The Relations between Value Congruence and Self-Esteem among Adolescents

• In Event: 3-136 - A Multicultural Perspective on Values and Positive Developmental Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Values reflect what is most important in people’s lives. They are abstract goals that direct and influence perceptions of the social world (Schwartz, 1992). As such, they may be related to people’s perceptions of themselves, notably their self-esteem. Self-esteem, the subjective overall emotional evaluation of one’s own worth, has often been associated with positive psychological adjustment, especially among adolescents (Orth, Robins, & Widaman, 2012). Adolescents’ self-esteem is likely related to their evaluation of the self and perceived evaluations by those in their close environment, including their peer group (Harter, 1993).
The person-culture match hypothesis (Fulmer et al., 2010) and the cultural fit hypothesis (Ward, Leong & Low, 2004) suggest, and ample research has verified, that individuals who resemble their social or cultural environment are more likely to be satisfied with themselves and experience well-being. Congruence to societal norms is beneficial, as it helps individuals to better pursue their goals (Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000), validates their personality, and strengthens their sense of competence (Fulmer et al., 2010). Congruence allows individuals to participate in activities that make them feel good about themselves and their lives (Higgins, 2005; Khaptsova, & Schwartz, 2014). In this study we hypothesized that value congruence to classmate peers will be related to higher self-esteem.
The sample included N = 1,683 adolescents (54.31% females) from two ethnic groups (74.9% Jewish; 25.1 % Arab citizens of Israel) and two age groups: younger adolescents (5th and 6th graders, N = 680) and older adolescents (10th and 11th graders, N = 1,003). Values were measured using the 25-item Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ25; Schiefer, Möllering, Daniel, Benish‐Weisman, & Boehnke, 2010). To index the value endorsement of an adolescent’s classmates, we averaged value scores across participant's classmates, creating a class score for each of the four values. Self-esteem was assessed using five items from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965).
In order to examine how adolescent value endorsement in interaction with classmate peers’ endorsement would predict self-esteem, we utilized polynomial regression analyses (Edwards, 2002; Ohannessian, Laird & De Los Reyes, 2013) within a multi-level framework (Raudenbusch & Byrk, 2002) (see Table 1). We used Response Surface Analysis to interpret the interactions. The line of congruence reflects levels of self-esteem when adolescents’ value endorsement is identical to the value endorsement of their classmates, across the range of value importance. The line of incongruence reflects self-esteem when adolescents' values are inversely related to the value endorsement of their classmates Figure 1a-d).
As we hypothesized, for self-enhancement, self-transcendence, and openness-to-change values, higher self-esteem was found along the line of congruence, and the line of incongruence was found to be curved downward and concave in shape (see Figure 1a-c). This means that value congruence was positively related to self-esteem. Our results show the importance of resemblance to peers for adolescents’ self-esteem and emphasize that context is an important factor in the relations between values and self-esteem.

Authors

• Maya Benish-Weisman, University of Haifa
  Presenting Author

• Ella Daniel, Tel-Aviv University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristina McDonald, University of Alabama
  Non-Presenting Author