: 3 Self-esteem was believed to be a cultural phenomenon of Western individualistic societies since low self-esteem was not found in collectivist countries such as Japan. Concern about low self-esteem and its many presumed negative consequences led California assemblyman John Vasconcellos to work to set up and fund the Task Force on Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility, in California, in 1986. Vasconcellos argued that this task force could combat many of the states problems – from crime and teen pregnancy to school underachievement and pollution. He compared increasing self-esteem to giving out a vaccine for a disease: it could help protect people from being overwhelmed by lifes challenges. The task force set up committees in many California counties and formed a committee of scholars to review the available literature on self-esteem. This committee found very small associations between low self-esteem and its assumed consequences, ultimately showing that low self-esteem was not the root of all societal problems and not as important as the committee had originally thought. However, the authors of the paper that summarized the review of the literature still believed that self-esteem is an independent variable that affects major social problems. The task force disbanded in 1995, and the National Council for Self-Esteem and later the National Association for Self-Esteem (NASE) was established, taking on the task forces mission. Vasconcellos and Jack Canfield were members of its advisory board in 2003, and members of its masters coalition included Anthony Robbins, Bernie Siegel, and Gloria Steinem.
Therefore, contingent self-esteem is marked by instability, unreliability, and vulnerability. Persons lacking a non-contingent self-esteem are "predisposed to an incessant pursuit of self-value". However, because the pursuit of contingent self-esteem is based on receiving approval, it is doomed to fail, as no one receives constant approval, and disapproval often evokes depression. Furthermore, fear of disapproval inhibits activities in which failure is possible. Non-contingent self-esteem is described as true, stable, and solid. It springs from a belief that one is "acceptable period, acceptable before life itself, ontologically acceptable". Belief that one is "ontologically acceptable" is to believe that ones acceptability is "the way things are without contingency". In this belief, as expounded by theologian Paul Tillich, acceptability is not based on a persons virtue. It is an acceptance given "in spite of our guilt, not because we have no guilt".Psychiatrist Thomas A Harris drew on Tillich for his classic Im OK – Youre OK that addresses non-contingent self-esteem. Harris translated Tillichs "acceptable" by the vernacular OK, a term that means "acceptable". The Christian message, said Harris, is not "YOU CAN BE OK, IF"; it is "YOU ARE ACCEPTED, unconditionally".A secure non-contingent self-esteem springs from the belief that one is ontologically acceptable and accepted. Domain-specific self-esteem
Whereas global self-esteem addresses how individuals appraise themselves in their entirety, domain-specific self-esteem facets relate to how they appraise themselves in various pertinent domains of life.