Related Literature About Self-Esteem

This chapter presents the gathered literature regarding Loneliness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction as predictors of Internet addiction. A synthesis has been provided at the end of this chapter.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem refers most generally to an individual's overall positive evaluation of the self (Gecas 1982; Rosenberg 1990; Rosenberg et al. 1995). (Gecas 1982; Gecas & Schwalbe 1983) stated that it is composed of two distinct dimensions, competence and worth. The competence dimension (efficacy-based self-esteem) refers to the degree to which people see themselves as capable and efficacious. The worth dimension (worth-based self-esteem) refers to the degree to which individuals feel they are persons of value.
As cited by Burke and Cast (2002), (Rosenberg 1976, 1979) argued that for a period of time, there has been so much attention given to self-esteem that it appealed similar to self-concept in the literature of the self. This has been due to the association of high self-esteem with a number of positive outcomes for the individual and for society as a whole. (Baumeister 1993; Smelser 1989). As a support to that, an increase in individual’s self-esteem (especially a child or adolescent) would be beneficial not only to the individual, but also to the society as a whole.
As cited by Burke and Cast (2002), it

Furthermore, both systems are assumed to operate simultaneously, meaning that people can possess different levels of implicit and explicit self-esteem at the same time. In line with this, a concept of automatic threat defense mechanism was created; it is a routinized reaction to threat and aims to protects people by compensating the loss of explicit self esteem with an automatic increase in implicit in self esteem. Therefore, damaged self-esteem might be a direct result of implicit self-esteem compensation’s and consequently an indicator of psychological