Word: selfesteem
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...regain his selfesteem, the loser typically reduces his anguish by explaining away his defeat. Show business's fallen stars often justify their decline in terms of a mysterious force known as The Breaks (another word for fate). Other losers absorb defeat by joining a less competitive game, such as local community activism, which gives them a new chance to emerge as winners...
Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian-born naturalist, believes that human aggressiveness is the instinct that powers not only self-preservation against enemies but also love and friendship for those who share the struggle. Overcoming obstacles provides selfesteem; lacking such fulfillment, man turns against handy targets-his wife, even himself. Polar explorers, deprived of quarrels with strangers, often start to hate one another; the antidote is smashing some inanimate object, like crockery. Accident-prone drivers may be victims of "displaced aggression." The once ferocious Ute Indians, now shorn of war outlets, have the worst auto-accident rate on record...
...posture of depression" in which the student becomes withdrawn, "seldom leaving his room, which has, like himself, become increasingly unkempt and uncared for." This may be accompanied by lack of appetite, headaches, constipation and loss of weight. > A decline in selfesteem, which shows up in daydreaming, procrastination in schoolwork, inability to concentrate on reading material, apathy and fatigue. > A loss of interest in academic work. The student may prefer "to thumb idly through magazines and science fiction, haunt movies, sit about all day listening to hi-fi or just languishing." >Suicide threats and notes, which "should always be taken seriously...
...more resistant is the typical U.S. offender: a failed male youth who wears the outcast labels of slum dweller, minority-group member, school dropout, unsuccessful employee and law violator. Stripped of selfesteem, this loser compensates by hating and hurting life's winners. And the U.S. criminal-justice system all too often reinforces his contempt for society's values. If the suspect cannot afford a skilled lawyer, he is pressured to plead guilty without a trial. For the same crime, different judges hand out wildly disparate sentences...
...needy supplicant begging for white assistance, but that of an equal who proclaims his self-sufficiency and his value as any man's ally. Many facets of Negro community life now reflect this concerted effort on the part of the Negro to elevate his own status and selfesteem...