《社会心理学》课程教学资源（文献资料）social self——Continuity and Change in Self-Esteem During Emerging Adulthood.pdf

Continuity and Change in Self-Esteem During Emerging Adulthood Joanne M. Chung, Richard W. Robins, and Kali H. Trzesniewski University of California, Davis Erik E. Noftle Willamette University Brent W. Roberts University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign Keith F. Widaman University of California, Davis The present study examined the development of self-esteem in a sample of emerging adults (N 295) followed longitudinally over 4 years of college. Six waves of self-esteem data were available. Participants also rated, at the end of their 4th year, the degree to which they thought their self-esteem had changed during college. Rank-order stability was high across all waves of data (Mdn disattenuated correlation .87). On average, self-esteem levels dropped substantially during the 1st semester (d .68), rebounded by the end of the 1st year (d .73), and then gradually increased over the next 3 years, producing a small (d .16) but significant mean-level increase in self-esteem from the beginning to the end of college. Individuals who received good grades in college tended to show larger increases in self-esteem. In contrast, individuals who entered college with unrealistically high expectations about their academic achievement tended to show smaller increases in self-esteem, despite beginning college with relatively high self-esteem. With regard to perceived change, 67% reported that their self-esteem increased during college, whereas 12% reported that it declined; these perceptions tended to correspond with actual increases and decreases in their self-esteem scale scores ( .56). Overall, the findings support the perspective that self-esteem, like other personality characteristics, can change in systematic ways while exhibiting continuity over time. Keywords: self-esteem, self-perceived change, emerging adulthood, college transition Global self-esteem refers to an individual’s subjective evaluation of his or her worth as a person. Like other personality characteristics, global self-esteem is moderately stable over time and across contexts (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003). This stable component of self-esteem has been a major research focus and has been shown to promote behaviors, goals, and coping mechanisms that facilitate success in work, school, and relationships and reduce risk for mental and physical health problems, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior (e.g., Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003; Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins, Moffit, & Caspi, 2005; Orth, Robins, & Widaman, 2012; Swann, ChangSchneider, & Larsen McClarty, 2007; Trzesniewski et al., 2006). In light of these findings, a better understanding of the way self-esteem changes during critical life periods, such as the college years, is an important societal goal. Although much research conducted to date has emphasized the stability of self-esteem, self-esteem is assumed to be dynamic and responsive to events occurring in one’s life. Emerging adulthood (age 18 years to mid-20s) is a period of considerable opportunity and challenge. Many young adults move away from home for the first time, begin college and full-time jobs, or marry and have children. Researchers interested in personality and development have emphasized the importance of this period, describing the complex challenges that young adults face and the patterns of adaptation that follow from their resolution (Arnett, 2011; Erikson, 1964; White, 1966). Given the transitional nature of these years, emerging adulthood may be a time during which global selfesteem is especially likely to change. Moreover, the developmental process of becoming an adult often entails a questioning of one’s identity and subsequent reformulation of conceptions and evaluations of the self. The present study examined consistency and change in selfesteem during emerging adulthood. As in most research on personality development, we examined the rank-order stability of self-esteem as well as mean-level (i.e., normative) change. We also examined predictors of the self-esteem trajectory, attempting to predict who increased or decreased in self-esteem as they progressed through college. We focused on one of the most significant indicators of success in the college context—academic achieveJoanne M. Chung and Richard W. Robins, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis; Kali H. Trzesniewski, Department of Human Development, University of California, Davis; Erik E. Noftle, Department of Psychology, Willamette University; Brent W. Roberts, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign; Keith F. Widaman, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis. This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Predoctoral Fellowship T32-MH2006 to Joanne M. Chung and National Institute on Drug Abuse Grant R01-DA-017902 to Richard W. Robins. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joanne M. Chung, Department of Psychology, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail: jmhchung@ucdavis.edu This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association 2013, Vol. 106, No. 1, 000 0022-3514/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0035135 1

ment. Specifically, we tested whether individuals who receive good (poor) grades in college tend to increase (decrease) in selfesteem, and whether individuals who enter college expecting to receive very high grades maintain their self-esteem, or experience a drop in self-esteem when they fail to meet their expectations. Finally, we examined individuals’ perceptions of how their selfesteem changed during college and the degree to which these perceptions correspond to actual changes in self-esteem.1 Below, we review previous research on these topics. Rank-Order Stability of Self-Esteem During College Over the past few decades, researchers have debated the degree to which self-esteem should be conceptualized as a trait-like construct that remains relatively stable over time, or as a state-like process that continually fluctuates in response to environmental and situational stimuli (Donnellan, Kenny, Trzesniewski, Lucas, & Conger, 2012; Kuster & Orth, 2013; Trzesniewski et al., 2003). If self-esteem is trait-like, then we would expect to find high rankorder stability; that is, individuals who have relatively high (or low) self-esteem at one point in time will tend to have high (or low) self-esteem years later. Rank-order stability is commonly assessed by the correlation between personality scores across two time points, but it can also be evaluated with first-order autoregressive models in structural equation modeling. Rank-order stability is reduced by maturational or experiential factors that differentially affect people’s self-esteem, as well as by measurement error. The rank-order stability of self-esteem varies across the lifespan. Specifically, stability is relatively low during early childhood and increases throughout adolescence and adulthood (Donnellan et al., 2012; Kuster & Orth, 2013; Trzesniewski et al., 2003). In Trzesniewski et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis, the rank-order stability of self-esteem over a 4-year period for a hypothetical sample of 18-year-olds was .55. Accordingly, we expected to find test–retest estimates in the .50s over the 4-year period examined in the present study. Mean-Level Changes in Self-Esteem During College As individuals go through life, their self-esteem inevitably waxes and wanes. These fluctuations in self-esteem reflect changes in our social environment as well as maturational changes such as puberty and cognitive declines in old age. When these changes are normative, age-dependent, and affect individuals in a similar manner, they will lead to aggregate (or mean-level) changes in selfesteem over time. Mean-level change is both theoretically and statistically distinct from rank-order stability. Considerable meanlevel change does not indicate low rank-order stability, and conversely lack of mean-level change does not indicate high stability. For example, a group of people might increase substantially on a trait, but their rank ordering would stay the same if everyone in the group increased by the same amount. In the same way, the rank ordering of individuals could change substantially over time but not be reflected in aggregate mean-level change (e.g., if the number of people who decrease offsets the number of people who increase). Although we know that self-esteem shows normative changes across the lifespan (Robins & Trzesniewski, 2005), there is surprisingly little research examining mean-level change in selfesteem during the critical college period. Recent research suggests that self-esteem gradually increases during the transition from adolescence into adulthood (Erol & Orth, 2011; Orth, Trzesniewski, & Robins, 2010; Wagner, Lüdtke, Jonkmann, & Trautwein, 2013). However, relatively little research has specifically charted changes in self-esteem from the beginning to the end of college. When self-esteem has been assessed at the beginning and end of college, significant mean-level changes have not been found (van der Velde, Feij, & Taris, 1995). In contrast, two studies that examined self-esteem during the first year of college found a significant decline (Pritchard, Wilson, & Yamnitz, 2007; Shim, Ryan, & Cassady, 2012). These latter studies suggest that the transition to college may challenge emerging adults’ self-views, but the former study suggests that emerging adults are able to maintain their self-esteem across this difficult transition and throughout college. Taken together, these studies suggest a need to examine self-esteem across college in addition to during the transition to college. Such a study could provide insight into what happens after the initial self-esteem drop— do students continue to decline, plateau at a lower level than when they entered college, or show a recovery to their initial level. The present study aims to provide a more precise picture of the specific, year-by-year changes over the entirety of the college experience. Studies of self-esteem development across the lifespan have found that self-esteem decreases during the transition to adolescence and then increases gradually over the course of adulthood, before declining in old age (Erol & Orth, 2011; Orth et al., 2012; Robins, Tracy, Trzesniewski, Potter, & Gosling, 2001). These studies suggest that change can occur in response to transitions or major life events (e.g., Caspi & Roberts, 2001), although maturational changes such as hormonal changes in puberty (Williams & Currie, 2000) may also contribute to self-esteem change. For example, Rutter (1996) stated that, although there is stability in many types of behavior from childhood through adulthood, turning points modify or redirect life trajectories; turning points are transitional periods or events that have the potential to alter behavior, affect, cognition, or context, all of which could result in lifelong change. Normative, age-dependent transitions (e.g., leaving home for college) might explain normative change, whereas transitions that are not age dependent (e.g., breaking up with a romantic partner) or nonnormative (e.g., death of close friend or family member) may produce individual differences in change. The most frequently studied turning point for self-esteem development is the transition to adolescence, which typically coincides with the transition to junior high school. This school transition has been implicated as a major cause of the adolescent self-esteem drop (e.g., Eccles, Wigfield, Flanagan, & Miller, 1989; Eccles, Wigfield, Midgley, & Reuman, 1993; Marsh, 1989; Sim- 1 We use the term “actual” because we examined actual changes in a person’s self-esteem scale scores. We are not necessarily equating these changes in RSE scores with “real” changes in self-esteem. However, if one accepts scales such as the RSE as valid measures of self-esteem, then the present findings can be conceptualized as contrasting perceived and real changes in self-esteem. Indeed, in the literature, self-esteem is most commonly measured using standardized self-report scales, and therefore we are assessing (albeit imperfectly) actual change as it is represented in the current tradition of self-esteem assessment. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. 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mons, Blyth, Van Cleave, & Bush, 1979; Wigfield & Eccles, 1994). However, the findings regarding this claim are somewhat inconsistent (Blyth, Simmons, & Bush, 1978; Hirsch & Rapkin, 1987; Nottleman, 1987), perhaps because children go through puberty and transition to middle and junior high school at different ages. Thus, a more homogenous transition such as the transition into college (where maturational changes may be less likely to play a role) is needed for studying the impact of a potentially stressful life transition on self-esteem development. Because the transition to college involves changes in school environment, social ties, expectations from others, and expectations for oneself, self-esteem change during the transition to college may parallel the transition to junior high school. Studies of the transition to adolescence suggest that the experience of changing school contexts can result in an immediate negative impact on self-esteem. Accordingly, we believe that the transition to college constitutes a developmental turning point that, on average, negatively impacts the self-esteem of young adults. In summary, previous research has found little or no change in mean levels of self-esteem from the beginning to the end of college. However, these studies have not examined change periodically throughout the college years. Academic Achievement and Self-Esteem One of the most salient features of the transition from high school to college is the increasing level of academic rigor and competitiveness that most students experience. This has been described as moving from being a “big fish in a little pond” to being a “little fish in a big pond.” This transition has been shown to negatively impact self-esteem as students’ high initial expectations clash with the reality of competing with other “big fish” for good grades, and the inevitable failure that follows for many of them (Marsh & Hau, 2003). Given the centrality of academic achievement in the college context, we focused on how the selfesteem trajectory is shaped by students’ initial expectations for their college grades and the actual grades they end up receiving. In general, the research literature suggests that school grades are positively associated with high self-esteem. For example, in Hansford and Hattie’s (1982) meta-analysis, the estimated effect size between various self-beliefs (e.g., self-esteem, self-acceptance, academic self-concept, etc.) and various academic outcomes (e.g., grade-point average [GPA], test scores, etc.) was .21. In a more recent meta-analysis, researchers examined the prospective influence of self-beliefs on academic achievement, in student samples that spanned pre-school to college (Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004). Results of this meta-analysis indicated that self-beliefs positively predicted later academic achievement, with an estimated effect size (standardized Beta weight) of .08. Additionally, Marsh and Craven (2006) provided evidence for reciprocal influence: Self-beliefs in the academic domain positively predicted later academic achievement, and, conversely, academic achievement positively predicted later self-beliefs; however, these effects held only for academic self-concept, not global self-esteem. In summary, previous research has found that higher levels of selfesteem, particularly domain-specific self-esteem (i.e., academic self-beliefs), are concurrently and longitudinally associated with academic achievement. However, these studies have not examined whether changes in academic achievement are associated with changes in self-esteem across 4 years of college. We also examined the influence of expected grades on selfesteem change. We know of no research that directly addresses this question, but previous research has consistently shown that college students have inflated expectations about their grades (Beyer, 1999; Garavalia & Gredler, 2002; Nowell & Alston, 2007; Svanum & Aigner, 2011; Wendorf, 2002), raising the possibility that self-esteem will be negatively impacted when students fail to meet their unrealistic expectations. Another related line of research shows that highly narcissistic students are more likely to expect high grades than less narcissistic students, independent of their actual ability (Farwell & Wohlwend-Lloyd, 1998), suggesting that overly inflated self-views are associated with inflated expectations for grades. Thus, given the tendency for narcissistic individuals to report high self-esteem, we expect to find a link between high expected grades and higher levels of self-esteem. However, over the long term, as narcissistic illusions about getting straight A’s confront the objective reality of academic mediocrity, we expect that people who think they will receive better grades than they actually receive will show declines in self-esteem over time. To address this question, we examined the effects of expected grades on self-esteem change, controlling for actual grades. By partialing actual grades out of expected grades, we are taking “reality” out of their expectations and examining whether people who have unrealistically positive expectations about their grades show increases or decreases in self-esteem over time (this is a variant on the use of residualized discrepancy scores in the self-enhancement literature; Kwan, John, Kenny, Bond, & Robins, 2004; Schriber & Robins, 2012). Perceived Change in Self-Esteem To our knowledge, no published studies have compared individuals’ perceptions of how their self-esteem has changed to actual change in their self-esteem scores. However, related research suggests that people retrospectively report large changes in their personality, despite showing relatively minor changes in their personality test scores (Fleeson & Heckhausen, 1997; Haslam, Fox, & Whelan, 2007; Robins, Noftle, Trzesniewski, & Roberts, 2005; Staudinger, Bluck, & Herzberg, 2003; Wilson & Ross, 2001; Woodruff, 1983; Woodruff & Birren, 1972). The discrepancy between folk notions of substantial and often dramatic personality change and empirical findings indicating modest, gradual personality change suggests that people may not be very accurate at describing their own personality development. These findings are consistent with theorizing that people tend to derogate past selves in order to make their current self feel better (Wilson & Ross, 2001), a process that would tend to decrease the correspondence between perceived and actual personality change. The few studies have that correlated individual differences in perceived personality change with actual changes in personality have produced mixed results. For example, Costa, McCrae, and colleagues concluded from their research that people’s perceptions of how their Big Five scores have changed over time are largely inaccurate (Costa & McCrae, 1989; Herbst, McCrae, Costa, Feaganes, & Siegler, 2000). In contrast, Robins et al. (2005) pointed to modest but statistically significant correlations (r .15 to .33) between perceived and actual change in the Big Five during This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. 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college to argue that people have at least some insight into the way their personality changes over time. The literature on perceived change in personality suggests that there might not be a strong correspondence between perceived and actual change in self-esteem. However, of all the developmental stages, we might expect to find the strongest correspondence during emerging adulthood, because young adults are actively focused on identity issues (Erikson, 1964; Harter, 1999; Pals, 1999) and engaging in a process of “open exploration” (Fleeson & Heckhausen, 1997, p. 134). Constructing one’s identity necessitates a good deal of self-reflection, which may promote insight into one’s life history and experiences. Moreover, there is a substantial amount of intraindividual variability in changes in self-esteem during this developmental phase (as evidenced by relatively low rank-order stability; Trzesniewski et al., 2003), which should increase the range of individual differences in self-esteem, making it easier to find stronger correlations between perceived and actual change. Present Study The present study examined self-esteem continuity and change in emerging adulthood using longitudinal data on a large sample of young adults followed through their college years. Participants completed the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem scale six times over the course of college. These data provide a unique opportunity to learn more about self-esteem change during an important developmental transition. More specifically, the present research addresses four main questions concerning self-esteem development in emerging adulthood: First, to what extent are individual differences in self-esteem stable through the college years? Second, what is the trajectory of self-esteem over the course of college; that is, are there mean-level increases or decreases in self-esteem during this time? Third, to what extent do changes in grades and discrepancies between expected and actual grades predict selfesteem change? Fourth, to what extent do young adults think their self-esteem has changed, and how well do these perceptions correspond to actual changes in self-esteem scores? Method Sample and Procedure This research used data from the Berkeley Longitudinal Study, a longitudinal study designed to examine the development of self-esteem and personality during college (for further details about the study, see Noftle & Robins, 2007; Robins & Beer, 2001; Robins, Fraley, Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001; Robins et al., 2005).2 Participants were recruited during the first week of their first year of college and then assessed annually throughout college. Participants were contacted by mail and asked to complete an extensive questionnaire in exchange for financial compensation. Six assessments were conducted over a 4-year period: first week of college (N 508); end of the first semester (N 455); and end of the first (N 306), second (N 260), third (N 200), and fourth (N 303) years of college. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was administered at every assessment: first week of college (N 489); end of the first semester (N 405); and end of the first (N 306), second (N 295), third (N 197), and fourth (N 303) years of college. Our analyses focused on a subsample of participants (N 295) who completed the relevant measures at the first and last assessments (first week and fourth year). On most variables of interest, there were no differences between participants and nonparticipants. However, participants received significantly higher grades throughout college than nonparticipants (Mdn .24 grade points across the eight assessments, ps .05) and were more likely to be women (60% vs. 50%, p .05). In light of these differences, the participants in the study may not represent an unbiased sample of the original study participants. The sample was diverse in terms of ethnicity (43% Asian, 36% Caucasian, 12% Chicano/Latino, 5% African American, 4% Missing/Other/Multiracial), sex (60% female), socioeconomic status (20% came from families with 1992 household incomes below $25,000 and 17% from families with household incomes above $100,000), and academic ability (combined verbal and math SAT scores ranged from 650 to 1,530; M 1,194, SD 173). Measures Demographic variables. Participants self-reported their ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES; see Table 1 for correlations among demographic variables). To retain adequate sample sizes, we classified participants as Caucasian, Asian, or non-Asian minority; this variable was dummy coded with Caucasians as the reference group. Sex was coded as 0 (male) and 1 (female). Socioeconomic status (SES) ranged from 1 (low SES) to 5 (high SES). The SES variable is a composite of three items that assessed mother’s highest level of education completed, father’s highest level of education completed, and annual family income. Self-esteem. Participants completed the 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem (RSE; Rosenberg, 1965) scale three times during the first year of college, and then annually for the next 3 years (alpha reliability ranged from .89 to .91; see Table 1 for all estimates). Items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not very true of me) to 5 (very true of me). To examine change in self-esteem, we conducted a latent growth curve model (LGCM; Bollen & Curran, 2006) using all six RSE assessments. Academic achievement. Student GPAs (on a 0.00 to 4.00 scale) were obtained from university records every semester for 4 years (eight assessments total). Expected academic achievement. During the first week of college, participants were asked three questions about their expected performance in college: “What overall GPA do you think you are capable of attaining at UC Berkeley?” “Realistically, what overall GPA do you think you will attain at UC Berkeley?” “What is the lowest overall GPA you would be satisfied attaining at UC Berkeley?” (alpha reliability .87). For all three items, responses were made on a GPA scale ranging from 0.00 (all F’s) to 4.00 (all A’s). Perceived self-esteem change. Perceived self-esteem change was assessed at the end of the fourth year of college. Participants were 2 The following articles also report self-esteem findings using data from the Berkeley Longitudinal Study: Orth, Robins, and Meier (2009); Orth, Robins, and Roberts (2008); Robins and Beer (2001); Robins, Hendin, and Trzesniewski (2001); Robins and Pals (2002). However, the research questions addressed by these studies overlap only minimally with the present study. 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asked to rate how their “self-esteem, self-confidence” has changed since they entered college. The rating scale ranged from 1 (decreased) to 5 (increased), with the midpoint labeled stayed the same. Past research has demonstrated that single-item measures, such as our measure of perceived self-esteem change, can have adequate reliability and validity (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003; Postmes, Haslam, & Jans, 2012; Robins, Fraley, et al., 2001). Results Rank-Order Stability of Self-Esteem To examine the rank-order stability of self-esteem during college, we used structural equation modeling to fit a first-order autoregressive model to the six assessments. First-order autoregressive models are often used to examine repeated measures data. Whereas traditional OLS methods treat autocorrelation as a statistical nuisance, first-order autoregressive models take into account the dependency of the previous assessment on subsequent assessments so that each assessment is composed of a random error component and the previous assessment. Firstorder autoregressive models provide estimates of the latent variable separately from error, allowing for stability estimates that have been corrected for reliability of the measure. We fit a first-order autoregressive model that allowed for the estimation of measurement error, fixing the measurement error to be equal across assessments (see Figure 1 for model and estimates). Rank-order stability for self-esteem was consistently high, with Table 1 Intercorrelations Among Study Variables Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. Asiana — 2. Non-Asian minoritya .43 — 3. Femaleb .04 .00 — 4. Socioeconomic status .00 .36 .05 — 5. College GPAc .01 .22 .15 .31 — 6. Expected college GPAd .15 .19 .17 .12 .14 (.87) 7. Self-esteem (Week 1) .12 .01 .10 .11 .05 .11 (.89) .89 .83 .77 .69 .64 8. Self-esteem (Semester 1) .10 .06 .10 .08 .04 .11 .79 (.89) .86 .78 .63 .62 9. Self-esteem (Year 1) .14 .08 .20 .11 .05 .10 .77 .79 (.91) .87 .73 .67 10. Self-esteem (Year 2) .16 .12 .14 .10 .24 .03 .70 .72 .79 (.90) .88 .77 11. Self-esteem (Year 3) .17 .06 .10 .02 .04 .03 .63 .60 .66 .81 (.90) .83 12. Self-esteem (Year 4) .16 .00 .03 .05 .18 .01 .58 .56 .60 .70 .78 (.91) 13. Perceived self-esteem change .06 .05 .12 .02 .07 .02 .06 .13 .18 .18 .36 .32 — M .45 .18 .60 3.52 3.20 3.43 3.81 3.51 3.85 3.90 3.89 3.92 3.81 SD .50 .39 .49 1.00 .49 .30 .75 .63 .79 .79 .76 .74 1.09 Cohen’s de .68 .72 .14 .19 .20 Note. GPA grade-point average. Raw correlation coefficients are below the diagonal. Values on the diagonal in parentheses are alpha reliability coefficients. Disattenuated coefficients are above the diagonal. a Asian and non-Asian minority variables are dummy coded so that the reference group is European American. b Female is dummy coded so that the reference group is male. c College GPA is the GPA assessment at the end of the fourth year of college. d Expected College GPA is the mean of the three expected GPA variables assessed at Week 1. e Cohen’s ds are reported for differences between adjacent assessments. Cohen’s d between the Week 1 and Year 4 assessment .16. p .05. Figure 1. First-order autoregressive model of self-esteem stability across 4 years of college. Unstandardized estimates are presented in the figure. Standardized stability estimates are presented in parentheses. All estimates are significant at p .05. The “S” denotes a latent status variable, which is indicated by the corresponding manifest variable (in rectangles). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. SELF-ESTEEM DURING EMERGING ADULTHOOD 5