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Self-esteem across adulthood: the role of resources

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Abstract

It is still not well understood how and why developmental trajectories of self-esteem change, particularly in late life. We investigated the role of resources for self-esteem change across adulthood. In detail, we explored between-person differences in self-esteem levels and change in relation to resources with participants who ranged in age from 17 to 100 years. Study 1 consisted of a cross-sectional representative German sample of 12,609 participants, where we observed few age differences in mean levels of self-esteem across adulthood. Being married or in a relationship and positive subjective health were associated with higher levels of self-esteem. In addition, relations of resources of subjective health as well as neuroticism with self-esteem appeared to be smaller in late compared to young adulthood. Longitudinal studies including young (N = 338) and older adults (N = 325) indicated both reasonably high stability regarding rank-order and mean levels of self-esteem across 4 and 8 years. Again, age-differential resources appeared to be important for higher levels of self-esteem with education being related to self-esteem in young adults and subjective health in late life. However, no resource was associated with changes in self-esteem in either young or late adulthood. Overall, findings suggest that self-esteem levels are reflective of age-specific constraints and risks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychological Research Methods, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Jenny Wagner

  2. Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

    Frieder R. Lang

  3. German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Berlin, Germany

    Frieder R. Lang & Gert G. Wagner

  4. Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Franz J. Neyer

  5. Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany

    Gert G. Wagner

  6. Max Plank Institute of Human Development, Berlin, Germany

    Gert G. Wagner

Authors
  1. Jenny Wagner
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  2. Frieder R. Lang
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  3. Franz J. Neyer
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  4. Gert G. Wagner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jenny Wagner.

Additional information

Communicated by D. J. H. Deeg.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4 and 5.

Table 4 Fit indices for measurement invariance test of self-esteem in young and late adulthood (studies 2 and 3)
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Table 5 Latent mean differences and correlations of self-esteem change in young adulthood (three waves) and late adulthood (two waves)
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Wagner, J., Lang, F.R., Neyer, F.J. et al. Self-esteem across adulthood: the role of resources. Eur J Ageing 11, 109–119 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-013-0299-z

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