant, self-absorbed twits with an exaggerated sense of entitlement and self-importance. In short, they’ve been spoiled. Potentially, they’ve been ruined. The idiocy of social engineering in the classroom is again bearing catastrophic results. Here’s how we know. A group of five university professors has evaluated more than 16,000 personality profiles of college students gathered over the last 24 years. What they’ve discovered is that today’s young people have dramatically different self-concepts than the two...

NEW YORK -- Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. "We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already." Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an...

The rise of the self-esteem movement From the late 1960s on self-esteem became a fashionable and influential idea. One of the first exponents was a young psychology professor called Stanley Coopersmith from California. A more influential figure was Nathaniel Branden. Branden was a psychtherapist and devotee of the philosopher Ayn Rand. He has written countless books on self-esteem and is considered the intellectual father of the self-esteem movement. As we shall see in another section, Branden’s work is sophisticated and his definition of self-esteem, and notions of how it can be boosted, is a far cry from the exhortations to...

The dispatches arrived in a bunch and pointed too much to the same conclusion to be coincidence. The conclusion: We're doomed. And it's not al-Qaida doing us in. We're doing it to ourselves. In what is surely the tip of the social iceberg, a New England grade school has joined schools across the country in prohibiting the kids from playing tag at recess. Touch football is also banned. The schools are growingly - and legitimately - fearful of lawsuits over playground accidents by litigious parents. Seesaws and jungle gyms have long since disappeared from playgrounds. But there is probably more...

Central High School football coach Dave Cadelina found himself thrust into a national sports story this past week, though probably not one that he could have ever imagined before. Debate has raged across the nation about the possible dilution of one of this nation's proudest, most basic and most sacred traditions — high school football. That's because Cadelina violated a new, controversial Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference "score management policy," a policy that in essence says that anyone who coaches a football team that beats another team by more than 50 points faces a mandatory one game suspension.... Cadelina made clear...

Life is about contrasts. Happy and sad. Winners and losers. Pleasure and pain. Without bad days, how will you recognize good days when they come around? But to self-esteem despots, life is a even-steven proposition. Everyone, regardless of talent or temperament, perseverance or personality, is treated equally, even when they manifestly are not. The Associated Press recently recounted some of the horror stories arising from self-esteeming running amok. Many schools don't let children talk about sleepovers unless every child in the room has been invited. They don't let children hand out invitations to birthday parties if even one classmate is...

A few years ago, I was watching TV with an ex-girlfriend. It was an entertainment show that was doing an interview with actress Kate Hudson. She described her experience traveling abroad to Paris, France and being embarrassed by her fellow countrymen: "We're the most annoying, boisterous creatures in the world. I mean we come in and we eat mounds of food, and we're like, 'Where's the kaachup [sic] for our French fries?' I'm like, 'Shut up!' Sometimes I'll be walking down the street and I'll hear some American and I'll just go, 'Of course they hate us, of course they...

SAN DIEGO (UPI) -- A California psychologist says young people have become increasingly indifferent to the impression they make on others. Jean Twenge, the author of "Generation Me," teaches at San Diego State University. She gathered data from surveys taken between 1958 and 2001 by more than 40,000 youngsters. They featured questions aimed at whether the respondents always said "please" and "thank you" or were careful to dress appropriately. Twenge says that 76 percent of children aged 8 to 12 in 1999 were indifferent to social approval, up from 57 percent in 1970. Among those who were already in college...

Welcome to Counseling Dear Abby/Dolly will be a 3-4 times a year part of our Weekend singles Thread. Questions will come from YOU. Answers will come from Me… and you on the thread. Please kick in with your thoughts, disagreements, and personal stories. We can learn from each other.. And now.. ON WITH THE SHOW! Whew.. There are a boat load of questions & “situations” here which I will try to address. Good mental health involves being comfortable in one’s skin (even if it is less than perfect, ugly, repulsive, fat, skinny, deformed). Take a look at drop dead...

A few weeks ago, U.S. champion skier Bode Miller turned in a stunningly poor performance at the Olympics, with two non-medal finishes, a disqualification and two incomplete races. Unabashed, he told the Associated Press: "I just did it my way. I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here." Mr. Miller's exuberant self-assessment makes him "a poster child" for "Generation Me," says San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge. Americans born after 1970 -- including the so-called Generation X and Millennial Generation -- have become "an...

SEVERAL recent studies have garnered wide attention for reconfirming the tragic disconnection of millions of black youths from the American mainstream. But they also highlighted another crisis: the failure of social scientists to adequately explain the problem, and their inability to come up with any effective strategy to deal with it.[snip] Nor have studies explained why, if someone cannot get a job, he turns to crime and drug abuse. One does not imply the other. Joblessness is rampant in Latin America and India, but the mass of the populations does not turn to crime. And why do so many young...

The self-esteem theory, that so many people seem obsessed with these days, predicts that only those who feel good about themselves will do well — which is supposedly why all students need it. Yet the research has not supported the theory. Today, the largest and most familiar part of American Psychology is the popular psychology of self-esteem, now found throughout American society. Self-esteem and the obsession that so many have with it, is familiar to almost all of us these days. Self-esteem programs affect the lives of countless school children, because this idea, really an ideal, has been taken and...

Carole Dean got a shock when she drove up to her house in upscale Moraga on New Year's Eve. She estimates there were about 120 teenagers swarming the place, "drinking, making out and smoking pot.'' "I had to push them to get in the house,'' she says. "I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I yelled at them to 'Get out,' and they just disappeared, ran away or drove off.'' They left her to walk through her home in amazement. Someone had punched holes in the wall. Two doors were destroyed. The back deck was torn up....

Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister, "says a huge chasm has opened between the West and Islam, fuelled by Muslim frustrations over Western foreign policy," according to the BBC, in a story about the Mohammed caricatures. The Beeb claims that Abdullah is "promoting a moderate form of Islam," but his anti-democratic actions prove otherwise. Au contraire, Mr. Abdullah, it is your seething, Muslim masses that are the cause of this "chasm." Again, the BBC: As he spoke at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, thousands protested outside at Western cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. ... "Long live Islam. Destroy Denmark. Destroy Israel. Destroy...

True and False Humanism Secular Humanism rests on an unperceived fallacy. In effect it says that man can love and esteem himself more if he does not have to share that love and esteem with God. But love is something which grows the more it is shared. When men love God, their genuine self-love does not diminish, it increases. Finally, it is only because they love God that men are properly enabled to love themselves. THE TERM “HUMANISM” is ambiguous from a Christian stand point. In one sense its common use is to be welcomed, since it tends to make...

The former CBA teacher charged with raping an underage student was sentenced Monday morning. Sandra Beth Geisel, 42, said she has made mistakes and is very sorry. The former English teacher admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old student in her home back in May. She had been indicted on three rape counts. But in a deal with the DA's office, she pleaded guilty to one count of rape and was sentenced to six months in jail. An unexpected moment in court came when Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick said this is a very unique case because the 16-year-old is...