This study argues that recent developments in self-verification and strivings theory, in combination with self-esteem theory, could enhance social scientists' knowledge and use of the negative and dimensions of global self-esteem: An overemphasis on global self-esteem has muted the theoretical, empirical, and substantive nuances, especially a more precise understanding of the development and maintenance of negative self-evaluations. Using longitudinal Youth in Transition data, unidimensional and bidimensional self-esteem models show that global self-esteem may be employed as a bidimensional construct marked by a self-deprecation subscale and a self-confidence subscale. Investigating selfdeprecation in its own right is particularly merited. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis also supports a bidimensional view and reveals the relative contribution of self-esteem to the latent self-deprecation and self-confidence constructs. The paper discusses analysis implications for understanding the differential impact of negative and self-evaluations on emotional and social well-being. Each of us possesses a strong propensity to cast ourselves in the best possible light, to accentuate the positive. Yet precisely this emphasis has distracted social scientists from the critical, disparaging aspects of the self, our self-perceived negative side, and its consequences for well-being. This paper examines these issues by comparing two major positions regarding the nature of global or general self-esteem. One position views global self-esteem as a unidimensional phenomenon reflected most clearly by incorporating and negative self-evaluations in a summary measure (e.g., Carmines and Zeller 1979; Fleming and Courtney 1984; Rosenberg 1965, 1979; Rosenberg, Schooler, and Schoenbach 1989; Rosenberg 1990). Thus conceived, global self-esteem is a type of general self-esteem defined as a positive or negative attitude toward a particular object, namely, the self (Rosenberg 1965, p. 30). Persons with high global self-esteem have self-respect and a feeling of worthiness, and yet acknowl