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The Link Between Self-Esteem and Social Relationships:
A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies
Michelle A. Harris
The University of Texas at Austin
Ulrich Orth
University of Bern
Theorists have long assumed that people’s self-esteem and social relationships influence each other.
However, the empirical evidence has been inconsistent, creating substantial uncertainty about
whether relationships are in fact an influential factor in self-esteem development and vice versa. This
meta-analysis synthesizes the available longitudinal data on the prospective effect of social rela-
tionships on self-esteem (48 samples including 46,231 participants) and the prospective effect of
self-esteem on social relationships (35 samples including 21,995 participants). All effects controlled
for prior levels of the outcomes. Results showed that relationships and self-esteem reciprocally
predict each other over time with similar effect sizes (⫽.08 in both directions). Moderator
analyses suggested that the effects held across sample characteristics such as mean age, gender,
ethnicity, and time lag between assessments, except for the self-esteem effect on relationships,
which was moderated by type of relationship partner (stronger for general relationships than for
specific partners) and relationship reporter (stronger for self-reported than for informant-reported
relationship characteristics). The findings support assumptions of classic and contemporary theories
on the influence of social relationships on self-esteem and on the consequences of self-esteem for
the relationship domain. In sum, the findings suggest that the link between people’s social
relationships and their level of self-esteem is truly reciprocal in all developmental stages across the
life span, reflecting a positive feedback loop between the constructs.
Keywords: longitudinal studies, meta-analysis, prospective effects, self-esteem, social relationships
A longstanding assumption in psychology is that social rela-
tionships play a key role in shaping individuals’ self-esteem
(e.g., Leary, 2012), or the subjective evaluation of their overall
worthiness as a person (e.g., see Robins, Tracy, & Trzesni-
ewski, 2008;Rosenberg, 1965). Although there is abundant
empirical support for the concurrent association between vari-
ous relationship characteristics and self-esteem (e.g., Cameron
& Granger, 2019;McArdle, Waters, Briscoe, & Hall, 2007;
Murberg, 2010;Neff & Geers, 2013;Poulsen, Ziviani, &
Cuskelly, 2006;Rosario, Schrimshaw, & Hunter, 2011;Schuen-
gel et al., 2006), longitudinal research has produced mixed
findings, with some studies finding evidence for longitudinal
effects of social acceptance on self-esteem (e.g., Wagner,
Lüdtke, Robitzsch, Göllner, & Trautwein, 2018) but other stud-
ies finding no support for the effect of close relationships on
self-esteem development (e.g., Harris et al., 2015). Adding to
the complexity of this empirical association, when individuals
are asked to explain the sources of their self-esteem, social
relationships are mentioned infrequently, compared with other
sources (e.g., achievements, personality traits; Harris, Donnel-
lan, Beer, & Trzesniewski, 2019). As it stands, the inconsis-
tency of the current state of knowledge creates substantial
uncertainty about whether social relationships in fact are an
influential factor in self-esteem development.
A related question is whether self-esteem has an influence on
characteristics of social relationships (e.g., see Murray, Hol-
mes, & Collins, 2006;Srivastava & Beer, 2005;Swann & Read,
1981). According to dynamic interactionism (Asendorpf & Wil-
pers, 1998;Magnusson, 1990), there are likely to be reciprocal
effects between individuals’ self-esteem and quality of social
relationships. Previous research has found a small meta-analytic
effect of self-esteem on social relationships, based on longitu-
dinal studies examining self-esteem at one time point and social
relationships at a later time point (Cameron & Granger, 2019).
However, the effects included in the Cameron and Granger
Editor’s Note. Kate C. McLean served as the handling editor for this
article.—MLC
This article was published Online First September 26, 2019.
XMichelle A. Harris, Department of Psychology, The University of
Texas at Austin; Ulrich Orth, Department of Psychology, University of
Bern.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science
Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant 1650042. Any
opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the National Science Foundation. Data and code are available at https://
osf.io/xt3u6/.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michelle
A. Harris, Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin,
108 Dean Keeton Street, Stop A8000, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail:
michelleaharris@utexas.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Content may be shared at no cost, but any requests to reuse this content in part or whole must go through the American Psychological Association.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
Personality Processes and Individual Differences
© 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 119, No. 6, 1459–1477
ISSN: 0022-3514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000265
1459
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