A PROSPECTIVE EXAMINATION OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEGATIVE EVENTS, SELF-ESTEEM, AND NEUROTICISM

The current study examined whether self-esteem lability mediated the relationship between the occurrence of negative events and depressive symptoms and whether higher levels of neuroticism strengthened the association of the mediational pathways The scar hypothesis was also explored to determine if depressive symptom levels impacted self-esteem lability Results of idiographic, time-lagged hierarchical linear modeling indicated that self-esteem variability partially mediated the relationship between negative events and depressive symptoms Further, while higher levels of neuroticism strengthened the association between (a) negative events and self-esteem and (b) self-esteem and depressive symptoms, it did not significantly moderate the relationship between negative events and depressive symptoms Additionally, results indicated that higher levels of depressive symptoms did not mediate the relationship between negative events and self-esteem lability. The present findings suggest that self-esteem variability, as opposed to self-esteem level, plays a profound role in the temporal unfolding of depressive symptomology