Self-esteem, internal vs external influences
Self-esteem is how much a person values and likes themselves — the evaluative, judging part of the self, not a description. The statement names two influences: an internal one from inside the person, biological or inborn (temperament), and an external one from outside, the environment and other people (experience). This is nature and nurture applied to the self, and the two work together. Do not confuse self-esteem with self-concept, self-image or confidence.
Temperament: an inborn emotional style
Temperament is the biological, inborn part of a person's emotional style — a trait you are born with that affects how strongly and quickly you react. It covers activity level, reactivity, adaptability and sociability, in three styles: easy, difficult and slow to warm up. It reaches self-esteem indirectly: a child easily upset and slow to adapt collects experiences of failing, while one who adapts easily collects successes.
Experience: what happens to you
Experience is the external influence — what happens to a person, especially how others treat them, used as evidence of their worth. Learn named routes, as a 9-mark answer needs several: praise and criticism; success and failure at what you value; the acceptance you get (freely given vs conditional, the 7.1.3 link); comparison with others; relationships and life events. Van Houtte and Jarvis (1995) supports it: pet ownership linked to higher self-esteem and autonomy.
Temperament and experience interact
The best answers show the two feed each other rather than ranking one above the other. Temperament changes the experiences you get: an easy baby draws warm responses, a hard-to-soothe one draws frustration, and those responses are the experiences that build self-esteem. Experience in turn changes what a temperament leads to, so the fit between child and handling matters more than temperament alone. Conclusion: temperament sets the start, experience decides the end.
Drawn from real examiner reports.
Temperament is not "temper"
The most-cited failure here, caused by the word looking like 'temper'. 'How bad someone's temper is' contains no psychology. The creditworthy answer: a biological trait a person is born with which affects their behaviour. Two features must appear: biological or inborn, and affects behaviour. Not personality, and not a passing mood.
Recorded on this exact statement at June 2023 P2 Q16, where candidates confused temperament with "temper" and the creditworthy AO1 was that it is a biological trait you are born with that affects behaviour.
Self-esteem confused with nearby terms
Reports record self-esteem confused with self-concept, confidence and positive regard, and self-image with ideal self. Every question here starts from self-esteem, so the confusion costs twice. Self-esteem is how much you value yourself; self-concept the whole picture; self-image how you see yourself; confidence about one task; positive regard the approval from others.
Self-esteem confused with self-concept, confidence and positive regard is June 2019 P2 Q16, and self-image confused with the ideal self is June 2023 P2 Q14. "Positive" being read as simply meaning good is Nov 2020 P2 Q15.
Naming an influence and stopping
Two failures land together on scenario questions. First, identification without justification — naming 'her experiences' or 'her temperament' is just a label. Use point, justification, consequence for self-esteem. Second, generic application — the name is not application, nor repeating the stem. Application uses the scenario's own detail, and AO3 needs AO2 present.
Identification without justification is named in every Paper 1 report and specifically at June 2024 P1 Q11b and Q15b. The character's name not counting as application is June 2022 P1 Q4b and June 2023 P2 Q25, repeating the question stem is June 2024 P2 Q10, and lifting the scenario instead of using it is June 2023 P2 Q16. The AO2 dependency is June 2023 P2 Q31.
Temperament is a start, not a destiny
The wrong idea is that because temperament is inborn, a 'difficult' baby must grow into low self-esteem. Not so — temperament acts indirectly, so the fit between child and handling matters, and an inborn start is not a destination. And a link is not a cause: pets going with higher self-esteem (Van Houtte and Jarvis, 1995) need not mean the pet raised it.
The Van Houtte and Jarvis (1995) detail — pet ownership linked to higher self-esteem and autonomy, with non-pet-owners in the fifth and sixth grades reporting lower self-esteem — is recorded at June 2024 P2 Q19, and June 2019 P2 Q21 records that the lost mark on that study is study detail.
Temperament is not personality
Temperament and personality are not the same. Temperament is the inborn raw material, visible in infancy. Personality is the broader, settled pattern that develops out of it once experience has acted. Calling a 'difficult' temperament the person's personality misses how an inborn start and later experience combine. Temperament is also not a mood, which passes in an afternoon.
Internal and external influences swapped
Keep the two categories straight. An internal influence comes from inside the person and is inborn: temperament. An external influence comes from outside, from other people and events: experience. Slips: treating temperament as something the world did to a person, or calling positive regard internal when it is external. Label each correctly before explaining how it works.
Structure the 9-mark Assess
The 9-mark Assess is AO1/AO2/AO3 3 each; the ceiling is AO3 and balance. Define and classify temperament (internal) and experience (external), apply both to the scenario's detail, then evaluate both — self-report validity, correlation not cause — and judge. Prose only.
Point, because, which means
Never stop at naming an influence. Turn each into three moves: point (internal or external), because (how it works), and which means for self-esteem. 'Praised only for good grades is external, because approval is tied to a condition, so self-esteem drops when grades slip.'
Describe the difference: use a connective
On 'describe the difference' — self-esteem versus self-image, or internal versus external — two definitions score one of two. The second mark needs a connective: self-image is how you describe yourself, whereas self-esteem is how much you value it. Name the axis of difference.
Two named influences: temperament (internal) and experience (external).
Self-esteem — how much a person values, likes and approves of themselves. It is a judgement, not a description.
Internal influence — something that comes from inside the person: biological, inborn, part of how they are made. The specification names temperament.
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