A study by Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick asked participants to say "I am a lovable person" to themselves sixteen times in four minutes. People with low self-esteem actually felt worse about themselves after the four minutes were up. Time's John Cloud offers several explanations for this failure of a commonly recommended mood-lifting technique. For one thing, he writes, "when people hear something they don't believe, they are not only often skeptical but adhere even more strongly to their original position." So if you think you're terrible, but tell yourself you're lovable, you may end up feeling even more terrible as a kind of rebellion.

A variant on this explanation is the finding that, "when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better." Most people, even if they have normal self-esteem, have probably walked away from excessive praise feeling weirded out, or wondering if the praiser really knows them very well. And blanket affirmations like "I am lovable" may be the self-talk version of excessive praise.

What Cloud doesn't address is how vague — and kind of depressing — the statement "I am lovable" is. Being lovable doesn't mean you're actually loved, or kind or interesting or smart or happy. Most people, in fact, are lovable at least to someone, and the word doesn't say anything about a person's actual being. Telling yourself that it is possible that someone could love you actually seems like setting the bar pretty low.

Compliments from other people tend to carry more weight the more specific they are. It's easy to brush off "you're great," less easy to ignore "what's great about you is how you approach new situations with such confidence." And while it's always harder to believe your own compliments than other people's, it might help to start with compliments that don't suck. We'd like to see a study where people were asked to come up with something specific that they authentically liked about themselves, and then repeat that bunch of times. They might end up feeling more than just "lovable."

Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking [Time]

A study of nearsighted kids aged eight to 11 (partly funded, we should note, by Johnson & Johnson, makers of contact lenses) found that girls felt better about their appearance, friends, performance in sports, and academic ability when they switched from glasses to contacts. But the results were only significant if the girls had disliked glasses to begin with. We asked contact-wearers on the Jezebel staff if the switch improved their self-esteem. Hortense says,

Yes, because my vision is so bad that I always had to wear glasses that were pretty unflattering, and with contacts I just felt lighter and happier due to not having 90 pound frames strapped to my face. My skin cleared up, too, because I used to break out where my nose pads from my glasses would touch my skin, so that was nice. I also was able to do simple things, like wear regular sunglasses, which I thought was pretty neat when I was 13.

No, because I was 13 at the time, and it's just not a great time for self esteem in general. It was also harder to hide from people without my glasses, which I realized, once they were gone, were a pretty nice security blanket.

Margaret says, "I felt much more attractive, but there were still plenty of other factors holding me down in high school." Megan just walked around without her glasses all the time, so getting contacts helped her see better. And Sadie can't wear contacts, so it's "Coke-bottles and low self-esteem for me." The switch from glasses to contacts doesn't involve much physical risk, and if it boosts a kid's self-esteem — or allows her to actually see — it seems worthwhile. But what about more invasive modifications?

USA Today's Mary Marcus talked with Kate Deleveileuse, who had 7 lbs. of fat removed from her calves via liposuction when she was 16. Deleveileuse was of normal weight, but "didn't feel confident wearing shorts and Capri pants and knee-high boots." Now 21, she says, "I by no means think I have a perfect figure, but I am proportionate. It helped my self-esteem."

Would Deleveileuse have gotten to this place without the surgery? As Hortense and Margaret point out, the teen years aren't known for high self-esteem, and almost every teenager has a part of their body that they hate. Marcus also mentions children with cleft palates, and a boy born without an outer ear, and for these kids, surgery seems like a more sensible option. But at a certain point, the likelihood that a kid will just grow out of his or her discomfort with a certain body part outweighs the risks of surgery. And don't we want to encourage acceptance of a variety of different appearances, rather than one idea of normalcy that teenagers need surgery in order to achieve?

Megan points out that, while your teenage self may stay with you your whole life, you also develop other selves you can choose to identify with. Hortense refers to Never Been Kissed, in which Drew Barrymore's character "yells, 'I'm not Josie Grossie anymore!' but in reality, she never really was 'Josie Grossie,' — other people but that label on her." My Josie Grossie period basically lasted from age 9 to age 18, during which time I had to wear a palate expander, braces, a contraption that pushed my lower lip out like a Neanderthal's, another palate expander, a retainer, and then braces again. Actually, I don't really remember anyone being mean to me about any of this, but I felt incredibly self-conscious, and the fact that I got my first boyfriend about a month after the braces finally came off seems a testament, not to my sudden hotness, but to the fact that I didn't have the confidence to flirt with anyone before then.

Would I have been better off with invisible braces, or some kind of oral surgery that fixed my teeth fast? It's hard to say. I think I got some good things out of not dating until I was 18 (a fuller sense of myself independent of guys, a first boyfriend who was old enough to be kind and respectful and interesting to talk to). On the other hand, the girl with the weird shit in her mouth is still inside me somewhere (as Sadie points out, our physical self-concepts are often formed early on), and sometimes it's harder for me to feel attractive because of that. But as Megan and Hortense say, that girl may be inside me, but she isn't me, and as a grown-up I have the confidence to know that. Gaining that confidence probably does more for most girls than plastic surgery ever will.

Cosmetic Surgeries: What Children Will Do To Look 'Normal' [USA Today]
Girls' Overall Self-Worth Improves With Contact Lens Wear, Study Shows [Breitbart]

Caitlin — whose idea is similar to the Dressing Room Project — started by taking a picture of a Post-It she left in her work bathroom that told the women after her that they were beautiful. She now encourages other women to send in the notes they leave for others in public places, like this one, left atop a women's magazine ad for cellulite cream.

Caitlin says that it doesn't just make others feel better about themselves, it helps the women leaving the notes as well.

People realize it makes them feel better - it can seem impossible to tell yourself you look beautiful, but it's easier to do it for someone else. And once you do it, I think it makes you rethink your own image, and maybe realize that you can look in the mirror and like what you see.

She thinks that women are harsher on their own bodies than they are on others', and hope that it can contribute to a real debate about what female beauty is.

I wish I knew why women were in this box, I really do. We have such narrow definitions for such a wide range of women. It means that we're setting up for failure - trying to attain an ideal that doesn't exist, and an idea of health that's different for every single body out there. Being healthy is person-by-person. You can't just box that into one ideal.

Caitlin hopes that by thinking outside that box — and posting those thoughts on mirrors — she can help women understand that living up to some external ideal isn't the only way for them to have self esteem.

Operation Beautiful: One Woman's Post-It Note Empowerment [True/Slant]

Related: Operation Beautiful
The Dressing Room Project

Let's all have matching desktop wallpaper (click to download larger version):

I also wanted to share this:

Times writer Max Roosevelt reports on a recent UC Irvine study, which shows that a third of the students think they deserve a B just for going to class, while 40% think they should get one for doing the reading. Vanderbilt University dean James Hogge says, "Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that 'if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.'" University of Maryland senior Jason Greenwood basically says exactly that:

"I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade," Mr. Greenwood said. "What else is there really than the effort that you put in?"

"If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?" he added. "If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher's mind, then something is wrong."

It's hard not to yell, "um, what about learning??" at this kid, which is pretty much what Michelle Cottle of The New Republic does in her blog post on the Times piece. "Not to state the obvious," she says, "but I don't want a brain surgeon who graduated at the top of his class because he had perfect attendance. I want one who is an artist with a scalpel."

Us too! But are kids' unrealistic expectations solely the result of what Cottle calls "all those well-intentioned self-esteem-boosting messages that anxious parents, educators, and coaches feel compelled to spout in this era of making every child feel like a winner all the time"? Or are we being too hard on kids as well as too soft on them? Sure, too much self-esteem boosting can make someone overconfident and lazy, but too much emphasis on grades can make them — well, obsessed with grades. The UCI study author gestures toward this conclusion, pointing out "a heightened sense of achievement anxiety" among today's students. Maybe if getting a C wasn't so unacceptable (and if you had or knew competitive parents in high school, you've heard the "how will you get into a good college now?" rant), kids wouldn't demand a B just for showing up. Maybe if we taught them that grades were a reflection of learning, rather than just a means to an end, they'd concentrate on their scalpel technique instead of the letters on their transcripts.

Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes[NYT]
An A for Effort? Talk About a Lousy Idea [The New Republic]

Today's New York Times reports that the bad economy is having little effect on the number of teens getting plastic surgery, and in fact, the number of people age 18 or younger who had cosmetic surgery more than tripled in the past 10 years, to 205,119 in 2007 from 59,890 in 1997. Liposuctions and breast augmentations are much more popular than they were a decade ago — remember Amanda from an episode of the View last July? —  and have increased more than sixfold.

Teens are often motivated to get plastic surgery because they believe their natural looks are inadequate. “Unlike adults who may elect cosmetic surgery for that ‘wow’ factor to stand out in a crowd, to be rejuvenated and get noticed, kids have a different mantra. They do it to fit in,” said Dr. Frederick Lukash, a New York plastic surgeon who specializes in adolescents. Dr. Lukash is especially familiar with why teens want to change their appearance because he has performed rhinoplasty on two of his three daughters, at the ages of 16 and 17.

All teens want to fit in, and the reality is that kids will often be teased for "abnormalities" such as ears that stick out "too far", or a crooked nose. But studies show that today, most kids think there is something wrong with the way they look naturally. 7 in 10 girls said they believed that when it came to beauty and body image they did not measure up, and only 10 percent thought they were "pretty enough," according to a recent survey of 1,000 American girls sponsored by the Dove Self-Esteeem Fund. “Our children are barraged with images of ideal women and men that aren’t even real, but computer composites,” said Jean Kilbourne, co-author of So Sexy, So Soon, a book on adolescents. “These girls and boys can’t compete. The truth is, no one can. And it leaves teens feeling more inadequate than ever and a lot of parents unsure as to the right thing to do.”

Often the parents and doctors who allow a child to get plastic surgery just want to spare them pain and increase their self esteem. Some even justify the plastic surgery by saying it will prevent other destructive behaviors like eating disorders, bullying, and self-mutilation. But while most doctors say they can judge how developed a teen's body is and if they are getting a procedure done for the "right" reasons, the long term effects are hard to predict. It's natural for teens to have issues with their looks because their bodies are changing so much and they're trying to figure out how to define themselves as adults. But accepting how you look is part of maturing, and if perceived imperfections are taken care of with a knife, teens may not be learning mentally how to be comfortable with their appearance.

Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery [The New York Times]
A Surgeon Finds Teenage Clients In His Own Family [The New York Times]

Earlier: Teen Girl Gets Lipo To "Prevent" Eating Disorder

Whereas women are affected more adversely by same-sex images, men weren't bothered by the pics of strapping beefcakes they were shown. Rather, "the cultural expectation for men is not that they have to be as attractive as their peers, but that they need to be attractive enough to be sexually appealing to women." Hence, the men who were given magazines full of pictures of "idealized" women who were "out of their league" unsurprisingly ended up feeling less than great about their own bodies by the end of the study.

As Professor Jennifer Aubrey notes, "the exposure to objectified females increased self-consciousness because men are reminded that in order to be sexually or romantically involved with a woman of similar attractiveness, they need to conform to strict appearance standards." We're guessing men aren't devoting a lot of conscious thought to this, which already makes the phenomenon somewhat less severe. But even so, it does beg a question: Models make women feel bad. They make men feel bad. So who exactly are they supposed to be appealing to?

Surprisingly, Female Models Have Negative Effect On Men [PhysOrg]