THE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION: CRITICISM AND COMPLIMENTS ON PEOPLE WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM IN A CLOSE FRIEND RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

Human is a social creature that needs to have an interaction with others to live. People need to create relationships in order to have a social life. Relationship can become stronger within times. As the interaction continues, the bond between individuals become stronger and both individuals will know each other better. On a friendship that we put a trust on, especially the closest one, they tend to unconsider their partner feeling because they think they are too close to even hurt each other’s. Meanwhile, criticism and compliments that both parties share in a relationship matters, especially for a person on Low Self-Esteem (LSE). This research was conducted to uncover how people on LSE create meanings from other members in a close friend relationship towards criticism and compliments. This research use qualitative methods in interpretive paradigm and case study approach. The data were collected by interviewing four women with LSE (Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale) in the range of age around 19-22 years old around President University area. As a result, this research shows that people with low self-esteem tend to always feel negative about themselves and criticism from their close friends is also the reason why people feel bad about themselves. On the whole, their self-value is based on other’s criticism.