Abstract
Implicit self-esteem has remained an active research topic in both the areas of implicit social cognition and self-esteem in recent decades. The purpose of this study is to explore the development of implicit self-esteem in adolescents. A total of 599 adolescents from junior and senior high schools in East China participated in the study. They ranged in age from 11 to 18 years with a mean age of 14.10 (SD = 2.16). The degree of implicit self-esteem was assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) with the improved D score as the index. Participants also completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (α = 0.77). For all surveyed ages, implicit self-esteem was positively biased, all ts>8.59, all ps<0.001. The simple correlation between implicit self-esteem and age was significant, r = −.25, p = 1.0×10−10. A regression with implicit self-esteem as the criterion variable, and age, gender, and age × gender interaction as predictors further revealed the significant negative linear relationship between age and implicit self-esteem, β = −0.19, t = −3.20, p = 0.001. However, explicit self-esteem manifested a reverse “U” shape throughout adolescence. Implicit self-esteem in adolescence manifests a declining trend with increasing age, suggesting that it is sensitive to developmental or age-related changes. This finding enriches our understanding of the development of implicit social cognition.
Highlights
Since the first theoretical documentation by Greenwald & Banaji [1], implicit self-esteem has remained an active research topic in both the areas of implicit social cognition and self-esteem
To facilitate simultaneous visualization of the developmental trends of implicit and explicit self-esteem, the mean raw scores for each age were standardized with the scale midpoints, 0 and 2.5, as references, and overall SDs, 0.24 and 0.44, as units, respectively
We conducted a regression with implicit self-esteem as the criterion variable, and age, gender, and age 6 gender interaction as the predictors [35]
Summary
Since the first theoretical documentation by Greenwald & Banaji [1], implicit self-esteem has remained an active research topic in both the areas of implicit social cognition and self-esteem. Research has established that implicit self-esteem is, at most, weakly associated with explicit self-esteem [2,3] and positive in nature regardless of culture, ethnicity, and age [4,5]. Research has linked low implicit self-esteem to negative experiences and demonstrated its moderating role in various relationships, such as reactions to threat [6,7]. Given the importance of implicit self-esteem and burgeoning interest in the development of implicit social cognition [4,8,9], it is imperative to understand how implicit self-esteem develops and whether it differs as a function of age or developmental period. Research on the development of implicit self-esteem is still limited. The purpose of the current study was to explore the development of implicit self-esteem among adolescents
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