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Cited by 123Personality Traits and PsychologyPsychometric Methodologies and TestingPsychological Testing and Assessment

The Long-Term Stability of Self-Esteem: Its Time-Dependent Decay and Nonzero Asymptote

Kuster, Farah, Orth, Ulrich·2013·Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
DOI 10.1177/0146167213480189
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Abstract

How stable are individual differences in self-esteem? We examined the time-dependent decay of rank-order stability of self-esteem and tested whether stability asymptotically approaches zero or a nonzero value across long test-retest intervals. Analyses were based on 6 assessments across a 29-year period of a sample of 3,180 individuals aged 14 to 102 years. The results indicated that, as test-retest intervals increased, stability exponentially decayed and asymptotically approached a nonzero value (estimated as .43). The exponential decay function explained a large proportion of variance in observed stability coefficients, provided a better fit than alternative functions, and held across gender and for all age groups from adolescence to old age. Moreover, structural equation modeling of the individual-level data suggested that a perfectly stable trait component underlies stability of self-esteem. The findings suggest that the stability of self-esteem is relatively large, even across very long periods, and that self-esteem is a trait-like characteristic.

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Crossref · 10.1177/0146167213480189

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  • Self-esteem rank-order stability increases from lowest in childhood and adolescence to highest in middle age.

    “The stability of individual differences in self-esteem was found to increase from the lowest stability in childhood and adolescence to the highest stability in middle age (Donnellan et al., 2012;Kuster & Orth, 2013;Trzesniewski et al., 2003).”

    From Self‐esteem development and life events: A review and integrative process framework (2022) · cites this paper as Kuster & Orth, 2013

  • Self-esteem rank-order stability declines with increasing time intervals from 0.93 for 1-year to 0.61 for 10-year intervals and levels off at an asymptote of 0.4.

    “Another study reported relatively high rank-order stability that declined with increasing time intervals from 0.93 for 1-year to 0.61 for 10-year intervals and leveled off at an asymptote at a value of 0.4 (Kuster & Orth, 2013).”

    From Self‐esteem development and life events: A review and integrative process framework (2022) · cites this paper as Kuster & Orth, 2013

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Authors
Kuster, F., & Orth, U.
Affiliations
University of Basel (CH)
ORCID
Orth, Ulrich
Venue
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2013-03-10
Volume
39
Issue
5
Pages
677-690
ISSN
  • 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-7433
DOI
10.1177/0146167213480189
OpenAlex
W2168624465
Cited by
117
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 3
FWCI
10.37
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
Keywords
self-esteem, trait stability, rank-order stability, test-retest reliability, long-term stability, exponential decay, asymptotic stability, individual differences, personality traits, aging, gender differences
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Humans, Individuality, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Middle Aged, Self Concept, Socioeconomic Factors, Time Factors, Young Adult

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