The Long-Term Stability of Self-Esteem: Its Time-Dependent Decay and Nonzero Asymptote

被引:84
作者
Kuster, Farah [1 ]
Orth, Ulrich [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Basel, CH-4055 Basel, Switzerland
关键词
self-esteem; long-term stability; age differences; STARTS model; BIRTH COHORT DIFFERENCES; TRAIT-STATE MODELS; LONGITUDINAL CONSISTENCY; PERSONALITY-DEVELOPMENT; INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES; CONSTRUCT-VALIDATION; MISSING DATA; OLD-AGE; ADOLESCENCE; DEPRESSION;
D O I
10.1177/0146167213480189
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
How stable are individual differences in self-esteem? We examined the time-dependent decay of rank-order stability of self-esteem and tested whether stability asymptotically approaches zero or a nonzero value across long test-retest intervals. Analyses were based on 6 assessments across a 29-year period of a sample of 3,180 individuals aged 14 to 102 years. The results indicated that, as test-retest intervals increased, stability exponentially decayed and asymptotically approached a nonzero value (estimated as .43). The exponential decay function explained a large proportion of variance in observed stability coefficients, provided a better fit than alternative functions, and held across gender and for all age groups from adolescence to old age. Moreover, structural equation modeling of the individual-level data suggested that a perfectly stable trait component underlies stability of self-esteem. The findings suggest that the stability of self-esteem is relatively large, even across very long periods, and that self-esteem is a trait-like characteristic.
引用
收藏
页码:677 / 690
页数:14
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