How to Evaluate Self-Worth Orientation Theory

1. Self-value orientation theory is a psychological theory about the relationship between attitude and behavior, which believes that under the relatively stable situation of external environmental pressures, the consistency between an attitude and specific behaviors, or the size of the influence on specific behaviors, is determined by whether the attitude itself is in the center of the personal value system, and whether the attitude is of special significance to the individual. The higher the degree of centrality of the attitude, the more significant the behavior in question is to the individual, the greater the psychological impact on the individual's teleology, and thus the greater the influence of this attitude on the behavior. The model of "self-worth attachment-loss-suicide theory" can be introduced based on the assumption of the principle of self-worth orientation. The purpose of this self-worth determinism of behavior is to find psychological mechanisms that explain, predict, and control behavior.

2. The basic assumption of the theory is that human beings are rational, social animals who, in addition to their basic survival tendencies, spend their entire lives trying to establish a system for interpreting other people and the world and explaining the reasons for their self-existence and their own behaviors, and to give meaning to their lives. Self-value is the individual's meaning definition system, and a person's self-value system determines not only how he interprets the world, but also how he interprets himself; because self-value is the starting point of the reason for self-existence and self-behavior, people always try to seek self-value, do things that affirm self-value, and avoid things that deny self-value. The determining effect of self-worth on an individual's behavior in a particular situation is self-worth orientation.

3. The theory was formally proposed in the early 1990s and is now formally included in social psychology research.