Life-span development of self-esteem and its effects on important life outcomes.

TLDR

The study examined how self‑esteem develops across the lifespan and whether it predicts key life outcomes such as relationship and job satisfaction, occupational status, salary, affect, depression, and health. Data came from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, comprising 1,824 participants aged 16–97 who completed five assessments over 12 years. Growth‑curve analyses showed self‑esteem rises until about age 50 then falls, and cross‑lagged models indicated it predicts rather than follows life outcomes, with medium effects on affect and depression, small‑to‑medium effects on relationship and job satisfaction, negligible effects on health, and no effect on occupational status, findings replicated across four generations.

Abstract

We examined the life-span development of self-esteem and tested whether self-esteem influences the development of important life outcomes, including relationship satisfaction, job satisfaction, occupational status, salary, positive and negative affect, depression, and physical health. Data came from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Analyses were based on 5 assessments across a 12-year period of a sample of 1,824 individuals ages 16 to 97 years. First, growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem increases from adolescence to middle adulthood, reaches a peak at about age 50 years, and then decreases in old age. Second, cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that self-esteem is best modeled as a cause rather than a consequence of life outcomes. Third, growth curve analyses, with self-esteem as a time-varying covariate, suggested that self-esteem has medium-sized effects on life-span trajectories of affect and depression, small to medium-sized effects on trajectories of relationship and job satisfaction, a very small effect on the trajectory of health, and no effect on the trajectory of occupational status. These findings replicated across 4 generations of participants--children, parents, grandparents, and their great-grandparents. Together, the results suggest that self-esteem has a significant prospective impact on real-world life experiences and that high and low self-esteem are not mere epiphenomena of success and failure in important life domains.