Identity and Self-Esteem: A Look at Self-Verification in African Americ

Individuals are born into families, races, cultures, and countries, scarcely have myopic awareness of their individuality as very five-year-old children. The psychological intelligence of being sever individuals from their families or caretakers appears to be of little importance until they recognize themselves as separate selves. This is true for all military personnels beings in all cultures, but for races or cultures who have been marginalized, having a separate identity and gaining self-esteem appear to play an even more all-important(a) role. This essay will look at African American publications from a psychological perspective. From Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs to Zora Neale Hurstons Delia in Sweat to James Baldwins John in Go Tell It On the Mountain, group and individual identity, in mating with a high level of self-esteem, are critical factors in determine the successes achieved by individuals and literary characters in the African American literary traditio n. With divulge this sense of group identity, individual identity, and self-esteem, the African American character becomes like Richard Wrights larger Thomas and can not survive.Self-esteem is an important component of human growth. Abraham Maslows psychological theory argues for a hierarchy of demand composed of a pyramid of five levels. Beyond the details of air, water, food, and sex, he laid out five broader layers physiological needs, needs for safety and security, needs for love and belonging, needs for esteem, and the need to actualize the self, in that order. (Boeree) Maslow argued that few reach the highest level of self-actualization. correspond to his research, only about 2% of the population reach that level, and most of those were diachronic figures-Albert Einstein, Ab... ...Abstract. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. African American Literature. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay. hot York W. W. Norton, 1997. 302-368.Dr ake, Kimberly. Rewriting the American self Race, gender, and identity in the autobiographies of Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs. Melus. Winter 1997. Vol. 22, hold out 4, p. 91. Full text article. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In the Life of a Slave little girl Written By Herself. Ed. and Intro. Nell Irvin Painter. New York Penguin, 2000.Parsons, Richard D., Stephanie Lewis Hinson and Deborah Sardo-Brown. Educational Psychology A Practitioner-Researcher assume of Teaching. Belmont, CA Wadsworth, 2001. 80-81.Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York HarperPerennial, 1998.