Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, Vol. 51, No. 6, 1224-1236 Copyright 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-35l4/86/$00.75 Global Self-Esteem: Its Relation to Specific Facets of Self-Concept and Their Importance Herbert W. Marsh Department of Education, University of Sydney, Australia Theory and common sense posit that the effect of a specific facet of self-concept on esteem will vary with the importance of the facet, but little support for this proposal was found in a study of late adolescents and young adults. Subjects, particularly those with high esteem, were more likely to have high self-concepts in facets they perceived to be more important, but their importance ratings did not contribute to the prediction of esteem. Unweighted averages of 12 distinct dimensions of self- concept correlated about .7 with Esteem, but weighting each facet by the importance assigned to it by the entire group, by diverse subgroups, or by each individual resulted in little or no improvement. Neither self-concept/importance interactions nor self-concept/importance discrepancies were able to explain much variance in Esteem beyond that which could be explained by specific facets of self- concept. Nevertheless, some support for the effect of importance was found for the Spiritual and Physical Abilities facets, and these were the two facets for which the perceived importance was most variable. Historically, self-concept research has emphasized the gen- eral or total self-concept, relegating specific facets of the con- struct only a minor role. More recent theoretical and empirical research has emphasized the multiple dimensions of self-con- cept (e.g., Byrne, 1984; Dusek & Flaherty, 1981; Fleming & Courtney, 1984; Harter, 1982; Marsh, Barnes, Cairns, & Tid- man, 1984; Marsh, Barnes, & Hocevar, 1985; Marsh & Shavel- son, 1985; Shavelson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976; Scares & Scares, 1982). In an extensive review of construct validation research, Byrne (1984, p. 427) concluded that self-concept "is a multidimensional construct, having one general construct and several specific facets." Shavelson and Marsh (1986; Marsh & Shavelson, 1985) reached similar conclusions in a review of re- search stimulated by Shavelson's model (Shavelson et al., 1976) and the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQ) instruments based on the model. They concluded that self-concept cannot be adequately understood if its multidimensionality is ignored. With the increased emphasis on the multidimensionality of self-concept, the specific facets have become more important and the role of general self-concept has become less clear. There is no widely accepted definition of how the general construct should be defined, and at least five operational definitions are common: (a) a hierarchical general self that appears at the apex of hierarchical models such as Shavelson's model; (b) a con- glomerate general self that is the total score from a hodgepodge of self-referent items that attempt to sample broadly from a range of characteristics; (c) a global self-esteem scale that is rela- I would like to thank Samuel Ball, Jenifer Barnes, Raymond Debus, Richard Shavelson, and Donald Spearritt for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Her- bert W. Marsh, Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. lively unidimensional and content free in that it is composed of items that infer a general sense of serf-worth or self-confidence that could be applied to many specific areas (e.g., the General Self scale from the SDQ III and other scales described by Harter, 1982, and Rosenberg, 1965); (d) a discrepancy general self for which ratings of specific facets of self (actual ratings) are sub- tracted from ideal ratings (e.g., Higgins, Klein, & Strauman, 1985; but also see Wyiie, 1974, for a critical discussion); and (e) a. weighted average general self where specific facets are weighted according to their salience, value, or importance (e.g., Hoge& McCarthy, 1984; Watkins, 1978). Role of Facet Importance and the Interactive Hypothesis The alternative conceptualizations of the general self con- struct have implications for the role of the importance of a spe- cific area of self-concept in determining general self-concept. Historically, William James (1890/1963) argued that failure in areas deemed to be unimportant has little impact on general self-esteem, and this contention has been reiterated by many theorists (e.g., Coopersmith, 1967;Harter, 1982,1983,1984,in press; Hoge & McCarthy, 1984; Rosenberg, 1965, 1979, 1982; Watkins, 1978; Wells & Marwell, 1976; Wylie, 1974). Cooper- smith (1967, p. 6) indicated that an individual's self-appraisals might vary in different areas so that "his overall appraisal of his abilities would presumably weight these areas according to -their subjective importance enabling him to arrive at a general level of self-esteem" but that "objective evidence on the method of arriving at general appraisals is sparse." Wylie (1974, p. 48) stated, "The sum is simple expedient in the face of ignorance and should be so recognized. Steps should be taken to weight item ratings according to their perceived salience to S, but this has not yet been tried." Rosenberg (1965, 1979; also see Hoge & McCarthy, 1984) proposed an interactive hypothesis, and one possible model of 1224 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.