engleski

(In)stability of self-esteem in adulthood: The role of stressful life events

There are great numbers of stressful events that affect our everyday life. On the other side, people have a tendency to keep self-image as an equal and consistent through all situations. In that context great numbers of researches have found that high self-esteem could be treated as an efficient stress buffer. In this investigation we have tried to assess the dynamics of self-esteem in adulthood in relationship with number of stressful life events people have experienced and strategies of personal control that people use to regulate it. There is much research which has investigated these constructs, but the number of longitudinal studies is very small, so the main contribution of this research is in that it studied the dynamics of these processes within a period of one year. Subjects were 224 adults from Croatia which were contacted twice in the period of one year. We have used Rosenberg’ s General self-esteem scale, Social Readjustment Rating Scale, as well as questionnaires for assessment of strategies of personal control that people use. Results have shown that no significant difference was found in the level of self-esteem between the two measurements. In addition, a significant positive correlation between self-esteem in two measurements was found, and, therefore, it could be said that self-esteem remained stable between the two measurements. In contrary to some other results there were no significant correlation among stressful life events and self-esteem neither in the first nor the second measurement.

self-esteem; stressful life events

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