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I think there are two ways you can look at it. One is what I think of as the neurotypical way. They spend a lot of energy on social modeling, on fitting people

I think there are two ways you can look at it. One is what I think of as the neurotypical way. They spend a lot of energy on social modeling, on fitting people into hierarchies of privilege. (E.g., "respecting your elders", older sibling vs younger, teachers vs students, the popular kids, and so many other things.) Then in the same way they're judging the worth of others, they fit themselves into the same primate status model. I think that's what the psychologist is talking about. Personally, I find that way not super useful. But another way is sort of reverse engineering. From how person X treats themself, what can we learn about how much they value their own self? Like you, I didn't have much of a concept of self-worth in the sense of "where do I place myself in the many hierarchies most people around me are constantly aware of." But a therapist eventually got me to see that I did not treat myself as worth the same as the people around me. Paying attention to that has improved my life a lot. The big question for me is to what extent the latter thing is influenced by the former. For neurotypical people I gather the link is pretty strong. For me it's definitely a weaker link, but it's hard to tell the difference between "there is no link" and "I don't notice the link".

BadHumans 2y ago
Not a psychologist but I am friends with more than a few. I don't know why you assume the psychologist meant the first because they did not. Self-worth has nothing to do with social hierarchy. It is how you treat yourself and a core thing therapist work on is helping you treat yourself the way you would treat others, with compassion and respect.
- wpietri 2y ago
  I thought maybe I was using the phrase wrong, but the first two definitions I find are "the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others" and "a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect". You'll note that those are both inherently social. And both "good enough" and "with respect" are about one's position in the caste/hierarchy structure. The reason I assume what the psychologist meant is that most of them are neurotypical, and neurotypical people are deeply invested in social primate dynamics. I understand that this is hard for neurotypical people to see, but you might read things like DeWaal's "Chimpanzee Politics" or Johnson's "Impro" [1]. Plus there's my personal experience, where psychologists are very inclined to talk about self-worth in the social sense. And I think that's fine; I'm sure it works well for their neurotypical patients. [1] particularly the section on status transactions, which are vital for authentic theater performances, but are rarely articulated because it's so natural to neurotypical people
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  I think what they simply meant is that neurotypical people are a lot busy with making models of hierarchies between people and finding out their own position within that hierarchy, and mostly automatically or unconsciously derive self worth from that. While some types of non neurotypical people don't automatically spend their mental energy on such thoughts and analysis. That is maybe why 'self worth' feels a strange term to them. They simply are who they are and will not try to come across as this or that type of person (helping, smart, empathetic, strong character etc) . Neurotypical people hence find the way they come across weird.
orbisvicis 2y ago
Are you suggesting that self-worth can only be defined as the sum of your perceived worth to others? That makes the 'self' in worth an oxymoron, no? To you, it seems the best way to achieve self-improvement is to maximize your value to others, i.e. by moving up the social hierarchy. But that doesn't imply that those who don't play the game have no worth, does it? I think you are conflating a sense of happiness with a sense of worth. They are not necessarily the same. For example I occasionally find myself in conflict with an acquaintance over a miscommunication. If after explaining the underlying conditions the other individual refuses to adjust their perception of me, I couldn't care less. That's their problem, not mine, even if they continue to spread their (possibly vile) misperceptions. Now if I had sucked up to them perhaps, yes, I would have improved my life. But what I did not do was reduce my self-worth.
- wpietri 2y ago
  I just described two different ways of thinking about self-worth, so I am not suggesting it "can only be defined" as anything.
detourdog 2y ago
I take comfort in seeing my experience described by others. I’m waiting on a neurological evaluation to see where on a spectrum I exist. I have been evaluated for a personality disorder of which none was found.
- wpietri 2y ago
  Hey, I'm glad to hear that. Some years back I came across a great online test, one created by autistic people. I can't find it now, but I strongly remember the graph, which showed a bimodal distribution and marked my place on it. [1] In the years following it was such a help, in that I could without judgement see how I and others related. It let me stop worrying so much about trying to be "right" and focus on being right for me. As long as I'm mentioning things that helped, I'll recommend this online alexithymia test: https://www.alexithymia.us/test-alexithymia https://www.alexithymia.us/test-alexithymia It looks at ability to perceive one's own feelings. Once I realized that I was relatively bad at it, it was such a relief. And in the years since I've gotten a lot better, because I knew I needed to work harder at it than the average person. [1] If that rings a bell for anybody, I'd love to know!

BadHumans 2y ago

Not a psychologist but I am friends with more than a few. I don't know why you assume the psychologist meant the first because they did not. Self-worth has nothing to do with social hierarchy. It is how you treat yourself and a core thing therapist work on is helping you treat yourself the way you would treat others, with compassion and respect.

wpietri 2y ago
I thought maybe I was using the phrase wrong, but the first two definitions I find are "the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others" and "a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect". You'll note that those are both inherently social. And both "good enough" and "with respect" are about one's position in the caste/hierarchy structure. The reason I assume what the psychologist meant is that most of them are neurotypical, and neurotypical people are deeply invested in social primate dynamics. I understand that this is hard for neurotypical people to see, but you might read things like DeWaal's "Chimpanzee Politics" or Johnson's "Impro" [1]. Plus there's my personal experience, where psychologists are very inclined to talk about self-worth in the social sense. And I think that's fine; I'm sure it works well for their neurotypical patients. [1] particularly the section on status transactions, which are vital for authentic theater performances, but are rarely articulated because it's so natural to neurotypical people
nuancebydefault 2y ago
I think what they simply meant is that neurotypical people are a lot busy with making models of hierarchies between people and finding out their own position within that hierarchy, and mostly automatically or unconsciously derive self worth from that. While some types of non neurotypical people don't automatically spend their mental energy on such thoughts and analysis. That is maybe why 'self worth' feels a strange term to them. They simply are who they are and will not try to come across as this or that type of person (helping, smart, empathetic, strong character etc) . Neurotypical people hence find the way they come across weird.

orbisvicis 2y ago

Are you suggesting that self-worth can only be defined as the sum of your perceived worth to others? That makes the 'self' in worth an oxymoron, no? To you, it seems the best way to achieve self-improvement is to maximize your value to others, i.e. by moving up the social hierarchy. But that doesn't imply that those who don't play the game have no worth, does it? I think you are conflating a sense of happiness with a sense of worth. They are not necessarily the same. For example I occasionally find myself in conflict with an acquaintance over a miscommunication. If after explaining the underlying conditions the other individual refuses to adjust their perception of me, I couldn't care less. That's their problem, not mine, even if they continue to spread their (possibly vile) misperceptions. Now if I had sucked up to them perhaps, yes, I would have improved my life. But what I did not do was reduce my self-worth.

wpietri 2y ago
I just described two different ways of thinking about self-worth, so I am not suggesting it "can only be defined" as anything.

detourdog 2y ago

I take comfort in seeing my experience described by others. I’m waiting on a neurological evaluation to see where on a spectrum I exist. I have been evaluated for a personality disorder of which none was found.

wpietri 2y ago
Hey, I'm glad to hear that. Some years back I came across a great online test, one created by autistic people. I can't find it now, but I strongly remember the graph, which showed a bimodal distribution and marked my place on it. [1] In the years following it was such a help, in that I could without judgement see how I and others related. It let me stop worrying so much about trying to be "right" and focus on being right for me. As long as I'm mentioning things that helped, I'll recommend this online alexithymia test: https://www.alexithymia.us/test-alexithymia https://www.alexithymia.us/test-alexithymia It looks at ability to perceive one's own feelings. Once I realized that I was relatively bad at it, it was such a relief. And in the years since I've gotten a lot better, because I knew I needed to work harder at it than the average person. [1] If that rings a bell for anybody, I'd love to know!