Self-Esteem Development Across the Lifespan

Abstract

After decades of debate, a consensus is emerging about the way self-esteem develops across the lifespan. On average, self-esteem is relatively high in childhood, drops during adolescence (particularly for girls), rises gradually throughout adulthood, and then declines sharply in old age. Despite these general age differences, individuals tend to maintain their ordering relative to one another: Individuals who have relatively high self-esteem at one point in time tend to have relatively high self-esteem years later. This type of stability (i.e., rank-order stability) is somewhat lower during childhood and old age than during adulthood, but the overall level of stability is comparable to that found for other personality characteristics. Directions for further research include (a) replication of the basic trajectory using more sophisticated longitudinal designs, (b) identification of the mediating mechanisms underlying self-esteem change, (c) the development of an integrative theoretical model of the life-course trajectory of self-esteem.

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Title:
Self-esteem development across the lifespan
Author:
Robins, Richard W, University of California, Davis
Trzesniewski, K H
Publication Date:
06-01-2005
Publication Info:
Postprints, UC Davis
Permalink:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bc5r8nd
Additional Info:
This is an electronic version of an Article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science
14 (3), 158-162.
Keywords:
self-esteem, development, change, stability
Abstract:
After decades of debate, a consensus is emerging about the way self-esteem develops across
the lifespan. On average, self-esteem is relatively high in childhood, drops during adolescence
(particularly for girls), rises-gradually throughout adulthood, and then declines sharply in old age.
Despite these general age differences, individuals tend to maintain their ordering relative to one
another: Individuals who have relatively high self-esteem at one point in time tend to have relatively
high self-esteem years later. This type of stability (i.e., rank-order stability) is somewhat lower
during childhood and old age than during adulthood, but the overall level of stability is comparable
to that found for other personality characteristics. Directions for further research include (a)
replication of the basic trajectory using more sophisticated longitudinal designs, (b) identification of
the mediating mechanisms underlying self-esteem change, (c) the development of an integrative
theoretical model of the life-course trajectory of self-esteem.

UNCORRECTED PROOF
Self-Esteem Development Across
the Life Span
Richard W. Robins
1
and Kali H. Trzesniewski
2
1
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, and
2
Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London,
United Kingdom
ABSTRACT—After decades of debate, a consensus is emerg-
ing about the way self-esteem develops across the lifespan.
On average, self-esteem is relatively high in childhood,
drops duringadolescence (particularly for girls),rises grad-
ually throughout adulthood, and then declines sharply in
old age. Despite these overall age trends, individuals tend to
maintain their ordering relative to one another: For ex-
ample, individuals who have relatively high self-esteem at
one point in time tend to have relatively high self-esteem
years later. This type of stability (i.e., rank-order stability)
is somewhat lower during childhood and old age than
during adulthood, but the overall level of stability is com-
parable to that found for other personality characteristics.
Directions for further research include (a) replication of
the basic trajectory using more sophisticated designs and
statistical analyses, (b) identification of the mediating
mechanisms underlying self-esteem change, (c) the devel-
opment of an integrative theoretical model of the life-course
trajectory of self-esteem.
KEYWORDS—self-esteem; development; change; stability
As he was nearing the end of his life, Michelangelo began working
on what many people believe to be his most important work, the
Florentine Pieta
`. After working intensely for almost a decade,
he entered his studio one day and took a sledgehammer to the
sculpture. He broke away the hands and legs and nearly shattered
the work before his assistants dragged him away. Why did Mi-
chelangelo attempt to destroy one of his greatest creations, a
statue that has been described as among the finest works of the
Renaissance? Disillusioned and isolated in the last decades of
his life, Michelangelo had a heightened sense of perfectionism
that was exacerbated by his failure to live up to the expectations of
his father, who viewed being a sculptor as akin to being a manual
laborer. Michelangelo, it seems, had self-esteem issues. Was
Michelangelo’s low self-esteem normative for someone his age?
Was he likely to have been plagued by self-doubts throughout his
life? An emerging body of evidence about self-esteem is begin-
ning to offer answers to these kinds of questions.
In this article, we review the current state of scientific evidence
regarding the development of self-esteem across the lifespan.
1
After decades of debate, a consensus is emerging about the way
self-esteem changes from childhood to old age. We focus here on
two forms of change: (a) normative changes in self-esteem, which
reflect whether individuals, on average, increase or decrease over
time (assessed by mean differences in self-esteem across age
groups); and (b) the stability of individual differences in self-
esteem, which reflect the degree to which the relative ordering
of individuals is maintained over time (assessed by correlations
between self-esteem scores across two time points, i.e., test–
retest correlations).
2
THE NORMATIVE TRAJECTORY OF SELF-ESTEEM
ACROSS THE LIFESPAN
As we go through life, our self-esteem inevitably waxes and
wanes. These fluctuations in self-esteem reflect changes in our
social environment as well as maturational changes such as pu-
berty and cognitive declines in old age. When these changes are
experienced by most individuals at about the same age and in-
fluence individuals in a similar manner, they will produce nor-
mative shifts in self-esteem across developmental periods.
The findings from three recent studies—a meta-analysis of
86 published articles (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2001;
CDIR 353 BDispatch: 18.6.05 Journal: CDIR CE: Blackwell
Journal Name Manuscript No. Author Received: No. of pages: 5 PE: Saravan/Suresh
Address correspondence to Richard W. Robins, Department of Psy-
chology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8686; e-mail:
rwrobins@ucdavis.edu.
1
The focus of this article is on explicit (i.e., conscious) global evaluations of
self-worth, not implicit (i.e., unconscious) or domain-specific (e.g., math ability)
self-evaluations.
2
These two forms of change are conceptually and statistically distinct. Indi-
viduals in a sample could increase substantially in self-esteem but the rank or-
dering of individuals would be maintained if everyone increased by the same
amount. Similarly, the rank ordering of individuals could change substantially
over time without producing any aggregate increases or decreases (e.g., if the
number of people who decreased offset the number of people who increased).
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
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UNCORRECTED PROOF
see also Twenge & Campbell, 2001); a large, cross-sectional
study of individuals aged 9 to 90 (Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy,
Gosling, & Potter, 2002); and a cohort-sequential longitudinal
study of individuals aged 25 to 96 (Trzesniewski & Robins,
2004)—paint a portrait of the normative trajectory of sel f-esteem
across the lifespan (see Fig. 1). Below, we summarize the major
changes that occur from childhood to old age.
Childhood
Young children have relatively high self-esteem, which gradually
declines over the course of childhood. Researchers have spec-
ulated that children have high self-esteem because their self-
views are unrealistically positive. As children develop cogni-
tively, they begin to base their self-evaluations on external
feedback and social comparisons, and thus form a more balanced
and accurate appraisal of their academic competence, social
skills, attractiveness, and other personal characteristics. For
example, as children move from preschool to elementary school
they receive more negative feedback from teachers, parents, and
peers, and their self-evaluations correspondingly become more
negative.
Adolescence
Self-esteem continues to decline during adolescence. Re-
searchers have attributed the adolescent decline to body image
and other problems associated with puberty, the emerging ca-
pacity to think abstractly about one’s self and one’s future and
therefore to acknowledge missed opportunities and failed ex-
pectations, and the transition from grade school to the more ac-
ademically challenging and socially complex context of junior
high school.
Adulthood
Self-esteem increases gradually throughout adulthood, peaking
sometime around the late 60s. Over the course of adulthood,
individuals increasingly occupy positions of power and status,
which might promote feelings of self-worth. Many lifespan the-
orists have suggested that midlife is characterized by peaks in
achievement, mastery, and control over self and environment
(e.g., Erikson, 1985). Consistent with these theoretical specu-
lations, the personality changes that occur during adulthood tend
to reflect increasing levels of maturity and adjustment, as indi-
cated by higher levels of conscientiousness and emotional sta-
bility (Trzesniewski, Robins, Roberts, & Caspi, 2004).
Old Age
Self-esteem declines in old age. The few studies of self-esteem in
old age suggest that self-esteem begins to drop around age 70
(about the age when Michelangelo began working on the
Florentine Pieta
`). This decline may be due to the dramatic con-
fluence of changes that occur in old age, including changes in
roles (e.g., retirement), relationships (e.g., the loss of a spouse),
2.80
2.90
3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
3.40
3.50
3.60
3.70
3.80
3.90
4.00
4.10
Age
Self-Esteem
9-12 13-17 18-22 23-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-90
Men
Women
Fig. 1. Mean level of self-esteem for males and females across the lifespan (Robins et al., 2002). Also plotted are
year-by-year means, separately for males (open triangles) and females (open circles).
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and physical functioning (e.g., health problems), as well as a drop
in socioeconomic status. The old-age decline may also reflect a
shift toward a more modest, humble, and balanced view of the self
in old age (Erikson, 1985). That is, older individuals may
maintain a deep-seated sense of their own worth, but their self-
esteem scores drop because they are increasingly willing to ac-
knowledge their faults and limitations and have a diminished
need to present themselves in a positive light to others. Con-
sistent with this interpretation, narcissism tends to decline with
age (Foster, Campbell, & Twenge, 2003).
Gender Differences
Overall, males and females follow essentially the same trajectory:
For both genders, self-esteem is relatively high in childhood,
drops during adolescence, rises gradually throughout adulthood,
and then declines in old age. Nonetheless, there are some in-
teresting gender divergences. Although boys and girls report
similar levels of self-esteem during childhood, a gender gap
emerges by adolescence, such that adolescent boys have higher
self-esteem than adolescent girls (Kling, Hyde, Showers, &
Buswell, 1999; Robins et al., 2002). This gender gap persists
throughout adulthood, and then narrows and perhaps even dis-
appears in old age (Kling et al., 1999; Robins et al., 2002). Re-
searchers have offered numerous explanations for the gender
difference, ranging from maturational changes associated with
puberty to social-contextual factors associated with the differ-
ential treatment of boys and girls in the classroom or gender
differences in body image ideals. However, no generally ac-
cepted integrative theoretical model exists.
RANK-ORDER STABILITY OF SELF-ESTEEM
Over the past several decades, researchers have debated the
degree to which self-esteem should be thought of as a trait-like
construct that remains relatively stable over time or as a state-like
process that continually fluctuates in response to environmental
and situational stimuli. If self-esteem is less stable over the long
term than other personality characteristics, then it may not be
a useful predictor of important real-world outcomes.
The findings of a recent meta-analysis support the claim that
self-esteem is a stable, trait-like construct (Trzesniewski, Don-
nellan, & Robins, 2003). The stability of self-esteem across all
age groups, as determined by test-retest correlation, is compa-
rable to that of the major dimensions of personality, including
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism,
and openness to experience (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Thus,
individuals who have relatively high self-esteem at one point in
time tend to have high self-esteem years later ; likewise those with
low self-esteem earlier in life tend to have low self-esteem later.
However, self-esteem is more stable in some periods of life than
in others. Stability is relatively low during early childhood, in-
creases throughout adolescence and early adulthood, and then
declines during midlife and old age. This curvilinear trend holds
for men and women, for U.S. and non-U.S. participants, and for
different self-esteem scales.
The lower levels of stability found during childhood and old age
may reflect the dramatic life changes, shifting social circum-
stances, and relatively rapid maturational changes that charac-
terize both the beginning and end of life. For example, during old
age, important life events such as retirement and becoming a
grandparent may transform one’s sense of self, producing higher
levels of self-esteem in some individuals and lower levels in
others. These life events can lead to lower levels of self-esteem
stability if they are experienced at different ages (e.g., some
people retire earlier than others) or differentially affect indi-
viduals (e.g., only some retirees decline in self-esteem). Moreo-
ver, Erikson (1985) noted that as individuals grow older they
begin to review their lifelong accomplishments and experiences,
leading in some cases to more critical self-appraisals (ego
despair) and in other cases to increased self-acceptance (ego
integrity). Thus, a developmental shift toward greater self-
reflection in old age may produce increases in self-esteem for
some individuals but decreases for others.
IMPLICATIONS
Until recently, the self-esteem literature had been caught in a
quagmire of conflicting findings and there was little agreement
about the way self-esteem develops. The research reviewed in
this article will hopefully move the field toward consensus, and
help address questions such as: When in the lifespan is self-
esteem relatively high or low? Is self-esteem more like a state
(relatively transitory) or more like a trait (relatively unchanging)?
Understanding the trajectory of self-esteem may provide in-
sights into the underlying processes that shape self-esteem de-
velopment. For example, the fact that self-esteem drops during
both adolescence and old age suggests that there might be
something common to both periods (e.g., the confluence of mul-
tiple social and physical changes) that negatively affects self-
esteem.
Knowledge about self-esteem development also has implica-
tions for the timing of interventions. For example, the normative
trajectory of self-esteem across the lifespan suggests that inter-
ventions should be timed for pre- or early adolescence because by
late adolescence much of the drop in self-esteem has already
occurred. Moreover, developmental periods during which rank-
order stability is relatively low may be ideal targets of interven-
tion programs because self-esteem may be particularly malleable
during these times of relative upheaval in the self-concept.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Research accumulating over the past several years paints an
increasingly clear picture of the trajectory of self-esteem across
the lifespan. Self-esteem shows remarkable continuity given the
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vast array of experiences that impinge upon a lived life. At the
same time, self-esteem also shows systematic changes that are
meaningfully connected to age-related life experiences and con-
texts. These normative changes illustrate the role of the self as an
organizing psychological construct that influences how individ-
uals orient their behavior to meet new demands in their envi-
ronment and new developmental challenges.
Several difficult but tractable issues remain. First, some of the
findings reported here require further replication and explora-
tion. In particular, relatively few studies have documented the
decline in self-esteem during old age. Establishing the robust-
ness of this effect is important given inconsistent findings in the
literature about whether emotional well-being and other aspects
of adjustment drop during old age (Mroczek, 2001). In addition, a
more fine-grained analysis of age trends might reveal important
fluctuations (e.g., changes from early to late adulthood) that were
obscured in the present studies.
Second, although the methodological quality of self-esteem
research has improved dramatically over the past decade, there
is still room for improvement. Greater attention should be paid
to measurement issues, including analyses of whether self-
esteem scales show different forms of measurement invariance
(e.g., does the meaning of self-esteem items vary across age
groups?). The use of more representative samples wo uld increase
the generalizability of the findings and allow for a deeper ex-
ploration into the potential moderating effects of gender, race,
ethnicity, and social class. Sophisticated statistical models
should be used to better understand dynamic, reciprocal causal
influences (e.g., is self-esteem a cause or consequence of im-
portant life experiences) (e.g., Ferrer & McArdle, 2003). Cohort-
sequential longitudinal studies, in which individuals from dif-
ferent age groups are followed over time, are needed to tease apart
aging and cohort effects (e.g., will all older individuals develop
lower self-esteem or just the particular cohort of individuals who
experienced the Great Depression and other life events unique to
that cohort?). Finally, genetically informed designs are needed to
explore the mutual influence of nature and nurture on self-esteem
development; researchers have yet to appreciate the profound
implications of the finding that global self-esteem, like most
traits, has a genetic basis (e.g., McGuire et al., 1999).
Third, research is needed on the mediating mechanisms un-
derlying self-esteem change. Chronological age has no causal
force per se. We need to understand what else changes with age
that might produce changes in self-esteem at different develop-
mental periods. One approach is to document the social-con-
textual factors associated with chronological age, such as the key
social roles and events that define and shape one’s position in the
life course. However, it is important to recognize that such factors
can only influence self-esteem through intrapsychic mecha-
nisms, such as perceptions of control and agency and feelings of
pride and shame, which shape the way people react to, and
therefore internalize, the events that occur in their lives. In our
view, the best way to understand self-esteem development is to
understand the self-evaluative mechanisms that drive the self
system—that is, the cognitive and affective processes presumed
to play a role in how self-evaluations are formed, maintained, and
changed. Although experimental studies have linked a numb er of
self-evaluative processes to short-term changes in self-evalua-
tion, we know little about the influence of such processes on self-
esteem change over long periods of time. Lifespan research on the
self should draw on this experimental work to develop hypotheses
about long-term change in self-esteem and explore how self-
evaluative processes documented in the lab play out in real-world
contexts.
Finally, the literature on self-esteem development lacks an
overarching theoretical framework. Most past theoretical work
has focused on particular developmental periods (e.g., the tran-
sition to adolescence) and particular life domains (e.g., work).
Consequently,although the literature has generated a laundry list
of possible reasons why self-esteem might drop during adoles-
cence (and why this might be particularly true for girls), there is
no integrative model of how the various proposed processes work
together to shape self-esteem development. We also do not know
whether these same processes can be invoked to account for the
drop in self-esteem during old age. Given the complexity of self-
esteem development, such a model would necessarily incorpo-
rate biological, social, and psychological factors; account for
reciprocal and dynamic causal influences; and include mecha-
nisms of continuity as well as change (e.g., various forms of
person–environment interaction). Our hope is that, by examining
patterns of findings across developmental contexts (childhood to
old age) and across life domains (work, relationships , health), the
field will move toward an overarching theory of the life-course
trajectory of self-esteem.
Recommended Reading
Harter, S. (1998). The development of self-representations. In W.Damon
& N. Eisenberg (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (pp. 553–
617). New York: Wiley.
Robins, R.W., Trzesniewski, K.H., Tracy, J.L., Gosling, S.D., & Potter,
J. (2002). (See References)
Trzesniewski, K.H., Donnellan, M.B., & Robins, R.W. (2003). (See
References)
Acknowledgments—This research was supported by Grant
AG022057 from the National Institute of Aging.
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