Self-esteem and body image are central to coping successfully with the developmental challenges of adolescence. However, the current knowledge surrounding self-esteem and body image is fraught with controversy. This study attempts to clarify some of them by addressing three questions: (1) Are the intraindividual developmental trajectories of self-esteem and body image stable across adolescence? (2) What is the direction of the relations between body image and self-esteem over time? (3) What is the role of gender, ethnicity, and pubertal development on those trajectories? This study relies on Autoregressive Latent Trajectory analyses based on data from a 4-year, 6-wave, prospective longitudinal study of 1,001 adolescents. Self-esteem and body image levels remained high and stable over time, although body image levels also tended to increase slightly. The results show that levels of self-esteem were positively influenced by levels of body image. However, these effects remained small and most of the observed associations were cross-sectional. Finally, the effects of pubertal development on body image and self-esteem levels were mostly limited to non-Caucasian females who appeared to benefit from more advanced pubertal development. Conversely, Caucasian females presented the lowest self-esteem and body image levels of all, although for them more advanced pubertal development levels were associated with a slight rise in body image over time. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
CITATION STYLE
Morin, A. J. S., Maïano, C., Marsh, H. W., Janosz, M., & Nagengast, B. (2011). The longitudinal interplay of adolescents’ self-esteem and body image: A conditional autoregressive latent trajectory analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 46(2), 157–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2010.546731
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