The Development of Self Esteem in Children: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background/Purpose: This study is aimed at providing a comprehensive acknowledgement of various factors that play a significant role in developing, shaping and affecting the self-esteem in children, and identifying relationships among its fundamental factors and their effects on studies conducted on children's self esteem, including social economic status (SES). Method: A thorough and properly organized research was conducted across ( various platforms) to extract and analyze reliable and comparable data on children psychology, their self-esteem needs, underlying characteristics and changes in personality and behaviors in different children. The study resulted in a literature review and meta-analysis (including regression analysis) that investigated fundamental selfesteem factors and importance of their effects on children's personalities. Results: A total of 20 studies were selected out of which 16 had only general age categorization instead of specific age references (of children). Hence, Children were divided in categories due to lack of this data. They were grouped in preschool, kindergarten and grade 1 according to the availability of respective data and age range. Literature review and meta-analysis were combined to reach the final conclusion. Limitations to methods and research base were identified. Age of children was found to be the most significant factor in the development of self-esteem needs and its affects impacted children more as their age grew. Different studies found different continuous variables to be affecting esteem differently, however, certain factors including age factor produced similar results. Conclusion: All selected studies on children's self esteem showed positive correlation and similar relationship to effects of different underlying factors, age, SES, sample sizes and methods for data collection. Studies also happened to be most affected by age and sample sizes and showed dramatic effects on overall results with even slight changes in their respective values.