Wagner Jenny, Lang Frieder R, Neyer Franz J, Wagner Gert G
Psychological Research Methods, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany.
Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.
Eur J Ageing. 2013 Oct 24;11(2):109-119. doi: 10.1007/s10433-013-0299-z. eCollection 2014 Jun.
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 ( = 338) and older adults ( = 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.
自尊的发展轨迹如何以及为何发生变化，尤其是在晚年，目前仍未得到很好的理解。我们研究了成年期自尊变化中资源的作用。具体而言，我们探讨了年龄在17岁至100岁之间的参与者在自尊水平和与资源相关的变化方面的个体差异。研究1包括一个由12609名参与者组成的具有代表性的德国横断面样本，我们观察到成年期自尊平均水平几乎没有年龄差异。已婚或处于恋爱关系以及积极的主观健康状况与更高的自尊水平相关。此外，与年轻成年期相比，晚年主观健康资源以及神经质与自尊之间的关系似乎更小。包括年轻人（n = 338）和老年人（n = 325）在内的纵向研究表明，在4年和8年的时间里，自尊的等级顺序和平均水平都具有相当高的稳定性。同样，年龄差异资源对于更高的自尊水平似乎很重要，教育与年轻人的自尊相关，而主观健康与晚年的自尊相关。然而，在年轻或成年后期，没有任何资源与自尊的变化相关。总体而言，研究结果表明自尊水平反映了特定年龄的限制和风险。
