Corresponding author. Tel: +989131707319 E-mail addresses: fm.esfahani@gmail.com (F. Monjezi) ( © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: 10.5267/j.msl.2013.03.002 Management Science Letters 3 (2013) 1197–1202 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Management Science Letters homepage: www.GrowingScience.com/msl The effect of self-scrutiny on improving women’s self-esteem: A case study of Esfahan women Farzaneh Monjezi a* , Mohammad Reza Iravani b , Mostafa Rajabi c and Hajar Jannesari d a Counseling advisor, Counseling group, Research & Science, Khouzestan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khouzestan, Iran b Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Islamic Azad University Khomeinishahr Branch, Daneshjou Blvd, Iran c Assistant Professor, Department of Economic, Islamic Azad University of Khomeinishahr, Islamic Azad University Khomeinishahr Branch, Daneshjou Blvd, Iran d MS Student, Counselling Department, Islamic Azad University of Khomeinishahr, Khomeinishahr Branch, Daneshjou Blvd, Iran C H R O N I C L E A B S T R A C T Article history: Received October 20, 2012 Received in revised format 19 February 2013 Accepted 28 February 2013 Available online March 1 2013 The proposed study of this paper investigates the effect of self-scrutiny on improving women’s self-esteem among 50 women who live in city of Esfahan, Iran. There are five hypotheses associated with the proposed study of this paper, which investigate whether teaching self- scrutiny skills increase women’s total, educational-vocational, general, social and family self- esteem. The proposed study of this paper uses three groups of pre-test post-test and control groups and it has been executed among 50 women aged 20-35 who lived in city of Esfahan, Iran based on Coopersmith questionnaire. The results of ANOVA test confirm all five hypotheses of this survey. In other words, scrutiny skills increase women’s total, educational- vocational, general, social and family self-esteem after control group participate in our training programs. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Self-scrutiny Self-esteem Esfahan 1. Introduction Self-esteem is a term implemented in psychology to demonstrate a person's overall emotional evaluation of his/ her own worth a judgment of oneself (Dubois & Tevendale, 1999; Pavlova et al. , 2011). According to Seger et al. (2009) self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how someone feels about it. There are different studies on learning the effects of various factors on improving self-esteem. Haddock and Gebauer (2011) reported that self-affirmation was particularly efficient for defensive self-esteem individuals in alleviating actual-ideal self- discrepancies. DeHart and Pelham (2007) reported that trait explicit self-esteem and self-concept could be moderated the within-person association between daily negative events and state implicit