Sadeq Rahimi

Psychosocial Correlates of Collective Self-esteem: a Comparative Cross-cultural Study Sadeq Rahimi

Human and social sciences are increasingly occupied with the question of who and what the human subject is and how it is constituted, specifically with regard to the sociocultural environment that holds the subject and shapes its identity. While it would be fair to argue that North American psychological literature reflects a long tradition of neglecting the collective in favor of the individual, local and global realities alike have made it impossible to maintain that tradition, and group-conscious models of identity are now proliferating. The notion of self-esteem, for instance, has long been understood and defined in relation to the individual sense of identity. But that relationship becomes quite problematic when one moves from individual-based to collective-based models of identity... Collective self-esteem is one of the concepts psychologists have developed in response to such challenges. This volume contains a study designed to explore the relationships between collective self-esteem and such psychological constructs as personal self-esteem, perception of racism, and mental health among Cambodian refugees and French Quebecois in Montreal, Canada.