Development of Implicit and Explicit Self-Esteem in Elementary School: Gender Differences and Relations to Achievement

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Sex, Gender

Abstract

Self-esteem is widely conceived as a relatively stable trait, consisting of positive (or negative) evaluations of the self. Previous research has shown that self-esteem affects many positive aspects of life, including academic achievement (Guglielmi, 2012; Orth, Erol, & Luciano, 2018). Both boys and girls display strong, positive self-esteem at the start of formal schooling (Cvencek, Fryberg, Covarrubias, & Meltzoff, 2017). When they reach early adolescence, boys begin to report higher self-esteem than girls (Robins & Trzesniewski, 2005). It is therefore important to examine how self-esteem relates to children’s academic achievement both at the start of elementary school (when boys and girls do not differ in their self-esteem) as well as in early adolescence (when the first differences in self-esteem of girls and boys appear).

This study measured self-esteem among 354 (184 girls) Grade 1 (N = 165, Mage =7.55 years) and Grade 5 (N = 189, Mage =11.54 years) students. Each student completed one implicit and one explicit measure. Implicit self-esteem was assessed by child-friendly adaptation of the adult Implicit Association Test (Child IAT; Cvencek, Greenwald & Meltzoff, 2016). The Child IAT is a computerized categorization task that measures strengths of associations among categories without requiring self-report. An IAT score (D) is calculated from the speed with which children categorize exemplars from four categories using only two response options (Baron & Banaji, 2006; Cvencek, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011). Explicit self-esteem was assessed by the Global Scale of the widely used Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC; Harter, 1982). The scale consists of six items (α = .80) that evaluate a child’s overall self-worth. Math and language grades were provided by teachers in both Grades 1 and 5, and averaged to arrive at an index of math and verbal achievement, respectively.

Results indicated that both girls and boys reported strong, positive self-esteem on both explicit and implicit measures in Grades 1 and 5 (all ps < .001). However, in Grade 5 boys reported higher explicit self-esteem than girls did (p = .01); whereas girls in Grade 1 demonstrated higher implicit self-esteem than boys did (p = .01). In addition, there were no differences between boys and girls on their math or verbal achievement (ps > .56). For boys, explicit self-esteem was positively related to math achievement (p < .05), but not to their language achievement (p = .13). For girls, explicit self-esteem was not related to their math or language achievement (ps > .11); however, implicit self-esteem was related to girls’ language achievement (p = .01).

The contrast between the explicit (increasing boys > girls differences) and implicit (decreasing girls > boys differences) results documents implicit–explicit dissociations in trajectories of children’s self-esteem, which raises important issues for developmental theory. Taken together, these results suggest that from an early age—and in absence of any achievement differences—children’s emerging self-evaluations already reflect broader societal stereotypes (math = boys; language = girls), which may have downstream, cascading consequences on multiple areas of later learning and academic success.

Authors

• Dora Gacesa, Faculty of Economics and Business, Zagreb
  Presenting Author

• Dario Cvencek, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ružica Brečić, University of Zagreb
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrew N Meltzoff, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author