Trajectories of Self-Esteem Development for Adolescence Based on China Family Panel Studies: A Piecewise Growth Mixture Model Analysis

Abstract

Self-esteem has always been a hot research object in the field of adolescent mental health. But in longitudinal research, using a single slope to describe the trajectory of adolescent self-esteem is unrealistic. The piecewise growth mixture model (PGMM) was used to fit the data in this study. Selecting from China Family Panel Studies database, a total of 1,759 individuals were selected and their self-esteem (RSES) scores over the years were used as the tracking index. Based on the characteristics of the development trajectories of three latent classes, class 1 was referred to as “stable low level group,” class 2 was named “rapidly rising group,” and class 3 was referred to as “rapidly decrease group.” And there were two stages in the development process of self-esteem in the adolescent group. The slope of the stable low level group showed a significant downward trend in the first stage and a significant upward trend in the second stage, with a relatively flat development trajectory and relatively low self-esteem on the whole. The slope of the rapidly rising group showed an insignificant upward trend in the first stage and a significant rapid upward trend in the second stage. The rapidly decrease group showed a significant and rapid downward trend in the first stage and a significant and rapid upward trend in the second stage. In the development of self-esteem in adolescence, there were three latent classes in which the characteristics of development trajectories were different. Age of 14 is the turning point between the two stages of development.

Longitudinal relations among perceived parental warmth, self‐esteem and social behaviours from middle childhood to early adolescence in China: Disentangling between‐ and within‐person associations

“…A study of individuals of ages 14-23 in Norway found three self-esteem development trajectories: persistently high, chronically low and U-shaped (Birkeland et al, 2012). However, three different trajectory classes have been identified in Chinese adolescents: stable low, rapidly rising and rapidly decreasing (Huang et al, 2022).…”

“…It should be noted that the across‐time transactions between parents and their children occur at the within‐family level, which implies the need for statistical methods that separating within‐family and between‐family variations (Nelemans et al, 2020). In addition, self‐esteem and social behaviours have both been observed to display heterogeneity at the within‐person level (Huang et al, 2022; Lee et al, 2022; Wiesner & Silbereisen, 2003). However, previous studies have relied primarily on between‐person analyses (Kanacri et al, 2021; Rothenberg, Lansford, Alampay, et al, 2020; Rothenberg, Lansford, Bacchini, et al, 2020); thus, they have not disentangled the stable between‐ and varying within‐person effects nor clarified the direction of the relations among variables at the within‐person level, leaving them open to erroneous inferences regarding the existence, magnitude and direction of causal effects (Hamaker et al, 2015).…”