Poster #213 - Prospective Effects Between Self-Esteem and Social Relationships: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies

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

Integrative Statement

Introduction: A longstanding assumption in psychology is that social relationships play a key role in shaping individuals' self-worth (e.g., Leary, 2012). While there is abundant empirical support for the concurrent association between relationships and self-esteem, longitudinal research has produced mixed findings, with some studies finding evidence for longitudinal effects of social relationships on self-esteem and vice versa but other studies failing to support these links. As it stands, the inconsistency of the current state of knowledge creates substantial uncertainty about whether relationships in fact are an influential factor in self-esteem development. In the present research, we therefore meta-analytically synthesized the evidence from longitudinal studies to estimate the effect of social relationships on self-esteem as well as the effect of self-esteem on social relationships.
There is currently no integrated theory outlining which social relationships are most impactful for self-esteem and at which ages. While a common assumption is that the significance of specific relationship partners shifts across the lifespan, it is also possible that experiences in relationships accumulate to have enduring effects across one’s life. Therefore, we tested whether age moderates longitudinal effects in both directions, along with other potential moderators.
Method: We conducted a PsycINFO search for abstracts of journal articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations. Examples of inclusion criteria are: (a) the study was longitudinal and at least one of the constructs was assessed at two occasions in the same sample and (b) includes continuous measures of self-esteem and relationship quality (e.g., warmth, satisfaction, popularity). The search resulted in 1,224 hits, from which data was eligible for 53 independent samples. There was no evidence of publication bias. We used Fisher’s zr transformations and study weights of n – 3 as recommended by Lipsey and Wilson (2001). All effects controlled for prior levels of the outcomes.
Results: Social relationships and self-esteem reciprocally predict each other over time with similar effect sizes (see Table 1). Moderator analyses suggested that the effects held across sample characteristics such as mean age (see Figure 1), gender, ethnicity, and time lag between assessments. The self-esteem effect on relationships was moderated by type of relationship partner (stronger for general relationships than for specific partners; β = .42, p < .05) and relationship reporter (stronger for self-reported than for informant-reported relationship characteristics; β = .35, p < .05).
Discussion: Findings support assumptions of classic and contemporary theories on the influence of social relationships on self-esteem and on the consequences of self-esteem for the relationship domain. The average size of both prospective effects was not large but was still practically meaningful given that traditional conventions for interpreting effect sizes (e.g., .10 indicating a small effect), do not apply to prospective regression coefficients that control for the stability of the outcome variables.
In sum, the findings suggest that the link between people’s social relationships and their level of self-esteem is truly reciprocal in all developmental stages across the life span, reflecting a positive feedback loop between the constructs. 

Authors

• Michelle A Harris, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Ulrich Orth, University of Bern
  Non-Presenting Author