Self-Esteem: From Adolescence to Adulthood

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how self-esteem changes over time due to significant life events and to what extent do social origins play a role in these changes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (N=693), latent growth curve modeling was used to assess how these factors influence self-esteem from adolescence to adulthood. Three goals were examined in this thesis: to test whether change in self-esteem over time can be explained with one trajectory, to test how significant life events affect self-esteem, and to test how social origins affect self-esteem over time. Findings provide some insight into how self-esteem is affected and suggestions for future research.