Change in Self-Esteem across the Life-Span

Running head: PERSONALITY ESSAY
Change in Self-Esteem across the Life-Span
Name of the Student
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PERSONALITY ESSAY
Abstract
An important aspect of life is self-esteem. The development of self-esteem starts from
early childhood and its level is not constant as it changes with different stages of life. The
following essay aims to analyse the impact and the pattern of change in self-esteem through
the different stages of life like childhood, adolescence, adulthood and older age. The analysis
of the paper in relation to self-esteem highlighted that the level of self-esteem is decreases
during adolescence and older age with highest level of self-esteem recorded during the
adulthood. Increase in the level of self-esteem is impacted via change in the surrounding
environment, gender, nationality and ethnicity. People having higher self-esteem are tend to
succeed in their professional life and are stated to nurture healthy professional relationships.
With high self-esteem an individual is stated to quality health and well-being. This quality
health and well-being is associated with reduced level of depression, stress and anxiety.

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PERSONALITY ESSAY
Introduction
Numerous studies have been conducted in order to study the development of self-
esteem but the authors have failed to generate consensual portrait of change in self-esteem
across the entire lifespan of an individual. Under the context of the behavioural psychology,
self esteem is defined as an individuals’ subjective emotional evaluation of his or her
personal worth. It is mainly regarded as the decision which is made by an individual as an
attitude towards self. However, the level of self-esteem varies from person to person and on
the basis of age and gender. This difference in the level of self esteem influences the overall
outcome of life. Human lifespan is made of four different stages starting from childhood,
adolescence, adulthood and older age. Scientific evidence suggests that the level of self-
esteem differs with age and this in turn promote the cognitive and social development. The
following essay mainly aims to analyse change in self-esteem through different stages of life.
In order to discuss the topic in detail, the essay will throw light on three different aspects of
self esteem like trajectory of self-esteem, from childhood to old age, factors leading to change
in self-esteem and outcomes associated with change in self-esteem.
Discussion
Trajectory of self-esteem from childhood to old age
Self-esteem is inherently associated with several personality traits like emotional
stability, conscientiousness and extraversion (Orth, Trzesniewski & Robins, 2010). On an
average, the level of self-esteem increases with age starting from young stage of adulthood to
midlife and remains high until old age. The level of conscientiousness increases during the
life span of adulthood and then start decreasing during the old age. The level of extraversion
however shows negligible increase across the adult phase of life. Orth and Robins (2014)

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PERSONALITY ESSAY
stated the trajectory of self-esteem follows a curvature that is identical to emotional stability
and conscientiousness (starting from adulthood to midlife). However, question remains
regarding whether personality factor and self-esteem are dependent or independent on each
other or whether self-esteem increases during the stage of adulthood because there is an
increase in the emotional stability and conscientiousness. There also exist an opposite
argument like whether increase in emotional stability and conscientiousness is due to an
increase in the overall self-esteem. However, Orth, Trzesniewski and Robins (2010)
highlighted that self-esteem trajectory drives the emotional stability trajectory and this it can
be stated that low self-esteem prospectively influences the development of depression but the
opposite concept is not applicable. Moreover, there also an inversely proportional
relationships between self-esteem trajectories and conscientiousness trajectories thus
individuals who are increasing conscientiousness will gain comparatively more success in life
which will help to boost their self-esteem.
The study conducted by Orth, Trzesniewski and Robins (2010) highlighted that during
childhood, a child gradually develops self-views which are based on the unrealistically
positive information and this promote a significant increase in self-esteem. The level of high
self-esteem decreases as the child move from pre-school level of elementary school level and
progress towards more realistic expectations. The process of self-evaluation occurs in relation
to the teachings coming from their closed peers like parents, teachers and other family
members. This kind of external feedback and social comparison expose the individuals to
more accurate judgement about oneself however, such judgement are majorly negative.
The longitudinal study conducted by Marshall et al. (2014) highlighted that an
individual transits from childhood to adolescence is brimmed cognitive development. They
become conscious about their body image associated with puberty and succumb to other
problems associated with puberty. This sudden exposure of pubertal change is associated