Validation of instruments is clearly the most pressing of the problems enumerated here. Efforts to determine the adequacy of measures of self-esteem must proceed apace if the construct is to be as useful as its proponents seem to believe it is. In order to make instructive inferences, it is necessary that measures be as technically excellent as knowledge and technology permit.
As critical as validation is, however, we cannot afford to wait until certainty of instrumental validity is accomplished to study the construct more fully. Encouraging preliminary results regarding the reduction and possible elimination of the ceiling effect need to be followed up vigorously. It seems reasonable to expect that ceiling effect will prove to be the easiest of the identified problems to cope with. Data will soon let us know whether such optimisim is justified.
Solutions to the conceptual problems are likely to be more elusive. In spite of their similarities, definitions of self-esteem vary enough to be problematic. If, as suggested above, it is necessary to measure self-esteem situationally in order to clarify conflicting findings, then it is necessary to ask to what extent the measures need to be made situational in order to predict behavior with reasonable accuracy. Super's postulate that people have many self-concepts raises a question as to whether it would be necessary to measure self-esteem for each of the roles that people play. If so, would it then be required that a separate instrument be developed for each role or is it possible that Marganoff's procedure might be adapted, simply by modifying instructions, to measure self-esteem in familial, civic, and recreational roles, for example, as well as the vocational role?
In addition, it has been argued that self-esteem is an important dependent variable in career maturity in that high self-esteem is a necessary condition for profitable career exploration. Since exploratory behavior is of fundamental importance in occupational choice, vocational adjustment, and related matters, it would be useful to understand self-esteem thoroughly. Furthermore, since each of these events is likely to be situational for an individual, one has to