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Ethnic identity is a crucial developmental task for ethnic minority youth. The present study investigated the development of ethnic identity in a large sample of Mexican-origin youth ( N = 674) assessed biennially from age 10 to 19. Latent growth curve modeling was used to examine the trajectory of ethnic identity and its two facets: exploration (efforts to explore one’s ethnic group) and affirmation (positive connection to one’s ethnic group). Results showed a linear decline over time for ethnic identity and both facets; exploration declined more rapidly than affirmation. Using multigroup modeling, we tested whether the trajectories differ across gender and nativity. Compared to boys, girls’ ethnic identity, exploration, and affirmation decreased less. The trajectories did not differ for youth born in Mexico versus the United States. Discussion considers the impact of developmental, acculturative, and social–contextual processes on ethnic identity development as well unique features of our ethnic identity measure.

A widely held belief among laypeople and psychologists suggests that self-esteem and relational aggression (i.e., perpetration and victimization) are associated over time. The present study examines the bidirectional associations between self-esteem and relational aggression across 6 years, using two types of longitudinal models (latent cross-lagged panel models and latent random intercepts cross-lagged panel models) to separate between- and within-person effects. Six hundred and seventy-four Mexican-origin youth reported their global and domain-specific self-esteem and relational aggression (perpetration and victimization) in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh grades. Our findings suggest that: (a) being a perpetrator is prospectively associated with later lower opposite-sex relationships self-esteem at the between-person level, (b) lower self-esteem in the domain of honesty-trustworthiness is prospectively associated with becoming a perpetrator and a victim at the within- and between-person level, (c) lower global self-esteem is prospectively associated with higher victimization at the between-person level, and (d) being victimized is not prospectively associated with later global or domain-specific self-esteem, at neither the within- nor the between-person level. The present study provides little evidence for the widely held belief about the bidirectional associations between self-esteem and relational aggression across time but demonstrates the complexity of these associations on the between- and within-person level.

Researchers have debated whether relational aggression is a developmentally normative behavior or a sign of some underlying psychopathology. However, due to the dearth of longitudinal studies, we know little about how relational aggression and more severe forms of disruptive behavior co-develop. The present study examined bidirectional associations between relational aggression and two psychiatric disorders, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD), using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth followed from age 10 to 16. Results showed that individuals who engaged in relational aggression tended to increase over time in ODD and CD symptoms, and conversely, individuals exhibiting symptoms of ODD and CD tended to increase in relational aggression. These findings held for boys and girls, for youth born in Mexico and the United States, and after controlling for physical aggression. Thus, relational aggression seems to be both a developmentally normative behavior and a predictor of future mental health problems.

Recent models have focused on how brain-based individual differences in social sensitivity shape affective development in adolescence, when rates of depression escalate. Given the importance of the hippocampus in binding contextual and affective elements of experience, as well as its putative role in depression, we examined hippocampal volume as a moderator of the effects of social context on depressive symptoms in a sample of 209 Mexican-origin adolescents. Adolescents with larger versus smaller hippocampal volumes showed heightened sensitivity in their depressive symptoms to a protective factor inside the home (sense of family connectedness) and a risk factor outside the home (community crime exposure). These interactive effects uniquely predicted depressive symptoms and were greater for the left side, suggesting two independent social-contextual contributions to depression that were moderated by left hippocampal volume. Results elucidate complex brain-environment interplay in adolescent depression, offering clues about for whom and how social context plays a role.

The current study investigated the development of global and domain (academic, physical, same-sex peer relationship, opposite-sex peer relationship) self-esteem from age 10 to 16 in a sample of Mexican-origin adolescents. Participants’ ( N = 674) responses on the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ; Marsh, 2005) II-S showed moderate rank-order stability across four time points. In terms of mean-level change, global self-esteem and most forms of domain self-esteem decreased across adolescence; the one exception is that opposite-sex peer relationship self-esteem increased. As expected, there were individual differences in rates of change for all SDQ subscales. Most domain self-esteem subscales were concurrently related to global self-esteem ( r’s ranged from .18 to.87), but they did not predict changes in global self-esteem over time. Academic self-esteem had the strongest concurrent associations with global self-esteem. In general, there were no consistent gender differences in rank-order stability, mean levels, or change over time of global and domain self-esteem. These findings provide insight into the development of self-esteem in a rapidly-growing segment of the population of the United States.

In this article, we review new insights gained from recent longitudinal studies examining the development of self-esteem and its influence on important life outcomes. The evidence supports the following three conclusions. First, self-esteem increases from adolescence to middle adulthood, peaks at about age 50 to 60 years, and then decreases at an accelerating pace into old age; moreover, there are no cohort differences in the self-esteem trajectory from adolescence to old age. Second, self-esteem is a relatively stable, but by no means immutable, trait; individuals with relatively high (or low) self-esteem at one stage of life are likely to have relatively high (or low) self-esteem decades later. Third, high self-esteem prospectively predicts success and well-being in life domains such as relationships, work, and health. Given the increasing evidence that self-esteem has important real-world consequences, the topic of self-esteem development is of considerable societal significance.

Although it is well documented that low self-esteem and depression are related, the precise nature of the relation has been a topic of ongoing debate. We describe several theoretical models concerning the link between self-esteem and depression, and review recent research evaluating the validity of these competing models. Overall, the available evidence provides strong support for the vulnerability model (low self-esteem contributes to depression), weaker support for the scar model (depression erodes self-esteem), and little support for alternative accounts such as the diathesis-stress model. Moreover, the vulnerability model is robust and holds across gender, age, affective-cognitive versus somatic symptoms of depression, European background versus Mexican-origin participants, and clinical versus nonclinical samples. Research on further specifications of the vulnerability model suggests that the effect is (a) partially mediated by rumination, (b) not influenced by other characteristics of self-esteem (i.e., stability and contingency), and (c) driven predominantly by global rather than domain-specific self-esteem. The research has important theoretical implications because it counters the commonly repeated claim that self-esteem has no long-term impact. Moreover, the research has important practical implications, suggesting that depression can be prevented, or reduced, by interventions that improve self-esteem.

Women typically earn higher grades than men, even though they tend to score lower than men on the SAT, a pattern known as the female underprediction effect (FUE). In three samples, we tested our hypothesis that gender differences in Conscientiousness can explain this effect. Within each sample, we created a regression-based measure of under (vs. over) prediction, which reflects the extent to which an individual student’s actual grade point average (GPA) exceeded (or fell below) the GPA predicted by his or her SAT score. Significant gender differences in this measure documented the presence of the FUE. Next, we demonstrated that Conscientiousness significantly mediated the link between gender and underprediction. Specifically, women were higher in Conscientiousness, and students who were more conscientious earned grades that were higher than their SAT scores would predict. Thus, our expectation that Conscientiousness is a partial explanation for the FUE was confirmed.

Today’s diverse society often includes culturally rich environments that contain cues pertaining to more than one culture. These cultural cues can shape cognitive processes, such as creativity. Recent evidence shows that bicultural experience enhances creativity, and that for culture-related domains, this effect is particularly evident among biculturals who blend their two cultural identities. The present study tested whether enhanced creativity among more blended biculturals was due to increased idea generation (i.e., ideational fluency). Moreover, the authors tested whether these effects generalized to noncultural domains, which may indicate that bicultural experience enhances creativity in broader arenas. One hundred seventy-seven Chinese Americans completed a creativity task in either a monocultural or bicultural context (manipulated via Chinese or American symbols or both). Greater bicultural identity blendedness predicted domain-general creativity in bicultural but not in monocultural contexts, and this was mediated by ideational fluency. Implications for enhancing creativity in our diverse society are discussed.

The present research investigated secular trends in narcissism and self-enhancement over the past three decades. Despite recent claims about the impact of the “self-esteem movement” on the current generation of young people, we found no evidence that college students' scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory increased from the 1980s through 2007 (N = 26,867), although we did find small changes in specific facets of narcissism. Similarly, we found no evidence that high school students' level of self-enhancement, defined by the discrepancy between their perceived intelligence and their actual academic achievements, increased from 1976 to 2006 (N = 410,527). These results cast doubt on the belief that today's young people have increasingly inflated impressions of themselves compared with previous generations.

Previous research has shown that the personalities of both partners are associated with the qualities of their romantic relationship. This study extends this literature by examining whether or not reports of negative relationship interactions mediate the effects of personality traits on judgments of relationship satisfaction and quality. Participants were 337 couples from the Family Transitions Project who completed a comprehensive personality questionnaire and several scales measuring relationship behaviors and satisfaction. Negative Emotionality and Communal Positive Emotionality were related to both self- and partner reports of relationship satisfaction. These associations were substantially mediated by negative relationship interactions. Discussion furthers the ongoing rapprochement between intrapersonal and interpersonal approaches to the study of romantic relationships.

Pride, a “self-conscious” emotion involving complex self-evaluative processes, is a fundamental human emotion. Recent research provides new insights into its nature and function. Like the “basic” emotions, pride is associated with a distinct, universally recognized, nonverbal expression, which is spontaneously displayed during pride experiences. Yet, pride differs from the basic emotions in its dependency on self-evaluations and in its complex structure, which is comprised of two theoretically and conceptually distinct facets that have divergent personality correlates and cognitive antecedents. In this article, we summarize findings from the growing body of research on pride and highlight the implications of this research for a broader understanding of emotions and social behavior.

Four studies used experimental and correlational methods to test predictions about the antecedents of shame and guilt derived from an appraisal-based model of self-conscious emotions (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Results were consistent with the predicted relations between appraisals (i.e., causal attributions) and emotions. Specifically, (a) internal attributions were positively related to both shame and guilt; (b) the chronic tendency to make external attributions was positively related to the tendency to experience shame; and (c) internal, stable, uncontrollable attributions for failure were positively related to shame, whereas internal, unstable, controllable attributions for failure were positively related to guilt. Emotions and attributions were assessed using a variety of methods, so converging results across studies indicate the robustness of the findings and provide support for the theoretical model.

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.

Three experiments provide converging evidence that pride has a distinct, recognizable expression. Experiment 1 showed that judges can agree in identifying a posed expression as showing pride and can reliably distinguish pride expressions from expressions of related emotions such as happiness. Experiment 2 showed that judges can identify the pride expression when the task uses an open-ended response format that does not cue them with the label “pride.” Experiment 3 showed that the pride expression includes a small smile, with head tilted slightly back, visibly expanded posture, and arms raised above the head or hands on hips. Overall, these findings challenge the assumption that all positive emotions share the same expression, and suggest that pride may be added to the pantheon of basic emotions generally viewed as evolved responses.

Four studies examined the construct validity of two global self-esteem measures. In Studies 1 through 3, the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (SISE) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) showed strong convergent validity for men and women, for different ethnic groups, and for both college students and community members. The SISE and the RSE had nearly identical correlations with a wide range of criterion measures, including domain-specific self-evaluations, self-evaluative biases, social desirability, personality, psychological and physical health, peer ratings of group behavior, academic outcomes, and demographic variables. Study 4 showed that the SISE had only moderate convergent validity in a sample of children. Overall, the findings support the reliability and validity of the SISE and suggest it can provide a practical alternative to the RSE in adult samples. More generally, the findings contribute to the research literature by further elaborating the nomological network of global self-esteem.