The Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Social Conformism at Roma People Teenagers

• Author: Neaga Susanu
• Pages: 433-436

New Trends in Psychology

433

New Trends in Psychology

The Relationship between Self-Esteem and Social

Conformism at Roma People Teenagers

Susanu Neaga1

Abstract: Throughout this paper, I wanted to highlight that a very high or a very lo w self-esteem at Roma

people teens may be the cause of a non-social conformism.The research sample was composed of a

homogeneous group of subjects consisting of 40 teenagers, all stu dents (boys) belonging to the same

community. I have aimed to a group that comes from similar socio -economical and educational environment.

The hypothesis hasn’t been confirmed, which indicates that there may be other factors that could cause

significant changes such as personality factors, educational level, representative models of ethnicity etc.

Keywords: self-esteem; social conformism; teenagers; Roma people; ethnicity

Self-esteem refers to one’s confidence in his own ability to think and the ability to meet the challenges

of human life; it’s the confidence in the right and ability to be happy, to the feeling that we have the

right to state our needs and wishes and to meet our values and enjoy the results of our efforts. (Albu,

2002)

Throughout time it has been established that self-esteem may vary depending on the circumstances and

companions, so we can talk about several forms of self-esteem, which can have different values

independent of each other.

A person may display a high self-esteem in his/her professional life and at the same time, a low self-

esteem in his/her emotional life or vice versa. Self-esteem is linked with several features of the

individual among which the most important are: creativity, rationality, ability to manage failures,

changes and recognition of errors. Every individual chooses a personal lifestyle which would be

influenced by the level of self-esteem of a certain important person of his life. According to Andre &

Lelord (1999), there are three sides of an individual on which self esteem is based on and emerges from:

self-confidence, self-concept and self-love.

- self- confidence: “means that one can see that he can manage daily challenges. It means to

trust one’s own ability to think, to learn, to choose, to decide, to adapt to changes. …And it

means that one knows that he desires to be happy. Having this basic trust is a matter of survival.

Recognizing what feeds self-esteem and what damages it is one of the challenges to be faced with

in order to have a lucid and conscious living. Because reality is sometimes different from what

we believe in.” Nathaniel Branden (2008).

1 Lecturer Professor Doctor