Research & Knowledge
Culture, Self-Esteem & the Ghanaian Self
A qualitative study exploring how culture, relationships, identity and achievement shape judgments of self-worth among adolescents and adults in Greater Accra, Ghana.
University of Ghana · MPhil Psychology · June 2013
The Research
How is self-worth understood within a cultural context?
The study examined the factors on which Ghanaians assess their self-worth. It also explored whether these considerations differed among male and female participants, adolescents and adults, and people living in urban and rural localities.
At the time of the research, much of the literature reviewed had focused on Western and Asian settings. The study therefore approached self-esteem from within a Ghanaian context, asking how cultural values, relationships and social expectations enter into personal judgments of worth.
What factors shape self-esteem within the Ghanaian cultural context?
The Approach
Listening for meaning.
Research design
Exploratory qualitative research
Main sample
28 adolescents and adults
Gender
13 male · 15 female
Age
11 adolescents · 17 adults
Localities
Madina, urban · Obo, rural
Location
Greater Accra Region, Ghana
Interviews
Unstructured, in-depth interviews
Typical duration
Approximately 30 minutes
Analysis
Thematic analysis
Researcher
Joseph Dennis Nii Noi Quarcoo
Participants were selected through convenience sampling from one urban and one rural locality. Interviews explored what made participants value themselves, feel special or regard themselves as people of worth. Participants were also asked about the qualities through which people were esteemed within their communities.
The research team supported interviews in relevant local languages. The data were transcribed, coded and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic-analysis framework. The study also incorporated an inter-rater reliability process.
Ethics note — The research received approval through the Department of Psychology’s graduate research process. Participation was based on verbal consent, with attention to anonymity, confidentiality and secure handling of the research data.
Three Processes
How self-worth was assessed.
Personal evaluation
The value participants placed on their own qualities, characteristics and experiences.
Social appraisal
How participants believed they were regarded, evaluated or accepted by other people and their communities.
Social comparison
How participants assessed themselves in relation to family members, friends, colleagues and others around them.
The findings suggest that self-esteem among the participants was neither exclusively individual nor exclusively social. Personal judgments interacted with relationships, community standards and comparisons with others.
Seven Themes
What shaped self-worth?
Character
Character emerged as the most foundational consideration. Participants referred to qualities including respect, humility, honesty, kindness, generosity, obedience, hard work and self-control.
Identity
Self-worth was connected to personal identity as well as family, ethnic, gender and religious identity. Names, family reputation, cultural affiliation and religious belonging could all contribute to a participant’s sense of worth.
Attractiveness and physical wellbeing
Participants discussed physical appearance, dress, body characteristics and health. Some responses also reflected socially held attitudes and stigma concerning disability. These are presented as attitudes documented by the study, not values endorsed by the researcher or this website.
Achievement
Education, employment, material comfort, aspirations, abilities, marriage, children and the capacity to meet personal or family needs appeared in participants’ assessments of achievement and worth.
Belonging
Acceptance, social support, family relationships, friendships and romantic relationships contributed to feelings of belonging and personal value.
Autonomy
Adolescent participants valued independence, decision-making and responsibility, while also interpreting appropriate parental guidance and boundaries as expressions of care and protection.
Other considerations
Additional considerations included uniqueness, social connections, exposure, popularity, modesty, family stability and the cultural respect associated with old age.
Character emerged as the most foundational criterion of self-worth among participants.
What the Findings Suggest
The self is personal—and relational.
The research found that participants’ judgments of self-worth were shaped through an interaction between personal evaluation and the social world. Character, identity, achievement and appearance mattered, but so did family, community acceptance, cultural affiliation, social support and the expectations of others.
The findings provide empirical support for understanding Ghanaian selfhood within a relational and broadly collectivist cultural setting. They also reveal variations associated with age and gender within the study sample. These findings should be read as insights from the participants and localities studied, rather than as claims applying uniformly to every Ghanaian.
Why It Matters
Toward culturally responsive understanding.
Self-esteem measures and interventions developed in one cultural setting may not fully capture how self-worth is understood elsewhere. By identifying locally expressed meanings and processes, the study provides a foundation for more culturally responsive research, education, psychological support and social intervention.
It also offers themes and explanations that future quantitative and mixed-method studies can test across larger and more diverse Ghanaian populations.
Limitations
Reading the findings responsibly.
This was an exploratory qualitative study involving 28 participants from two localities in the Greater Accra Region. Convenience sampling and the study’s qualitative design limit statistical generalisation.
The findings offer depth and context, but they should not be presented as a definitive account of all Ghanaian identities or experiences. Future research could use larger and more diverse samples, additional regions and ethnic groups, refined age categories, socioeconomic analysis and mixed-method designs.
Research Record
Read the original thesis.
The complete thesis is preserved in UGSpace, the University of Ghana’s institutional repository. The bibliographic record below provides the official reference details, while the download action opens the complete research document hosted on this site.
This MPhil Psychology thesis was submitted to the University of Ghana in June 2013 and deposited in UGSpace, the University’s institutional repository. A directly hosted copy is provided here while the external repository service is unavailable.
Bibliographic record
The Determinants of Self-Esteem in the Ghanaian Cultural Context
- Author:
- Joseph Dennis Nii Noi Quarcoo
- Type:
- MPhil Psychology thesis
- Department:
- Department of Psychology
- Institution:
- University of Ghana
- Date:
- June 2013
- Supervisors:
- Prof. Charity S. Akotia and Dr Benjamin Amponsah
Access the thesis
Download the complete research document hosted on this site, or find the research on Google Scholar to see its online discoverability.
Cite this research
Cite this research.
APA 7
Quarcoo, J. D. N. N. (2013). The determinants of self-esteem in the Ghanaian cultural context [MPhil thesis, University of Ghana].
Chicago
Quarcoo, Joseph Dennis Nii Noi. “The Determinants of Self-Esteem in the Ghanaian Cultural Context.” MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, 2013.