Self-esteem and self-concept also play an integral role in developing a self-understanding. Self-esteem is how worthy a person views themselves. Self-esteem is a general idea that represents collective, overall assessments, both positive and negative, of the self. How a person perceives themselves and how others perceive that person is very important in the evaluation of self-esteem. The evaluation of others and the evaluation of self are related and together determine a person's self-worth. Self-concept is domain-specific. In other words, self-concept is concerned with a single aspect of an individual, such as athletic, academic, physical appearance, social ranking, conduct, friendships, romantic appear, and competence. Where one may excel in one area, he or she may be lacking in another. These individual self-concepts total up to the overall idea of self-esteem.
In a study on self esteem and parent-child relations, it was found that boys with higher self esteem expressed affection, were concerned about normal male problems, had a good home environment, participated in family activities, gave help when boys needed it, set clear and fair rules, followed these rules, and allowed freedoms with well-defined limitations.
Parents and peers are a vital part to the adolescent's self-esteem. Parents and peers influence individuals in different ways, which leads to different levels of self-esteem. Different domains are affected at different rates and by different people. For instance, parents may push an individual to succeed academically or athletically; however, peers may pressure an individual to change their physical appearance. The generalized self-worth that emerges is profoundly shaped by how others view yourself.
While self-esteem varies throughout a person's lifetime and low self-esteem is usually temporary, long-term low self-esteem is a very dangerous thing. There are detrimental consequences to long-term low self-esteem, such as depression, suicide, eating disorders, and delinquency. While the nature of an adolescent is important to their evaluation of self-worth, external forces greatly influence an individual to do something drastic. Low self-esteem combined with external, often situational factors, are probably involve in murders and eating disorders. Negative variants in personality and individual self-concepts coupled with external situations, such like embarrassment or rejection, seem to influence violent thoughts among adolescents. Also, cultural influences, such as thin is beautiful, lead to eating disorders. A female with a normal weight may have low self-esteem because society promotes very thin as beautiful. In an effort to raise her self-esteem, the woman may diet, perhaps using extreme measures, to lose weight. For some, even at a grossly abnormal low-weight, they may continue to have low self-esteem based on being too fat. Similarly, the inability to meet cultural standards of beauty combined with low self-esteem is a contributing factor in suicide and depression.
An adolescent's self-esteem may be improved in different ways: (1) identify the causes of low-esteem and important domains to one's self, (2) provide emotional support and social acceptance, (3) encourage achievement and (4) help adolescents to cope. By identifying those things that are important to an individual, the individual can then overcome obstacles in their domain to raise self-esteem. Programs that provide emotional support and social acceptance aid individuals who come from negative backgrounds without any support structure or social context. By knowing which tasks and abilities are important in life, making achievement strives in those fields leads to higher self-esteem as well. In the idea of self-efficacy, it is believed that if a person succeeds in what he or she views as important, there will be positive outcomes. It is also true that resolving a situation by facing a problem head-on will increase an adolescent's self-esteem.