What is “the dark side of self-esteem?”

Critical Thinking Activities
Learning Objectives:
1. To be able to identify good arguments.
2. To be able to distinguish elements of critical thinking.
Starting with Module Three, I will pose a “critical thinking” question. You will not only need to answer that question, but you will also have to respond to student’s answers to that question. The purpose of this task is to give you a better sense of what those critical thinking questions should look like.
First, you should watch this video about the anatomy of a good critical thinking response:Good Critical Thinking Response Video

https://amara.org/en/videos/FEvJnvWLLOQc/info/anatomy-of-a-good-critical-thinking-answer/
This will help you to be able to make an argument as well as recognize a good argument.

Also, remember that it is your responsibility to check your file submissions to make sure you submitted the correct file (this is true for all assignments). Just because you receive a “successful file submission” notification from Canvas does not mean that the correct file was submitted. How do you check to see if you submitted the correct file?

, how these responses do or not possess characteristics of critical thinking. Keep in mind that a good critical thinking response has three primary parts:
1. The question or statement of the problem
2. Supportive evidence
3. Conclusions, implications, and consequences

Question 1:

What is “the dark side of self-esteem?”
Response A: The dark side of self-esteem alludes to the problems faced by the people with both very high and very low self-esteems. Those people with high self-esteem, including gang leaders, extreme ethnocentrists, and terrorists, tend to be very defensive of their egos. If they feel as though someone is trying to bring them down, they can resort to putting others down, or even violence. As our book says, “wounded pride motivates retaliation.” (Myers 2005: 64-65). On a similar note, those people with very low self-esteem have many problems of their own. They have a higher tendency to develop problems with depression, drug, and alcohol abuse, some delinquency, anxiety, loneliness, and eating disorders. They have a negative view on the world and the people in it. (Myers 2005: 64-66). Jennifer Crocker at the University of Michigan compared the different levels of self-esteem. Those with a need for others’ opinions of them to be positive and reassuring, had problems in school. They experienced stress, anger, relationship problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and eating disorders. Those students whose self-esteem was based on their own thoughts on themselves, rather than others’, had fewer occurrences of these problems. (Crocker and colleagues 2002, 2003, 2004) (Myers 2005: 66). A problem with the issue of self-esteem, as studied by Crocker and Lora Park (2004), is those who do try to find self-esteem usually lose sight of what is really important to have a happy life. They take criticisms even more harshly and blame others. (Myers 2005: 66)

Response B: Many people who have a higher than average self-esteem tend to be people we do not want to have to that high of a self-esteem because they are a bad influence. These people include but are not limited to teen gang leaders, extreme ethnocentrists, and terrorists. People with such a high self-esteem are potentially dangerous especially when their self-esteem is threatened. They tend to act out in violence and become very aggressive.
QUESTION 2:

The ease with which humans are subject to visual and other types of illusions suggests that the world is not necessarily the way we perceive it. What is your reaction to this statement?
Response A: People do not know for sure why we see optical illusions, but there are many popular explanations. Some people think we see illusions because of the physical traits of the eye. In science, when theories are made to help explain things they are usually believed until new evidence comes up that the theory cannot explain. That may be the case with optical illusions. (Oracle ThinkQuest Education)
Many people now believe that seeing optical illusions has to do with perspective or the way you look at something. Scientists who are trying to answer the question of why we see optical illusions have discovered that not everyone sees them in the same way. Even if all your friends see the same image, people around the world may not.
Back in the day, “seeing is believing” may seem to reign true, but does it? Of course, anyone can believe anything they see, but beliefs hold no requirement to objective reality, or does seeing, by itself, necessarily point to something “out there.” Although our eyes detect light, only the brain can “see,” and when we get caught believing what we see. (Illusion inside the mind, 252)
Response B: The world the way humans perceive it is based upon their absolute threshold and their willingness to believe theories and ideas that explain the unseen.
The absolute threshold is “the minimum amount of stimulus energy that an individual can detect” (Santrock 125). Therefore, if the stimulus energy is below the absolute threshold, the human cannot detect it. However, if the stimulus energy is above the absolute threshold, the human will be able to detect it. “People have different thresholds because some people have better hearing than others and some people have better vision than others” (Santrock 126).
Visual stimuli are based on each individual’s ability to distinguish between different wavelengths of light. Most humans are able to see light between the wavelengths of 400nm to 700nm, known as the visible light region. However, there is much more to the electromagnetic spectrum than visible light. “Outside the range of visible light is longer radio and infrared radiation waves and shorter ultraviolet and X rays. These other forms of electromagnetic energy continually bombard us, but we do not see them” (Santrock 132). For example, the sun emits rays that exceed the visible light region, hence the UV-A and UV-B protective suntan lotion advertisements. Although humans cannot see the ultraviolet rays that the sun emits, does not mean that they don’t exist.

Subliminal perception is “the ability to detect information below the level of conscious awareness” (Santrock 131). “A controversial example of subliminal perception involves the claim that recordings of some rock groups, when played backward, contain messages from Satan” (Santrock 127). It is believed by some that these messages influence a listener’s behavior.
A perceptual set is “a predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a particular way” (Santrock 131). The perceptual set that each human uses influence the way humans interpret sensory stimuli. Based upon each individual’s absolute threshold and perceptual set, each individual will perceive their environment differently. Accepting or not accepting theories and ideas presented by scientists and researchers to explain the unseen will vastly change the individual’s perception of the world around them.
Reference:
Santrock, John W. Psychology: Essentials, Second Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 2005. Pg. 126-127, 131-132.

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