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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.

The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) were developed to measure behavioral traits related to 6 affective neurobiological systems (play, seek, care, fear, anger, and sadness). However, the ANPS has a number of problems, including an ill-defined factor structure, overly long scales, and items that are poorly worded, ambiguous, and of questionable content validity. To address these issues, we constructed an improved short form of the ANPS--the Brief ANPS (BANPS). Three studies demonstrated that the 33-item BANPS has a clear and coherent factor structure, relatively high reliabilities (for short scales), and theoretically meaningful correlations with a wide range of external criteria, supporting its convergent and discriminant validity. Unlike typical short-form scales, the BANPS improves upon the psychometric properties of the long form, and we recommend its use in all research contexts.

This study ( N = 589) investigated the link between the disposition to experience pride and real-world creative achievement, as well as the mediating role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, we disentangled the effects of two forms of pride: authentic and hubristic. We hypothesized that: (a) authentic pride should correlate positively with creativity; (b) intrinsic motivation should mediate the relation between authentic pride and creativity; (c) hubristic pride should correlate negatively with creativity; and (d) extrinsic motivation should mediate the relation between hubristic pride and creativity. Consistent with our hypotheses, authentic pride was positively related to intrinsic motivation and creativity, and intrinsic motivation mediated the pride-creativity link. Hubristic pride did not correlate with creativity although it was positively related to extrinsic motivation. These results support the idea that authentic and hubristic pride are differentially related to creative achievement, and provide preliminary evidence of the mediating role of motivation.

This study examined how parents' optimism influences positive parenting and child peer competence in Mexican-origin families.A sample of 521 families (521 mothers, 438 fathers, and 521 11-year-olds) participated in the cross-sectional study. We used structural equation modeling to assess whether effective parenting would mediate the effect of parents' optimism on child peer competence and whether mothers' and fathers' optimism would moderate the relation between positive parenting and child social competence.Mothers' and fathers' optimism were associated with effective parenting, which in turn was related to children's peer competence. Mothers' and fathers' optimism also moderated the effect of parenting on child peer competence. High levels of parental optimism buffered children against poor parenting; at low levels of parental optimism, positive parenting was more strongly related to child peer competence.Results are consistent with the hypothesis that positive parenting is promoted by parents' optimism and is a proximal driver of child social competence. Parental optimism moderates effects of parenting on child outcomes.

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.

Parental involvement in education is an important determinant of youth's academic success. Yet, there is limited knowledge on how Latino parents' education-related involvement changes over time. Using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families (mother-adolescent dyad; M age of child at Wave 1=10.4, SD = 0.60), we examined trajectories of parental involvement from 5th to 11th grade and the effects of socio-cultural (e.g., family SES and acculturation) and contextual (e.g., neighborhood) factors on these trajectories. Results showed that mothers reduced two aspects of the educational involvement: home-based involvement and academic aspirations, but increased on a third aspect of involvement, resource seeking. Furthermore, family SES, acculturation, and neighborhood context were differentially associated with mothers' involvement at 5th grade and predicted changes in involvement across elementary and high school.

Narcissism is an important and consequential aspect of personality, yet we know little about its developmental origins. Using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin families, we examined cross-lagged relations between parenting behaviors (warmth, hostility, monitoring) and narcissism (superiority, exploitativeness). Parental hostility at age 12 was associated with higher levels of exploitativeness at age 14, whereas parental monitoring at age 12 was associated with lower levels of exploitativeness at age 14. These effects replicated across three different parenting measures: child reports, spouse reports, and behavioral coding of parent-child interactions. None of the parenting dimensions was related to superiority, suggesting that parenting practices are more strongly related to the maladaptive than the adaptive component of narcissism.

This study examined factors that relate to academic competence and expectations from elementary to middle school for 674 fifth grade students (50% boys; Mage = 10.86 years) of Mexican origin. Models predicting academic competence and expectations were estimated using a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) framework, with longitudinal data from fifth to eighth grades. School belonging (i.e., social and emotional connectedness to school) predicted greater academic competence and expectations over time. Findings indicate that student feelings of belonging in school may act as a resource that promotes academic competence and expectations. Furthermore, family income, parent education, and generational status had direct effects on academic competence and expectations to some degree, suggesting the importance of contextual factors in this process.

Adolescence is a dynamic stage of development during which individuals transition into more challenging academic contexts, navigate increasingly complex peer and romantic relationships, and take on adult responsibilities, all while experiencing significant neuro-hormonal changes associated with puberty. These changes put adolescents at risk for myriad emotional and behavioral problems, known to markedly escalate during adolescence. Underage alcohol use, in particular, is increasingly common during adolescence (Johnston et al., 2014a), and contributes to risky sexual behavior, delinquency, school drop-out, and substance use disorders (Brown et al., 2009; Newcomb & Bentler, 1988; Trim et al., 2007). Alcohol use is also highly comorbid with anxiety and depressive disorders (NIDA, 2010). Two theoretical models have been advanced to account for this comorbidity. The self-medication model posits that individuals with pre-existing internalizing symptoms use alcohol to cope with their emotional distress and soothe its physiological concomitants (Trim et al., 2007; Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2012). Support for the prospective effect of internalizing symptoms on alcohol use has been mixed (Fergusson et al., 2009; Hallfors et al., 2005; Lansford et al., 2008; Maslowsky et al., 2014; Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2012). The alcohol-induced disruption model posits that alcohol use leads to internalizing symptoms by: (a) impeding the development of effective coping and self-regulatory skills; (b) inducing neurotoxic effects that impair cognitive functioning, which creates school-related stress; and (c) alcohol use dysregulates reward mechanisms in the brain, causing adolescents to focus on acquiring alcohol rather than engaging in more adaptive activities that reduce risk for depression and anxiety (Brook et al., 2002; King et al., 2004; Trim et al., 2007). Few studies have tested these mediation pathways, and even the prospective effect of alcohol use on internalizing problems in adolescence is not well established, especially in non-clinical samples (Frojd et al., 2011; Mason et al., 2008). The present research examined cross-lagged relations between frequency of alcohol use and internalizing symptoms, using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth (50% female) assessed at ages 14 and 16. The study extends previous research in several ways. First, whereas most prior studies examined concurrent associations between alcohol use and internalizing symptoms, we used longitudinal data to examine reciprocal prospective relations and thus establish the temporal order of the effects. Second, our measure of internalizing problems assesses symptoms unique to anxiety and depression, as well as symptoms common to the disorders, allowing us to elucidate which specific aspects of anxiety and depression are more or less relevant to alcohol use. This is important because the effects of depression on alcohol use appear to be more robust than the effects of anxiety (Hallfors et al., 2005; Hussong & Chassin, 1994; Kaplow et al., 2010), but is difficult to draw conclusions from this literature because many measures of depression include some anxiety content and many measures of anxiety include some depressive content. Third, whereas many prior studies have used clinical samples, our community-based sample allows for more generalizable inferences about how alcohol use and anxiety/depression are associated during normative adolescent development. Finally, we focused on a specific ethnic minority group, Mexican-origin individuals, that remains understudied in the context of alcohol involvement and internalizing problems, despite their growing representation in the population (U.S. Census, 2014), their early onset of alcohol use (Johnston et al., 2014b), and their increased vulnerability to psychiatric and substance use disorders the longer they are exposed to American society (Vega et al., 1998; 2000). Although the developmental pathways characterizing Mexican-origin and European-origin youth sometimes differ, in the present context we expected to find the same pattern of results observed in prior research. This expectation is based on the fact that the mediating mechanisms posited by the self-medication and alcohol-induced disruption models reflect basic processes that are unlikely to be culture specific; youth from all ethnic groups are likely to derive some self-medicating benefit from alcohol use and, similarly, alcohol use is likely to lead to impaired self-regulatory skills, neurotoxic effects on brain development, and dysregulated reward processes. Thus, we predicted that alcohol use and internalizing symptoms would be reciprocally related over time, such that alcohol use at age 14 would contribute to subsequent increases in anxiety/depressive symptoms from age 14 to 16, and anxiety and depressive symptoms at age 14 would contribute to subsequent increases in alcohol use from age 14 to 16. Establishing the generalizability of these reciprocal associations to Mexican-origin youth has important implications. Theoretically, it would suggest that the developmental pathways linking these factors are not culture-specific but rather reflect more basic processes. Practically, it would suggest that intervention programs targeting these pathways (e.g., trying to reduce alcohol use by reducing internalizing problems or improving coping skills) are likely to be effective with Mexican-origin youth. In contrast, if our results differ from prior research, this would highlight the possibility of culture-specific developmental pathways, and suggest that factors unique to Mexican-origin youth exacerbate or diminish the link between internalizing symptoms and alcohol use. For example, the hypothesized pathways may be weaker for first-generation (vs. more acculturated) immigrants, given that first-generation youth are less likely to turn to substance use despite experiencing heightened levels of stress relative to latter generation youth (Garcia-Coll & Marks, 2011). To evaluate this possibility, we tested whether generational status moderates the association between internalizing symptoms and alcohol use. Finally, because the association between internalizing symptoms and alcohol use can be influenced by co-occurring externalizing symptoms (Colder et al., 2013), we also examined the effects of internalizing symptoms after controlling for a measure of externalizing problems.

We examine the dynamics of substance use and psychiatric symptoms from childhood to adolescence using a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families (N = 674). We present a longitudinal model capturing the trajectories of substance use and psychiatric symptoms (depression, conduct disorder), as well as the interrelations between these trajectories over time. Such a model is an extension of latent change score models designed to account for the occurrence of psychiatric symptoms while also accommodating a large amount of zeros for nonoccurrence and characterizing the changes over time in the count data. We compare this model with a more traditional approach based on a log transformation of the data. We describe differences between these approaches and highlight the benefits of using the two-part model when the data include a large amount of zeros for nonoccurrence of the behavior.

In the present study we examined changes in substance use and intentions to use substances for over 300 Mexican origin youth during the period from fifth to seventh grade. Consistent with the Family Stress Model, the findings showed that external stressors like economic pressure and ethnic discrimination increased maternal emotional distress which, in turn, reduced effective parenting. This stress process increased risk for youth use and intentions to use. However, when mothers remained effective parents, risk of use declined. Moreover, traditional cultural values involving family and religion reduced risk for involvement with substances during this developmental period. Thus, maternal effective parenting and cultural values increased resilience to substance use for Mexican American youth.

The quality of the parent-adolescent relationship is an important predictor of adolescent substance use. Most research in this area however has relied on questionnaire-based assessments of both substance use and interpersonal family dynamics, and has typically focused on European American samples. These gaps are addressed in the current study by evaluating prospective associations between behaviour coded from parentadolescent interactions in 7th grade and substance use in 9th and 12th grade, in a longitudinal sample of Mexicanorigin youth (N = 674). Adolescents’ observed behaviours towards parents, especially hostility, were significantly but weakly associated with future substance use. Parents’ behaviours towards adolescents were generally not significantly associated with future substance use. Results add to the literature examining the relevance of family processes in the development of substance use, and offer converging evidence regarding the role of early aggressive tendencies and later substance use.

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.

This article provides an overview of theory and research on the self from a naturalist perspective. That is, we conceptualize the human self in the same way as any other natural phenomenon, seeking to understand its structure, ontogeny, evolutionary origins, and underlying neural, cognitive, and affective mechanisms. Each section addresses a fundamental question about the nature and functioning of the human self: What is the self? How many selves do humans have? When does the self emerge? Do humans have accurate self-representations? Where is the self in the brain? How does emotion shape the self? And what are the adaptive functions of the self? For each question, we review relevant theory and research, with an emphasis on individual-differences in self-related processes.

We examined the life-span development of self-esteem and tested whether self-esteem influences the development of important life outcomes, including relationship satisfaction, job satisfaction, occupational status, salary, positive and negative affect, depression, and physical health. Data came from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Analyses were based on 5 assessments across a 12-year period of a sample of 1,824 individuals ages 16 to 97 years. First, growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem increases from adolescence to middle adulthood, reaches a peak at about age 50 years, and then decreases in old age. Second, cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that self-esteem is best modeled as a cause rather than a consequence of life outcomes. Third, growth curve analyses, with self-esteem as a time-varying covariate, suggested that self-esteem has medium-sized effects on life-span trajectories of affect and depression, small to medium-sized effects on trajectories of relationship and job satisfaction, a very small effect on the trajectory of health, and no effect on the trajectory of occupational status. These findings replicated across 4 generations of participants— children, parents, grandparents, and their great-grandparents. Together, the results suggest that self-esteem has a significant prospective impact on real-world life experiences and that high and low self-esteem are not mere epiphenomena of success and failure in important life domains.

This research uses item response theory methods to evaluate the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988). Analyses using the 2-parameter logistic model were conducted on the total score and the Corry, Merritt, Mrug, and Pamp (2008) and Ackerman et al. (2011) subscales for the NPI. In addition to offering precise information about the psychometric properties of the NPI item pool, these analyses generated insights that can be used to develop new measures of the personality constructs embedded within this frequently used inventory.

Dispositional optimism is believed to be an important psychological resource that buffers families against the deleterious consequences of economic adversity. Using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families (N = 674), we tested a family stress model specifying that maternal dispositional optimism and economic pressure affect maternal internalizing symptoms, which, in turn, affects parenting behaviors and children’s social adjustment. As predicted, maternal optimism and economic pressure had both independent and interactive effects on maternal internalizing symptoms, and the effects of these variables on changes over time in child social adjustment were mediated by nurturant and involved parenting. The findings replicate and extend previous research on single-parent African American families (Taylor, Larsen-Rife, Conger, Widaman, & Cutrona, 2010), and demonstrate the generalizability of the positive benefits of dispositional optimism in another ethnic group and type of family structure.

We conducted 3 studies to test the idea that guilt is a key affective component of Conscientiousness and that it can account for the relation between Conscientiousness and negative affect. Study 1 used meta-analysis to show that Conscientiousness was associated with specific emotions and overall negative affect but was most strongly associated with guilt. Conscientiousness was negatively related to guilt experience but positively related to guilt proneness. Also, guilt experience mediated the relation between Conscientiousness and negative affect. Study 2 (N = 142) examined the relation between facets of Conscientiousness and guilt. We replicated results from Study 1 and showed that the relation between Conscientiousness and guilt was not due to overlap with Extraversion and Neuroticism. Study 3 (n = 176) examined the interplay between Conscientiousness and guilt on grades in a short-term longitudinal study. These studies showed that Conscientiousness is primarily related to guilt and highlighted the importance of examining the emotional substrate of Conscientiousness.

Personality types refer to common or typical configurations of the dispositional attributes that define the individual. Research over the last 20 years has identified a set of three replicable personality types: resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personalities. Resilient individuals are characterized by self-confidence, emotional stability, and a positive orientation toward others. Overcontrolled individuals are emotionally brittle, introverted, and tense, whereas undercontrolled individuals are disagreeable and lack self-control. In this article, we provide a brief history of current research on the three personality types and identify key areas of controversy. We also outline several directions for future research and discuss the importance of maintaining both attribute- and person-centered perspectives in contemporary personality psychology.

The present research addressed fundamental questions about the visual perspective of autobiographical memories: Are stable personality characteristics associated with visual perspective? Does visual perspective influence the memory's phenomenological qualities? Participants in Study 1 (N=1684) completed individual-difference measures and indicated the perspective from which they generally retrieve memories. Participants in Study 2 (N=706) retrieved a memory from their natural or manipulated perspective, rated its phenomenology, and completed the same individual-difference measures. Dissociation and anxiety were associated with third person retrieval style; the Big Five personality traits were primarily unrelated to perspective. Compared to third person memories, naturally occurring first person memories were higher on Vividness, Coherence, Accessibility, Sensory Detail, Emotional Intensity, and Time Perspective, and lower on Distancing; manipulating perspective eliminated these differences. Visual perspective is associated with clinically relevant constructs and, although associated with the memory's phenomenology, perspective does not shape it.

Participants listened to randomly selected excerpts of popular music and rated how nostalgic each song made them feel. Nostalgia was stronger to the extent that a song was autobiographically salient, arousing, familiar, and elicited a greater number of positive, negative, and mixed emotions. These effects were moderated by individual differences (nostalgia proneness, mood state, dimensions of the Affective Neurosciences Personality Scale, and factors of the Big Five Inventory). Nostalgia proneness predicted stronger nostalgic experiences, even after controlling for other individual difference measures. Nostalgia proneness was predicted by the Sadness dimension of the Affective Neurosciences Personality Scale and Neuroticism of the Big Five Inventory. Nostalgia was associated with both joy and sadness, whereas nonnostalgic and nonautobiographical experiences were associated with irritation.

The authors examined age differences in shame, guilt, and 2 forms of pride (authentic and hubristic) from age 13 years to age 89 years, using cross-sectional data from 2,611 individuals. Shame decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a nadir around age 50 years, and then increased in old age. Guilt increased from adolescence into old age, reaching a plateau at about age 70 years. Authentic pride increased from adolescence into old age, whereas hubristic pride decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a minimum around age 65 years, and then increased in old age. On average, women reported experiencing more shame and guilt; Blacks reported experiencing less shame and Asians more hubristic pride than other ethnicities. Across the life span, shame and hubristic pride tended to be negatively related to psychological well-being, and shame-free guilt and authentic pride showed positive relations with well-being. Overall, the findings support the maturity principle of personality development and suggest that as people age they become more prone to experiencing psychologically adaptive self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and authentic pride, and less prone to experiencing psychologically maladaptive ones, such as shame and hubristic pride.

The self-conscious emotions (e.g., embarrassment, guilt, pride, shame) are a special class of emotions that critically involve the self, including the capacity to form stable self-representations and to evaluate oneself relative to internal and external standards. In this article, we summarize five areas of recent research on self-conscious emotions: (a) the cognitive elicitors, or causal appraisals, that generate them; (b) their non-verbal expressions; (c) the underlying neural processes; (d) the degree to which their experience and expression varies across cultures; and (e) the measures that have been developed to assess them. In each section, we provide recommendations for future research directions.

The present study examined the relation between self-esteem and temperament in a sample of 646 Mexican-American early adolescents (mean age=10.4). Self-esteem was assessed using child reports on the Self-Description Questionnaire II—Short (SDQII-S; Marsh et al., 2005) and temperament was assessed using child and mother reports on the revised Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001). Findings show that: (a) early adolescents with high self-esteem show higher levels of Effortful Control but, contrary to findings in adult samples, do not differ from low self-esteem adolescents in Negative Affectivity; (b) low self-esteem is associated with Depression; and (c) low self-esteem is associated with Aggression. These findings replicated for boys and girls, two measures of self-esteem, and child and mother reports of temperament. The present study contributes to an emerging understanding of the link between self-esteem and temperament, and provides much needed data on the nature of self-esteem in ethnic minority populations.

Data from two large longitudinal studies were used to analyze reciprocal relations between self-esteem and depressive symptoms across the adult life span. Study 1 included 1,685 participants aged 18 to 96 years assessed 4 times over a 9-year period. Study 2 included 2,479 participants aged 18 to 88 years assessed 3 times over a 4-year period. In both studies, cross-lagged regression analyses indicated that low self-esteem predicted subsequent depressive symptoms, but depressive symptoms did not predict subsequent levels of self-esteem. This pattern of results replicated across all age groups, for both affective-cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression, and after controlling for content overlap between the self-esteem and depression scales. The results suggest that low self-esteem operates as a risk factor for depressive symptoms at all phases of the adult life span.

We evaluated secular increases in narcissism in light of issues raised by Twenge and Foster (2008) [Twenge and Foster (2008). Mapping the scale of the narcissism epidemic: Increases in narcissism 2002–2007 within ethnic groups. Journal of Research in Personality]. Year of data collection (1996–2008) and narcissism scores were weakly correlated in a sample of 30,073 participants (rs ranged from 0.019 to 0.044). The effect sizes were well below the conventional threshold for a “small” effect. Based on these and previous findings, we concluded that there is little evidence of a secular increase in narcissism in our datasets.

Do individuals with high self-esteem enjoy positive interpersonal relationships, or are they aggressive and antisocial? Does narcissism reflect an abundance of self-worth, or inflated self-views driven by an overcompensation for low self-esteem? The present research addresses the apparently two-sided nature of self-esteem and narcissism by distinguishing between two distinct self-regulatory processes (narcissistic self-aggrandizement and genuine self-esteem), and proposing that two distinct facets of pride—authentic and hubristic—form the affective core of each. Specifically, findings demonstrate that when narcissistic and genuine self-esteem are empirically distinguished, genuine self-esteem (along with authentic pride) is positively related to successful social relationships and mental health, whereas narcissistic self-aggrandizement (along with hubristic pride) is positively related to aggression and other antisocial behaviors.

In 2 studies, the authors developed and validated of a new set of standardized emotion expressions, which they referred to as the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE). The precise components of each expression were verified using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). The UCDSEE is the first FACS-verified set to include the three "self-conscious" emotions known to have recognizable expressions (embarrassment, pride, and shame), as well as the 6 previously established "basic" emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise), all posed by the same 4 expressers (African and White males and females). This new set has numerous potential applications in future research on emotion and related topics.

In this commentary, we identify several methodological and conceptual issues that undermine Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, and Bushman's (this issue) claim that narcissism levels have been rising over the past few decades. Specifically, we discuss (a) the limitations of convenience samples for making inferences about generational differences, (b) our failure to replicate other cross-temporal meta-analytic findings using data from a nationally representative sample, and (c) issues surrounding the interpretation of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. It is important to consider these issues given the extensive media coverage of Twenge et al.'s claim that today's youth are particularly narcissistic, which has wide-ranging implications for how this generation of young adults views itself and is viewed by society at large.

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.

Evolutionary accounts of emotion typically assume that humans evolved to quickly and efficiently recognize emotion expressions because these expressions convey fitness-enhancing messages. The present research tested this assumption in 2 studies. Specifically, the authors examined (a) how quickly perceivers could recognize expressions of anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, fear, happiness, pride, sadness, shame, and surprise; (b) whether accuracy is improved when perceivers deliberate about each expression's meaning (vs. respond as quickly as possible); and (c) whether accurate recognition can occur under cognitive load. Across both studies, perceivers quickly and efficiently (i.e., under cognitive load) recognized most emotion expressions, including the self-conscious emotions of pride, embarrassment, and shame. Deliberation improved accuracy in some cases, but these improvements were relatively small. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for the cognitive processes underlying emotion recognition.

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.

Self-esteem is one of the most widely studied and oldest constructs in scientific psychology. Accordingly, a number of measures have been used over the past century. Despite the wide variety of measures that have appeared in the literature, the majority of researchers use either the Rosenberg (1989) Self-Esteem scale or Harter's (e.g., Harter & Pike, 1988) Self-Perception Profile series of scales. This chapter provides a detailed description of these two measures that is updated from the last edition of the chapter. We also provide extensive coverage of three additional scales that were either not available for the last edition of the chapter or not extensively reviewed: the Self-Liking and Self-Competence Questionnaires (e.g., Tafarodi & Swann, 1995), the series of Self-Description Questionnaires (e.g., Marsh, 1992a), and the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (Robins et al., 2001). We provide a critical evaluation of each measure and make recommendations for future research.

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.

Using prospective data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study birth cohort, the authors found that adolescents with low self-esteem had poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects, and higher levels of criminal behavior during adulthood, compared with adolescents with high self-esteem. The long-term consequences of self-esteem could not be explained by adolescent depression, gender, or socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings held when the outcome variables were assessed using objective measures and informant reports; therefore, the findings cannot be explained by shared method variance in self-report data. The findings suggest that low self-esteem during adolescence predicts negative real-world consequences during adulthood.

Despite the widely held belief that men are more narcissistic than women, there has been no systematic review to establish the magnitude, variability across measures and settings, and stability over time of this gender difference. Drawing on the biosocial approach to social role theory, a meta-analysis performed for Study 1 found that men tended to be more narcissistic than women (d = .26; k = 355 studies; N = 470,846). This gender difference remained stable in U.S. college student cohorts over time (from 1990 to 2013) and across different age groups. Study 1 also investigated gender differences in three facets of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to reveal that the narcissism gender difference is driven by the Exploitative/Entitlement facet (d = .29; k = 44 studies; N = 44,108) and Leadership/Authority facet (d = .20; k = 40 studies; N = 44,739); whereas the gender difference in Grandiose/Exhibitionism (d = .04; k = 39 studies; N = 42,460) was much smaller. We further investigated a less-studied form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism—which is marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion—to find that (in contrast to the more commonly studied form of narcissism found in the DSM and the NPI) men and women did not differ on vulnerable narcissism (d = −.04; k = 42 studies; N = 46,735). Study 2 used item response theory to rule out the possibility that measurement bias accounts for observed gender differences in the three facets of the NPI (N = 19,001). Results revealed that observed gender differences were not explained by measurement bias and thus can be interpreted as true sex differences. Discussion focuses on the implications for the biosocial construction model of gender differences, for the etiology of narcissism, for clinical applications, and for the role of narcissism in helping to explain gender differences in leadership and aggressive behavior. Readers are warned against overapplying small effect sizes to perpetuate gender stereotypes.

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.

How much do we think our personality changes over time? How well do our perceptions of change correspond with actual personality change? Two hundred and ninety students completed measures of the Big Five personality traits when they first entered college. Four years later, they completed the same measures and rated the degree to which they believed they had changed on each dimension. Participants tended to view themselves as having changed substantially, and perceptions of change showed some correspondence with actual personality change. Perceived and actual change showed theoretically meaningful correlations with a host of variables related to different aspects of college achievement and adjustment.

Recent research has shown that pride, like the "basic" emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, has a distinct, nonverbal expression that can be recognized by adults (J. L. Tracy & R. W. Robins, 2004b). In 2 experiments, the authors examined whether young children can identify the pride expression and distinguish it from expressions of happiness and surprise. Results suggest that (a) children can recognize pride at above-chance levels by age 4 years; (b) children recognize pride as well as they recognize happiness; (c) pride recognition, like happiness and surprise recognition, improves from age 3 to 7 years; and (d) children's ability to recognize pride cannot be accounted for by the use of a process of elimination (i.e., an exclusion rule) to identify an unknown entity. These findings have implications for the development of emotion recognition and children's ability to perceive and communicate pride.

Self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame, pride) are fundamentally important to a wide range of psychological processes, yet they have received relatively little attention compared to other, more "basic" emotions (e.g., sadness, joy). This article outlines the unique features that distinguish self-conscious from basic emotions and then explains why generally accepted models of basic emotions do not adequately capture the self-conscious emotion process. The authors present a new model of self-conscious emotions, specify a set of predictions derived from the model, and apply the model to narcissistic self-esteem regulation. Finally, the authors discuss the model's broader implications for future research on self and emotion.

Suppressor situations occur when the simultaneous inclusion of two predictors improves one or both validities. A common allegation is that suppressor effects rarely replicate and have little substantive import. We present substantive examples from two established research domains to counter this skepticism. In the first domain, we show how measures of guilt and shame act consistently as mutual suppressors: Adding shame into a regression equation increases the negative association between guilt and aggression, whereas adding guilt increases the positive association between shame and aggression. In the second domain, we show how the effects of self-esteem and narcissism operate consistently as mutual suppressors: That is, adding narcissism into a regression equation increases the negative association between self-esteem and antisocial behavior, whereas adding self-esteem increases the positive association between narcissism and antisocial behavior. Discussion addresses the different implications for suppressors in theoretical and variable selection applications.

(2004). AUTHORS' RESPONSE: 'Keeping the Self in Self-Conscious Emotions: Further Arguments for a Theoretical Model' Psychological Inquiry: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 171-177.

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.