A Study of the Relationship between a Personal Philosophy of Human Nature (Good or Evil) and Self-Esteem

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to estimate the relationship between a personal philosophy of human nature (whether man is essentially good or evil) and an individual's self-esteem, as measured by the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory and the Self-esteem scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory. For 19 male and 21 female undergraduate students, correlations of age and sex with self-esteem were calculated. The multivariate analysis of variance indicated a nonsignificant relation between scores on philosophy of human nature of students and their scores on the two measures of self-esteem. Correlations of age and sex with self-esteem were also nonsignificant. The Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory scores and those on the Self-esteem scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory were significantly correlated at .59.

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