One flaw was that, apart from factors such as grades, “success” was self-reported. So if a study subject claimed to view themselves favorably, they could also report that their relationships with other people was great, whether that was actually true or not. So the actual correlation between high self-esteem. The research also showed that while there was to some degree a correlation between (some forms of) high self-esteem and, for example high grades, it was not the self-esteem that caused the high grades, it was the other way around!
