Self-Esteem Patterns Distinctive of Groups of Drug Abusing and Other Dysfunctional Adolescents

Abstract

Self-report measures on 7 scales representing 4 broad processes of self-esteem were used to contrast 3 groups of human drug abusers (pretreatment, in-treatment and posttreatment), 2 other groups of institutionalized dysfunctional youth, and a normal public school sample, all from a population of white middle-class suburban adolescents. Multivariate analysis of covariance with adjustment for age and sex was used to compare the dysfunctional groups with the normal group. Discriminant analysis portrayed the dimensions of self-esteem separating all the groups. Pretreatment and in-treatment drug abusers had significantly lower scores on all 7 measures of self-esteem; posttreatment abusers did not show these decrements, but reported greater ease in sharing feelings than normals did. The learning disabled adolescents were not significantly different from the normal group, while runaways reported a lower sense of well being and greater ease in sharing feelings. These outcomes suggest that low self-esteem is not a general consequence of personal dysfunction per se, and may play a causal role in drug abuse.