The Nature and Correlates of Self-Esteem Trajectories in Late Life

Abstract

Is it possible to maintain a positive perspective on the self into very old age? Empirical research so far is rather inconclusive with some studies reporting substantial self-esteem declines late in life, whereas others report relative stability into old age. In this report, we examine long-term change trajectories in self-esteem in old age and very old age and link them to key correlates in the health, cognitive, self-regulatory, and social domains. To do so, we estimate growth curve models over chronological age and time-to-death using 18-year longitudinal data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N = 1,215; age 65-103 at first occasion; M = 78.8 years, SD = 5.9, 45% women). Results revealed that self-esteem was, on average, fairly stable with minor declines only emerging in advanced ages and at the very end of life. Examining the vast between-person differences revealed that lower cognitive abilities and lower perceived control independently related to lower self-esteem. Also, lower cognitive abilities were associated with steeper age-related and mortality-related self-esteem decrements. In our discussion, we consider a variety of challenges that potentially shape selfesteem late in life and highlight the need for more mechanism-oriented research to better understand the pathways underlying stability and change in self-esteem.Word count: 204

Self‐esteem Is Mostly Stable Across Young Adulthood: Evidence from Latent STARTS Models

“…Thus, the state component reflected influences and life conditions that characterize this rather long time span. Apparently, transitions or events such as leaving school, starting university or work, or entering into a first partnership (Arnett, ; for empirical examples, also see Lüdtke, Roberts, Trautwein, & Nagy, ; Wagner, Becker, Lüdtke, & Trautwein, ; Wagner et al, ) have more profound effects on the evaluation of the self for these young women than for their male counterparts.…”

“…There is increasing evidence that self‐esteem plays an important role in predicting life outcomes such as depression (Orth & Robins, ), deviant behavior (Trzesniewski et al, ), self‐rated work conditions (e.g., supervisor support; Kuster, Orth, & Meier, ), or fertility outcomes (Hutteman, Bleidorn, Penke, & Denissen, ). In the last decade, researchers have also become increasingly interested in the general mean‐level development of self‐esteem as well as the conditions that affect such change (e.g., Erol & Orth, ; Orth, Trzesniewski, & Robins, ; Trautwein, Lüdtke, Köller, & Baumert, ; Wagner, Gerstorf, Hoppmann, & Luszcz, ; Wagner, Lüdtke, Jonkmann, & Trautwein, ).…”

Developmental Tasks as a Framework to Study Personality Development in Adulthood and Old Age

“…It is possible that the factors that account for personality change are more closely associated with distance to death than with chronological age—for example, biological processes, changes in the individual's social network, adjustments to important goals, and changes in the self‐concept. A recent study has applied this approach to study the development of self‐esteem, indicating that examining self‐esteem from the time to death provides a better description of decreases in self‐esteem in old age than chronological age (Wagner, Gerstorf, Hoppmann, & Luszcz, ).…”

Stability and Change in Domain–Specific Self–Esteem and Global Self–Esteem

“…The temporal stability of self‐esteem has attracted research attention recently (e.g. Orth & Robins, ; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, ; Wagner, Gerstorf, Hoppmann, & Luszcz, ). Importantly, this past research is limited in that it primarily focused on one approach to measuring self‐esteem (i.e.…”