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Self-esteem change during the transition from university to work
Reitz,Anne Shrout,Patrick Denissen,Jaap Dufner,Michael Bolger,Niall
Reitz,Anne
Shrout,Patrick
Denissen,Jaap
Dufner,Michael
Bolger,Niall
Abstract
Objective: The current study examined whether the transition from university to work, a major developmental milestone in young adulthood, was related to stability and change in self-esteem. Method: Self-esteem was assessed in the last year of their master's program (T1) of 163 27-year old students and 14 months later, when they had graduated and half of them had started a full-time job (T2). Daily diaries were used to assess the occurrence of achievement- and affiliation-related experiences on 14 consecutive days at T1 and T2. We compared the full-time job beginners and a comparison group without a full-time job with regard to their mean-level change, rank-order stability and correlated change of self-esteem and daily experiences. Results: First, job beginners increased in self-esteem, but the difference to the mean-level change of the comparison group was only small. Second, self-esteem was less stable among job beginners than among the comparison group. Third, the changes in achievement-related daily experiences and self-esteem correlated positively in the job-beginner group but not in the comparison group. Conclusions: The findings underline the role of daily experiences during life transitions for individual differences in self-esteem change. The discussion calls for accounting for unique transition experiences to advance theory and research on self-esteem development.
Description
Funding Information: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research of this article: Preparation of this manuscript was supported by Grant RE 3928/1‐1, allocated to Anne K. Reitz from the German Research Foundation, and a Grant DE‐1662/2‐1, allocated to Jaap J. A. Denissen from the German Research Foundation.
Date
2020
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Keywords
ADOLESCENCE, AGE, CONSISTENCY, DEPRESSION, EMERGING ADULTHOOD, FIT, LIFE, SCHOOL, STABILITY, life transitions, self-esteem development, the transition from university to work, young adulthood
Citation
Reitz, A, Shrout, P, Denissen, J, Dufner, M & Bolger, N 2020, 'Self-esteem change during the transition from university to work', Journal of Personality, vol. 88, no. 4, pp. 689-702. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12519