Why do I only feel good about myself when I’m helping others?

Many people develop usefulness based self worth, meaning self esteem rises when you’re needed and drops when you’re not. Helping becomes proof that you deserve love, belonging, or attention. Over time, your nervous system learns “useful equals safe,” so rest or neutrality can trigger guilt, anxiety, or emptiness even when nothing is wrong.

What is “usefulness based self worth” in simple terms?

Usefulness based self worth is when you value yourself mainly for what you do for other people, not for who you are. It’s a type of contingent self worth, where confidence depends on meeting a condition. The condition is being helpful, productive, emotionally available, or indispensable.

Is this the same thing as people pleasing?

It overlaps, but it’s not identical. People pleasing is often a behavior, saying yes to avoid conflict or rejection. Usefulness based self worth is the belief underneath: “If I’m not useful, I’m not lovable.” You can stop people pleasing scripts and still feel shaky inside until you address the worth belief itself.

Why do I feel guilty when I rest or do nothing?

Guilt often shows up when rest violates an internal rule. If your inner rule is “I must earn rest,” then relaxing feels wrong, even if you’re exhausted. This guilt is not evidence that you’re lazy. It’s evidence that your self worth has been tied to output, caretaking, or constant responsibility.

Can I be a helpful person without tying my worth to being useful?

Yes, and that’s the goal. Healthy helping comes from choice, capacity, and values. Unhealthy helping comes from fear, urgency, and a need to prove yourself. reminded that you can contribute and still have boundaries, preferences, and downtime without “losing” your value.

What are the signs I’m overfunctioning in relationships?

Common signs include jumping in before someone asks, fixing emotions that aren’t yours to manage, feeling anxious when you can’t help, resentment followed by self shame, and choosing partners or friends who rely on you. Overfunctioning often feels like love, but it can be a strategy to feel needed and secure.

Why do I attract people who take too much?

Often you don’t attract them as much as you tolerate them. When your self esteem depends on being needed, you may unconsciously accept one sided dynamics because they confirm your role. The relationship feels familiar: you give, they receive, and you earn a temporary sense of worth.

How do I stop needing external validation to feel worthy?

Start by reducing the “proof habit” in small ways. Delay your yes, let someone solve their own discomfort, and practice receiving help without compensating. The aim is not to become indifferent, but to build internal validation through self respect, self compassion, and consistent boundaries that prove you matter even when you’re not performing.

What’s a quick exercise to break the “I must be useful” loop?

Try the two sentence pause. First sentence: “What am I feeling right now that I’m trying to regulate by helping?” Second sentence: “What would support me in this moment if I didn’t have to earn it?” Even a 30 second pause can shift helping from compulsion to choice.

How do I set boundaries without feeling like a bad person?

Boundaries often feel cruel when you’ve been trained to buy belonging with usefulness. Reframe the boundary as honesty, not rejection. You are not harming someone by naming your capacity. You’re protecting the relationship from resentment and protecting yourself from self betrayal, which is usually the deeper wound.

What if I stop being useful and people leave?

Some people may resist because the old dynamic benefited them. That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It means the relationship depended on your overgiving. Healthy relationships adapt. If someone only stays when you overfunction, you’re not losing love, you’re losing a contract that required you to disappear.

Can therapy help with contingent self worth and overgiving?

Yes. Approaches like compassion focused therapy, schema therapy, attachment informed therapy, and trauma informed CBT can help you untangle shame, conditional worth beliefs, and people pleasing patterns. Therapy can also help you tolerate the discomfort that arises when you stop proving your value through usefulness.

How long does it take to build self worth that isn’t performance based?

It varies, but many people notice meaningful change in weeks when they practice consistently. The deeper shift is nervous system learning: “I can rest and still belong.” Expect some discomfort early on, because you’re unlearning a coping strategy. With repetition, the guilt softens and self respect becomes more stable.

Is it selfish to prioritize myself sometimes?

Prioritizing yourself is not selfish, it’s sustainable. Selfishness ignores others’ humanity. Self respect includes your humanity. When you care for yourself, you become less resentful, more honest, and more available in ways that don’t cost you your identity.

Why You only like Yourself when You’re useful: The hidden psychology of “earned” self worth

There’s a particular kind of confidence that shows up when you are needed.

When someone messages you with a problem and you know exactly what to say, you feel steady. When you rescue a deadline, smooth a conflict, remember everyone’s birthdays, anticipate what your partner needs before they ask, your body softens a little. You become warmer to yourself. You feel, for a moment, like you make sense.

Then the request ends. The crisis resolves. The room gets quiet. And something inside you drops.

It is not always sadness. Sometimes it is restlessness, like you forgot something important. Sometimes it is guilt, like you are taking up space you have not paid for. Sometimes it is a dull emptiness, as if your inner light is motion activated and only turns on when someone walks past.

If you recognize this pattern, the problem is not that you are helpful. The problem is that helpfulness has become your proof of worth.

This article is for the person who secretly fears they are lovable only when they are useful, who feels safest when they are performing a role, who struggles to enjoy themselves unless they are producing something, fixing something, or carrying someone. We will name the psychology behind it, map the “usefulness loop,” and then rebuild a self relationship that does not require constant evidence.

This is not about becoming selfish. It is about becoming real.

The “useful self” isn’t a personality trait, it’s a strategy

When people say “I’m just a helper,” it often sounds like identity. Underneath, it is usually adaptation.

A usefulness based identity is frequently built from a specific emotional math:

If I contribute, I belong. If I stop contributing, I disappear.

That equation can start in childhood, but it also gets reinforced by adult systems. Many workplaces reward overfunctioning and call it “initiative.” Many relationships reward emotional labor and call it “being easy to love.” Social media turns visibility into currency and trains the nervous system to equate attention with safety, especially when self evaluation becomes contingent on external signals.

So you learn a shape that gets rewarded. You become competent. You become dependable. You become the one who can be counted on.

And because the world actually benefits from your competence, nobody calls it what it sometimes is: a self worth survival plan.

There is a term in psychology that fits this pattern closely: contingent self worth, meaning your sense of value depends on meeting certain conditions. Those conditions can be achievement, approval, appearance, being needed, being “the strong one,” or being morally good. When self worth is contingent, it rises and falls with performance and feedback, rather than staying relatively stable.

In other words, you do not merely enjoy being useful. You use usefulness to regulate your self view.

Usefulness based self worth: What’s appening under the hood

A powerful lens here is Self Determination Theory, which focuses on basic psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When these needs are supported, motivation tends to feel volitional and nourishing. When they are not supported, motivation can shift into more controlled forms, including introjected regulation, the inner pressure that says “I must do this to feel okay about myself.”

Usefulness based self worth often lives in that introjected zone. It can look like generosity on the outside, while feeling like obligation on the inside.

Here is the emotional mechanism in plain language:

You learned that being loved, valued, or safe was linked to what you provided.
So your nervous system equates usefulness with belonging.
So you chase usefulness to prevent rejection, shame, or invisibility.

Research on conditional regard helps explain how this pattern develops. Conditional regard means receiving more warmth, approval, or closeness when you meet expectations, and less when you do not. Meta analytic findings link parental conditional regard with greater contingent self esteem, and the broader literature suggests it can teach a child that love must be earned.

Conditional regard also shows up in adult relationships. Studies in romantic contexts have examined how conditional patterns relate to stress and relationship adjustment, reinforcing that “love as a reward” does not stay in childhood.

Now add attachment dynamics. When secure attachment is low and insecure attachment is higher, self criticism tends to be higher as well, and self criticism is one of the fuels that keeps usefulness based self worth running.

This is why you can be adored by people and still not feel lovable. Your mind is not tracking love, it is tracking conditions.

The usefulness loop: A map You can actually recognize

If your pattern feels confusing, it helps to see it as a loop rather than a flaw.

Here is a common “usefulness loop” written in the language of lived experience:

Need appears → you step in fast → you get relief and approval → your self liking spikes → you overextend → you feel depleted or resentful → you judge yourself for feeling resentful → you try harder to be “good” → another need appears.

Now in arrows, so your brain can hold it:

Anxiety about worth → proving through usefulness → short term relief → deeper dependency on proving → exhaustion → shame → more proving.

The loop is not powered by kindness. It is powered by fear.

And the cruel part is that it often works, temporarily. People do appreciate you. You do become necessary. You do get invited back. That short term reward makes the loop feel like reality.

Over time, however, contingent self worth is associated with greater vulnerability to distress, especially when the condition is threatened or removed.

So the more you rely on usefulness to feel okay, the more terrifying it becomes to rest.

Person standing at the split between bright light and dark shadow, symbolizing self worth and the struggle to like yourself when you’re only valued for being useful.

Two kinds of usefulness: The one that heals, and the one that hurts

Not all usefulness is a problem. Contribution is human. Meaningful giving can boost connection and purpose.

The difference is not what you do. The difference is what you believe it says about you.

Here is a table that many readers tell me feels like being “caught kindly”:

Theme	Chosen contribution	Earned belonging
Inner driver	“I want to help.”	“I must help to be okay.”
Body signal	Energized, open, resourced	Tight, urgent, braced
Boundaries	Flexible, clear, respectful	Porous, guilty, reactive
After helping	Warm, satisfied, still yourself	Empty, anxious, scanning
If you say no	Some discomfort, still self respect	Shame spiral, fear of rejection
Core belief	“I matter, and I also contribute.”	“I matter only if I contribute.”

If your nervous system is in the second column most of the time, you are not “too nice.” You are running a worth economy.

Subtle signs You only like Yourself when You’re useful

Some signs are obvious, like chronic overcommitting. But the most telling signs are often quiet.

You feel uneasy receiving. Compliments land like confusion. Someone offers help and you reflexively decline, not because you do not need it, but because receiving makes you feel exposed. That pattern can be linked to fears, blocks, or resistances to compassion, including compassion directed toward the self.

You over explain your needs. When you ask for rest, you build a case. When you set a boundary, you produce evidence. Your boundary sounds like a courtroom closing statement because you feel you must justify your right to exist without output.

You resent people and then hate yourself for resenting them. You think, “I’m such a bad person,” instead of noticing, “My capacity is being exceeded.”

You panic when life gets quiet. Free time feels like danger. If you are not needed, your mind hunts for problems to solve, because problem solving has become your doorway to self respect.

You confuse love with reliance. You feel closest to people when they depend on you. If a relationship becomes balanced, you feel strangely irrelevant.

You aim for indispensability. Not excellence, indispensability. That is a different goal, and it creates a different life.

The costs nobody sees: Burnout, identity loss, and “invisible loneliness”

The world often praises usefulness based self worth because it looks functional. Inside, it can be expensive.

Burnout is not only about workload, it’s also about self pressure

The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, characterized by exhaustion, mental distance or cynicism, and reduced efficacy.

If your self worth is work contingent, stress becomes more than stress. It becomes a threat to identity.

Work contingent self esteem research has examined how tying self esteem to work can shape motivation and well being, including costs when performance or validation fluctuates.

And broader work addiction research has also discussed how self esteem contingencies relate to patterns of heavy work investment.

So even when you “choose” to overwork, it may not feel like choice in your body. It feels like survival.

Resentment is often grief in disguise

Resentment is frequently a signal that you have been giving beyond your values and beyond your capacity.

If you only feel good about yourself when you are useful, you will keep giving even when you are depleted, because depletion feels safer than being unnecessary.

Then resentment appears. Then shame appears. Then you try to become even more useful to compensate for the shame.

This is how good hearts get trapped.

You lose access to Your “non functional self”

Many people with usefulness based self worth cannot answer simple identity questions without referencing roles.

What do you like, not what are you good at
What do you enjoy, not what are you productive at
What feels nourishing, not what is impressive

When your self liking is conditional, play can feel pointless and rest can feel morally suspicious.

This is why so many high functioning helpers experience a specific loneliness: they are surrounded by people who love what they provide, and they are starving for someone to love who they are when they provide nothing.

Why self compassion can feel impossible when Your worth is conditional

Here is a paradox you may recognize: you can offer compassion to others easily, but compassion toward yourself feels fake, embarrassing, or undeserved.

That is not because you are broken. It may be because self compassion threatens the system that has kept you safe.

If usefulness has been your ticket to belonging, then unconditional kindness toward yourself can feel like breaking the rules. It can even trigger fear: “If I stop pressuring myself, I will become lazy, unlovable, replaceable.”

Research on fears of compassion suggests that fears, blocks, and resistances to compassion are meaningfully associated with mental health difficulties and vulnerability factors like shame and self criticism.

And the encouraging part is that self compassion related interventions show effectiveness in reducing self criticism, which is one of the engines of contingent self worth.

So if self kindness feels hard, it is not a sign you should quit. It is a sign you are touching the locked door that leads out.

A new model: From “worth economy” to “worth ecology”

Most advice tells you to “set boundaries” and “stop people pleasing.” Helpful, but incomplete.

If your self worth is contingent, boundaries feel like betrayal. You need a deeper shift: from a system where worth is earned, to a system where worth is inherent and expressed.

I like to call this a move from worth economy to worth ecology.

A worth economy asks: What do I produce, what do I provide, what do I prove
A worth ecology asks: What nourishes me, what depletes me, what helps me grow, what helps me connect

In an ecology, you do not have to justify rest. Rest is part of the system.

The “self worth ledger” exercise (simple, uncomfortable, effective)

Imagine your mind keeps a ledger, like emotional accounting.

On the left side: what you give, what you fix, what you anticipate, what you carry.
On the right side: the right to take up space, the right to be loved, the right to relax.

If you secretly believe the right side must be “paid for,” you will never feel done.

Try this for one week: each evening, write one paragraph answering a single question.

“What did I do today that had nothing to do with being useful, and can I let that count as a real part of me”

At first, the answer may be “nothing.” That is information, not failure.

Then start planting “non useful proof of self” on purpose. Not to perform it, but to reclaim it.

A slow walk with no productivity podcast.
A meal eaten without multitasking.
A choice made because you like it, not because it optimizes you.

You are teaching your nervous system a new association:

Being alive → still worthy.

Sketch of a person at a crossroads labeled “Earned Self Worth” and “Nonfunctional Self,” exploring how to like yourself beyond usefulness and build stable self worth.

The boundary problem is often a belonging problem

Many readers have tried boundaries. The scripts were good. The execution failed.

If that is you, you might not have a boundary skill issue. You might have a belonging wound.

Because for someone with usefulness based self worth, the real fear is not conflict. The real fear is abandonment.

This is why a “no” can trigger a full body alarm.

So we build boundaries differently. We build them as belonging with yourself, first.

Here is a reframe that changes everything:

A boundary is not a wall.
A boundary is a truth you are willing to stay loyal to.

When you keep betraying your own limits to maintain connection, you are teaching yourself that you are not a safe place to live.

When you practice one small loyal act, you repair that relationship.

Micro loyalty: The smallest unit of self respect

Choose one daily moment where you stop performing usefulness.

It can be tiny.

When someone asks “Can you do this now,” you pause and say, “Let me check and get back to you.”
When your friend vents, you ask, “Do you want comfort or solutions.”
When your partner is moody, you do not take emotional responsibility for it automatically.

These are small, but they interrupt the loop.

A practical reset plan that doesn’t require You to become a different person

Below is a six week structure. You can move slower. The point is progression, not perfection.

Week	Focus	What you practice in real life
Week 1	Notice the loop	You name the moment usefulness becomes urgency, and you breathe before acting
Week 2	Separate care from compulsion	You help in one situation from choice, and in one situation you delay or decline
Week 3	Build non useful identity	You schedule small “pointless” pleasures and treat them as legitimate
Week 4	Repair self talk	You replace inner debt language with dignity language
Week 5	Boundaries as belonging	You make one boundary that protects rest, and you tolerate the discomfort kindly
Week 6	Receive without earning	You accept help, compliments, or softness without paying for it

What matters most is Week 4, because the language you use inside becomes the laws you live under.

Here are some translations that create freedom. Read them slowly and notice which ones make you emotional.

Old inner script →	New inner script
“I should do more.” →	“I have done enough for today.”
“If I rest, I’m lazy.” →	“Rest is maintenance, not a moral failure.”
“They’ll be disappointed.” →	“Disappointment is survivable, self betrayal is costly.”
“I don’t want to be a burden.” →	“I am allowed to have needs in relationships.”
“I’m only valuable when I contribute.” →	“My contribution is meaningful, and my worth is not conditional.”

This is not positive thinking. This is nervous system retraining through repetition.

When You stop being useful, You might feel worse before You feel better

This is important: when you interrupt a coping strategy, the feelings it was covering will rise.

If usefulness was managing anxiety, then saying no might temporarily increase anxiety.
If usefulness was managing shame, then resting might temporarily trigger shame.
If usefulness was managing loneliness, then not fixing might reveal loneliness.

That does not mean you are doing it wrong. It means you are finally meeting your real needs.

Self esteem research emphasizes that self esteem can shift in response to life events and contexts. That means change is possible, but it also means your system may react while it recalibrates. compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

So treat the discomfort as data. Ask, with curiosity:

“What feeling is usefulness protecting me from right now”

Then offer yourself the thing you were trying to earn.

–

If it is reassurance, give reassurance.
If it is safety, create safety.
If it is belonging, reach for connection that does not require performance.

This is how the loop ends.

The relationship test: Who loves You, and who loves what You provide

This section can sting, but it can also save you years.

Some relationships are built on mutual care. Some are built on your emotional labor.

When you begin to detach worth from usefulness, you may notice a shift: a few people will lean in closer, because they love the real you. A few people may pull away or apply pressure, because the old arrangement benefited them.

That does not make them villains. It makes the dynamic visible.

Research on conditional regard in romantic contexts underscores how conditional patterns can be linked with stress and relational outcomes.

If you have been lovable by being convenient, your authenticity may feel disruptive at first. Stay with it.

A healthy bond can tolerate your humanity.

Even if you are not an influencer, social media can train a subtle contingency: you get rewarded for being useful publicly.

You share advice, people praise you, you feel real for a second.
You post less, engagement drops, you feel oddly irrelevant.

Studies have examined social media contingent self worth and how it can interact with experiences like social anxiety and authenticity, pointing to the emotional stakes of visibility when self evaluation becomes contingent.

If your nervous system already equates usefulness with value, online reinforcement can deepen the groove.

A gentle experiment: create one day per week where you consume less content that turns you into a project. Choose content that returns you to being a person.

Not optimized. Not fixed. Alive.

A truth that might land softly

If you only like yourself when you’re useful, it does not mean you are shallow or attention seeking.

It means you learned, somewhere along the way, that love had conditions.

So you became impressive.
You became reliable.
You became easy to keep.

But you do not heal by becoming less helpful.

You heal by becoming less afraid that your helpfulness is the only reason you deserve to exist.

Here is the sentence I want you to borrow until it becomes yours:

I am allowed to be loved in seasons when I give less. I am still myself when I am not performing. I can belong without earning.

If this article mirrored your life, consider choosing one tiny act this week that proves a new idea to your body:

Sit down before you are finished.
Say “let me think about it” instead of yes.
Receive help without apologizing.
Do one beautiful, pointless thing.

Not to be better.

To be free.

Split portrait in red and blue, symbolizing the inner divide between earned self worth and authentic self, and the struggle to like yourself without being useful.

FAQ: Why You only like Yourself when You’re useful

Why do I only feel good about myself when I’m helping others?

Many people develop usefulness based self worth, meaning self esteem rises when you’re needed and drops when you’re not. Helping becomes proof that you deserve love, belonging, or attention. Over time, your nervous system learns “useful equals safe,” so rest or neutrality can trigger guilt, anxiety, or emptiness even when nothing is wrong.
What is “usefulness based self worth” in simple terms?

Usefulness based self worth is when you value yourself mainly for what you do for other people, not for who you are. It’s a type of contingent self worth, where confidence depends on meeting a condition. The condition is being helpful, productive, emotionally available, or indispensable.
Is this the same thing as people pleasing?

It overlaps, but it’s not identical. People pleasing is often a behavior, saying yes to avoid conflict or rejection. Usefulness based self worth is the belief underneath: “If I’m not useful, I’m not lovable.” You can stop people pleasing scripts and still feel shaky inside until you address the worth belief itself.
Why do I feel guilty when I rest or do nothing?

Guilt often shows up when rest violates an internal rule. If your inner rule is “I must earn rest,” then relaxing feels wrong, even if you’re exhausted. This guilt is not evidence that you’re lazy. It’s evidence that your self worth has been tied to output, caretaking, or constant responsibility.
Can I be a helpful person without tying my worth to being useful?

Yes, and that’s the goal. Healthy helping comes from choice, capacity, and values. Unhealthy helping comes from fear, urgency, and a need to prove yourself. reminded that you can contribute and still have boundaries, preferences, and downtime without “losing” your value.
What are the signs I’m overfunctioning in relationships?

Common signs include jumping in before someone asks, fixing emotions that aren’t yours to manage, feeling anxious when you can’t help, resentment followed by self shame, and choosing partners or friends who rely on you. Overfunctioning often feels like love, but it can be a strategy to feel needed and secure.
Why do I attract people who take too much?

Often you don’t attract them as much as you tolerate them. When your self esteem depends on being needed, you may unconsciously accept one sided dynamics because they confirm your role. The relationship feels familiar: you give, they receive, and you earn a temporary sense of worth.
How do I stop needing external validation to feel worthy?

Start by reducing the “proof habit” in small ways. Delay your yes, let someone solve their own discomfort, and practice receiving help without compensating. The aim is not to become indifferent, but to build internal validation through self respect, self compassion, and consistent boundaries that prove you matter even when you’re not performing.
What’s a quick exercise to break the “I must be useful” loop?

Try the two sentence pause. First sentence: “What am I feeling right now that I’m trying to regulate by helping?” Second sentence: “What would support me in this moment if I didn’t have to earn it?” Even a 30 second pause can shift helping from compulsion to choice.
How do I set boundaries without feeling like a bad person?

Boundaries often feel cruel when you’ve been trained to buy belonging with usefulness. Reframe the boundary as honesty, not rejection. You are not harming someone by naming your capacity. You’re protecting the relationship from resentment and protecting yourself from self betrayal, which is usually the deeper wound.
What if I stop being useful and people leave?

Some people may resist because the old dynamic benefited them. That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It means the relationship depended on your overgiving. Healthy relationships adapt. If someone only stays when you overfunction, you’re not losing love, you’re losing a contract that required you to disappear.
Can therapy help with contingent self worth and overgiving?

Yes. Approaches like compassion focused therapy, schema therapy, attachment informed therapy, and trauma informed CBT can help you untangle shame, conditional worth beliefs, and people pleasing patterns. Therapy can also help you tolerate the discomfort that arises when you stop proving your value through usefulness.
How long does it take to build self worth that isn’t performance based?

It varies, but many people notice meaningful change in weeks when they practice consistently. The deeper shift is nervous system learning: “I can rest and still belong.” Expect some discomfort early on, because you’re unlearning a coping strategy. With repetition, the guilt softens and self respect becomes more stable.
Is it selfish to prioritize myself sometimes?

Prioritizing yourself is not selfish, it’s sustainable. Selfishness ignores others’ humanity. Self respect includes your humanity. When you care for yourself, you become less resentful, more honest, and more available in ways that don’t cost you your identity.

Sources and inspirations

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Self Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness.
Haines, J. E., & colleagues. (2022). Parental conditional regard: A meta analysis (PDF hosted by Self Determination Theory site).
Brueckmann, M., & colleagues. (2023). What if parental love is conditional? Children’s self related outcomes in the context of conditional regard (PDF).
Cournoyer, A., Laurin, J. C., & colleagues. (2021). Conditional regard, stress, and dyadic adjustment (open access full text).
Ishizu, K. (2022). Contingent self worth and depression in early adolescents (Elsevier, abstract page).
Kuykendall, L., & colleagues. (2020). Work contingent self esteem: A boon or bane for worker well being? (Journal of Organizational Behavior, abstract page).
Kun, B., & colleagues. (2020). Work addiction and personality: A meta analytic study (open access full text).
World Health Organization. (2019). Burn out as an occupational phenomenon (WHO news release).
Kirby, J. N., & colleagues. (2019). The “flow” of compassion: Meta analysis of fears of compassion and psychological functioning (PubMed record).
Kirby, J. N. (2019). Clinical Psychology Review paper PDF (hosted by self compassion organization).
Wakelin, K. E., Perman, G., & Simonds, L. M. (2021). Effectiveness of self compassion related interventions for reducing self criticism: Systematic review and meta analysis.
Rogier, G., & colleagues. (2023). Self criticism and attachment: Systematic review and meta analysis (ScienceDirect page).
Reitz, A. K., & colleagues. (2022). Self esteem development and life events: Review and directions (Social and Personality Psychology Compass).

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