Bottom dogs on campus: how subjective age and extrinsic self-esteem relate to affect and stress in first semester of university

Abstract

The first semester of university can be a difficult transitional period that affects students' psychological well-being, and ultimately, their academic success. Personal resources and vulnerabilities that they bring to the transition may shape their day-to-day experiences. Subjective age (how old one feels) and extrinsic self-esteem (ESE; the extent to which self-worth is based on external sources) were examined as predictors of mean levels of and intraindividual variability in daily affect (positive and negative) and stress in 170 Canadian students tracked for 14 days during their first semester. Consistent with a self-enhancing effect of an older subjective age, regression models found that feeling older predicted higher mean levels of positive affect, and students with higher ESE reported more negative affect unless they felt considerably older than their chronological ages. In addition, an older subjective age and higher ESE predicted higher levels of and more intraindividual variability in daily stress experience. An ESE appears to contribute to negative affect and stress, but an older subjective age might counteract some negative emotion and play a part in positive emotion. As much as an older subjective age is a possible personal resource, its association with stress suggests that it might have some disadvantages for first-year university students, the bottom dogs on campus.