From adolescence to midlife: Within-person associations between self-esteem and internalizing symptoms across...

The association between self-esteem and internalizing symptoms has been extensively studied. While prior studies have suggested that self-esteem plays a more prominent role in the development of depressive symptoms than other types of internalizing symptoms, recent investigations that account for time-invariant confounding yield inconsistent results regarding the magnitude and direction of this association. Consequently, it remains uncertain whether self-esteem has specifically strong ties to depressive symptoms relative to other internalizing symptoms.

A total of 3251 Norwegians (54 % women) were assessed across five time points, spanning from adolescence in 1992 to midlife in 2020. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to examine the bidirectional prospective associations between self-esteem and depressive symptoms, symptoms of anxiety, and disordered eating. Furthermore, multigroup structural equational modeling was implemented to investigate whether gender and parental education level moderated the associations.

Results showed reduced self-esteem predicted an increase in all three types of internalizing symptoms on the within-person level. In turn, an increase in any such symptoms predicted a decrease in self-esteem. Notably, the strength of associations was similar across all symptom types and was not moderated by gender or parental education level.

Time intervals between data collections varied and within-person associations between self-esteem and internalizing symptoms may be explained by unmeasured time-varying covariates.

This study is the first to examine the relative importance of within-person associations of self-esteem and various internalizing symptoms. The results indicate that self-esteem may be a viable target for interventions across different types of internalizing symptoms.