From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Change and Stability in Global and Domain-specific Self-evaluations in Argentinean Emerging Adults

ALICIA FACIO; SANTIAGO RESETT

Miami

Conferencia; VII Conference on Emerging Adulthood; 2015

Society for Research on Emerging Adulthood

Even in North American and European samples, longitudinal research on self-perceptions across emerging adulthood is scarce as regards global self-esteem and almost nonexistent as regards different domains of self-concept. The findings presented here concern young people living in Argentina, a developed Latin American country belonging to the Latin and Catholic cultural tradition and characterized by high levels family closeness. The objectives of this paper are to examine differential stability, normative stability, and gender differences in self-evaluations with three waves of longitudinal data. To this end, a sample of 322 17-21-year-old emerging adults (M = 19,0 years; 47% male) was randomly selected from the total population who had attended grades 8th-10th four years before in Paraná, a mid-sized Argentinean city. They were examined four and eight year later, at mean ages 23 and 27, respectively, with 15% attrition (N=272). They completed a survey that included Neemann and Harter Self-Perception Profile for College Students at ages 19 and 23, and Messer and Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adults at age 27. Global self-worth and seven domains of self-concept (physical appearance, romantic appeal, intimate friendship, social acceptance, morality, job competence, and intelligence) were assessed at the three measurement points. Conbach?s alphas for the 24 variables ranged from .66 to .87. Differential stability was assessed by Pearson?s rs. As Table 1 shows, the average eight-year stability coefficient was .33 (SD = .12) and ranged from .11 for Job Competence to .43 for Morality and Intelligence. The average four-year stability coefficients was higher between ages 23 to 27 compared to 19 to 23 (M = .50, SD = .09 versus M = .43, SD = .08).As regards Global Self-Worth, normative stability was evaluated by repeated measures MANOVA performed on ages 19, 23 and 27 scores as within-subjects factor and gender as between-subjects factor. No age or gender differences were found.As regards the seven domains of self concept, normative stability was assessed by doubly repeated measures MANOVA performed on scores at the three measurement points as dependent variables and gender as between-subjects factor. Overall change across time was significant (Lambda = .66, p < .001, partial η² .34) due to increases in self-perceptions in Romantic Relationships, Morality, Job Competence, and Intelligence (partial η² .16, .03, .02, and .02, respectively). Overall gender differences were found (Lambda = .77, p < .001, partial η² .23) due to higher male scores in Physical Appearance and Intelligence and higher female scores in Morality (partial η² .13, .06, and .03, respectively). As well as relationships between domain-specific and global self-evaluations throughout emerging adulthood. The relationship between domain-specific self-evaluations and global self-esteem was examined by multiple regressions calculated at each measurement point.