What Does "Self-Worth" Mean?

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I don't understand what people mean when they say that they have low self-worth or no sense of self-worth.

"Worth" is a concept that requires a subject and an object: some thing (or person) is worth something (or nothing) to someone. The concept of "self-worth" suggests that the subject and the object are the same person: the self is/is not worth something to the self. That makes no sense to me.

I just looked it up. Dictionary.com's second definition is "self-esteem; self-respect." I suppose it is one of those idiomatic phrases that shouldn't be interpreted in terms of the meaning of the individual words.

But the first definition is "the sense of one's own value or worth as a person." Worth or value to whom? That's what I don't get.

How about changing "Self worth" to "belief in oneself"?

Hypothetical :

If you don't "believe in yourself" then you might do stupid things to ingratiate yourself with someone you do value/believe in.

It works the same...

I have so little "self worth" that I did somebody a favour and received nothing in return...and then they asked for another favour...and I did that too...for nothing in return.

If I have no "belief in myself" or if I have no "self worth" then I might believe that the favour I performed was only worth what I was worth. Nothing.

After coming out the other side of that situation...

I stopped doing what I was told by other people and started doing things for myself. I became more successful by doing so. I now have more "belief in myself" or "self worth" due to that success.

I have more "self worth" and/or "belief in myself" because my life is better when I take control of it rather than when I let other people control me.

With a higher degree of "belief in myself" or "self worth" I now make demands of other people rather than waiting for demands to be placed on me. I expect a level of respect and reciprocation and if I don't receive it then those people probably aren't trying to help me...they're trying to use me.

Last edited by Qimera on 03 Nov 2016, 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure what "believing in oneself" means either. In my mind, belief describes an attitude about the truthhood vs. falsehood or validity vs. invalidity of some statement or idea.

There's like a small collection of ambiguous phrases pertaining to self-perception that make no sense to me.

I think I kinda see the issue here. Maybe...

You're taking the phrase "self worth" or "belief in oneself" absolute dictionary literally whereas those phrases are usually used and understood in an emotive social context/perspective.

I can "picture" in my mind what's happening. I "see" the phrase "self worth" being overlaid with a social concept and I can put those things together to understand how those phrases are used in a conversation, socially.

If I had some good drugs I could probably split a couple of neurons and redefine ...everything...

But I'm all out of gum.

Maybe something will occur to me but...I'm not sure I can help you get anywhere with this. This needs a different mind to break these concepts down.

Self worth is not just social...it's...damn...self worth is self worth

I'm stumped here, but...this is kind of fascinating because I'm being forced to re-evaluate low-level concepts that I usually take for granted. If I can't help you then this post was certainly interesting all the same. Thank you.

I think you are right. I can see that those phrases shouldn't be interpreted literally, but I don't know the social/emotional meanings. I know that low self-worth has something to do with negative feelings about oneself, but which feelings? Shame? Hatred? Inadequacy?

It's difficult to describe emotions without incurring ambiguity.

Also, the experience of low self-worth in one person could be very different - or expressed very differently - for someone else.

For example...

One individual with low self-worth might decide to forgo a relationship because they don't consider themselves worthy of love and don't want to inflict themselves on another person.

Another individual with low self-worth might decide that he or she will "sleep with the first tramp that happens along" because they think that they're worth nothing except to be used and exploited by someone/anyone else. They might even be masochistically punishing themselves by doing something that makes them feel worse about themselves.

In the case of self worth, it does mean that the subject and the object are the same. But it gets complicated because unless you have some preset idea of what is or is not considered success, how does a person accurately gauge such a thing... so even when the idea about the self is supposed to come from the self, it still comes from what society considers ideal or not so much. It's less like 'self worth', and more like 'on a scale of one to ten, what is my score compared to those in my society.'. And where people will place themselves on that scale can often not be based in reality at all. It's a more abstract kind of concept dictated by already existing feelings/ideas of the individuals.

It's a weird circular, nonsensical mess. But it makes sense that it would be. Different people put different ideas of worth into all types of things. Take a used kleenex for example. I might think that thing was of great worth to me because it got the snot out of my head and made it easier for me to breathe. You might take a look at that used up thing and not only think it is worthless, but a disgusting thing to immediately be discarded. Someone else might not think about it at all. It varies from person to person.

Yeah, low self worth does have to do with negative feelings about oneself. And that usually is caused by other people who make them feel somehow bad about themselves. And then for whatever reason, the hurtful words/actions/insults of others somehow 'stick' to that person and they struggle to get over it. Some people never do get past hurtful things and always have low self worth even when they manage to accomplish great things other people cannot do.

It could be shame or hatred or inadequacy. It could be a lot of things, really. How each person feels their low self worth is going to vary from person to person based on their own life experiences and how they internalize them. I'm not an emotional type person and I have no issues with self worth, so I am in no way, shape or form, the best qualified to rattle off different emotion words to attach to self worth or lack thereof. But I think the idea is low self worth can be meshed up with any kind of negative emotion... and I think it generally has to do with emotions that make someone feel somehow less than others in a way that is important/meaningful/profound to them.

I don't like the things that made me who I am. I feel defective and useless in this world so I place no value on myself.

Valuing yourself is part of a token ritual and its like putting your best pursuit of energy or step forwards in situations where placing value on input,or appearance, hygiene and manners are lessons in life that teaches you things whereby someday you can study and do them for yourself. (some things take time and pratice).
If self worth comes into it, thats a different thing and not something you can always offer up. It is something you've got to find for yourself.