Poster #204 - Daily Self-Esteem Levels and Instability in Adolescents: Moderation by Depressive and Anxious Symptoms

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Introduction: The majority of the literature regarding self-esteem in adolescence to date conceptualizes self-esteem as a stable trait. However, the stability of self-esteem varies across individuals, and this variability is important to understanding psychological functioning (e.g., Kernis, 2005), particularly internalizing problems (e.g., Franck & DeRaedt, 2007). However, the bulk of this research has focused on adult samples, despite a large body of research emphasizing the importance of self-esteem in adolescence (e.g., Dumont & Provost, 1999; Lee & Hankin, 2009). The goal of the current study was to investigate whether global levels of depressive and anxious symptoms predict daily levels of self-esteem, as well as daily fluctuations in self-esteem, in adolescents using gold-standard statistical methods.

Method: Participants included 150 adolescents (84 female; mean age = 13.53 years). Parents reported participants’ race/ethnicity as 60% European American, 12% African American, 11% Latino, 9% Asian American, and 8% mixed race or ethnicity. At an initial home visit, adolescents reported on their depressive and anxious symptoms using the Child Depression Inventory-2 (Kovacs, 2011) and Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (March, 1997). Then, participants completed electronic surveys for 12 evenings, reporting on daily self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; Rosenberg, 1989), daily affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule – Child; Laurent et al., 1999), and hours slept.

Results: Two separate analyses were conducted to examine whether adolescents’ global levels of either depressive or anxious symptoms predicted their daily levels of self-esteem. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to account for the nesting of 12 days within 150 adolescents. In each model, level of daily self-esteem served as the dependent variable, and within-person covariates were time, sleep hours, and daily affect. Between-person predictors were gender, the adolescent’s average affect across the daily diary period, and either depressive or anxious symptoms. Both depressive and anxious symptoms emerged as significant negative between-person predictors of level of daily self-esteem. The more global depressive or anxious symptoms the adolescent reported experiencing, the lower his/her level of daily self-esteem (see Table 1).

Two additional HLM analyses were conducted to examine whether adolescents’ global levels of depressive or anxious symptoms predicted instability in their self-esteem across days. The absolute value of change in self-esteem from one day to the next served as the dependent variable, and within-person covariates were time, weekday/weekend, and daily affect. Between-person predictors were gender, the adolescent’s average affect across the daily diary period, and either depressive or anxious symptoms. Depressive symptoms emerged as a significant positive between-person predictor of self-esteem instability; the more global depressive symptoms the adolescent reported experiencing, the greater the variability or instability in his/her self-esteem across days. Anxious symptoms did not predict self-esteem instability (see Table 2).

Discussion: These findings highlight the importance of low daily levels of self-esteem in understanding both depressive and anxious symptoms during adolescence. Additionally, these results indicate that self-esteem instability may distinguish depressive symptoms from anxious symptoms and may be an important consideration for diagnostic and treatment purposes.

Authors

• Fanny Mlawer, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Julie A. Hubbard, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Megan K Bookhout, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina Moore, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author