Dr. Kali trzesniewski

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Research Interests

 

My primary line of research is devoted to understanding self-esteem: its nature, development, and consequences. This research addresses three general questions. First, is self-esteem truly a positive quality, leading to adaptive psychological outcomes, or does high self-esteem have a “dark side,” as some have argued? Second, what are the developmental origins of self-esteem? Third, how can one change self-esteem and will changing self-esteem result in changing the outcomes that are related to self-esteem?

My second line of research focuses on academic achievement. This research is aimed at understanding the genetic and environmental factors that promote achievement. I am also interested in the social-cognitive and motivational processes that underlie individual differences in achievement.

To address my research questions, I use a wide range of research designs, including behavioral genetic, cross-sectional, experimental, and longitudinal. I also integrate a wide range of statistical procedures into my research program, including hierarchical linear modeling, latent growth curve modeling, meta-analysis, quantitative genetics, and structural equation modeling.

 

Is self-esteem related to adaptive psychological outcomes?

As a first step toward answering the question “Does self-esteem matter?” I examined whether self-esteem is best conceptualized in terms of trait-like or state-like processes. If self-esteem is state-like, that is, if it fluctuates rapidly over time, then this would challenge the claim that it is important for long-term psychosocial outcomes. To address this issue, I conducted two studies—a meta-analysis and a secondary analysis of four large national archival datasets—that examined the stability of self-esteem (defined by correlations over time) from age 6 to 83. I found that self-esteem had substantial continuity over time, comparable to the stability of personality traits (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). Such stability suggests that self-esteem could be important for long-term psychosocial outcomes. But which psychosocial outcomes?

Although self-esteem is generally assumed to be a beneficial attribute, an emerging and increasingly influential perspective suggests that self-esteem might have a dark side. For example, some researchers have suggested that high self-esteem individuals are actually more prone to antisocial behavior than low self-esteem individuals (Baumeister, Bushman, and Campbell, 2000). In my research, I have conducted a rigorous test of this claim (Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2005, Psychological Science). The findings from three studies showed a robust relation between low self-esteem and high antisocial behavior. This relation held for self and informant reports, participants from different nationalities (United States and New Zealand), and age groups (adolescents and college students). Moreover, this relation held both cross-sectionally and longitudinally and controlling for potential confounding variables. Thus, self-esteem (as opposed to narcissism) does not appear to have a dark side.

These findings helped show that having high self-esteem does not appear to have negative consequences; however, debate continues about the importance of self-esteem in predicting real-world outcomes (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003, PSPI; Crocker & Park, 2004, Psych Review). Specifically, does high self-esteem promote a happy, healthy, and productive life, or is it simply an epiphenomenon of significant life outcomes (Seligman, 1993)? I set out to systematically and rigorously test the vital question, “Does self-esteem matter?” Using longitudinal data spanning from early adolescence (age 11) to early adulthood (age 26), I found that adolescents with high self-esteem had better mental and physical health, better economic prospects, and lower levels of criminal behavior during adulthood, compared to adolescents with low self-esteem (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, Moffitt, Caspi, & Robins, in press, Developmental Psychology). These long-term consequences of self-esteem could not be explained by adolescent depression, gender, or socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings held when the outcome variables were assessed using objective measures (e.g., criminal reports, graduation rates) and informant reports; therefore, the findings cannot be explained by shared method variance in self-report data. All told, this research suggests that high self-esteem during adolescence has positive real-world consequences during adulthood.

Having shown that self-esteem is related to long-term adjustment, I sought to gain a deeper understanding of the construct of self-esteem and the processes associated with the development and maintenance of self-esteem.

 

How is self-esteem formed?

My research in this area is focused on understanding why some individuals have low self-esteem while others have high self-esteem. Theories of self-esteem attest to the influence of close others’ perceptions as having a powerful impact on a person’s self-esteem. This idea was originally popularized by Cooley’s “looking glass self” theory and has reemerged more recently in contemporary theories, such as Murray’s Dependency Model and Leary’s Sociometer Theory. Although empirical work has provided impressive support for these theories, few studies, if any, have been able to rule out the alternative genetic hypothesis. The alternative genetic hypothesis suggests that low self-esteem results from temperamental differences that elicit different reactions from close others. To test these competing hypotheses, I am currently using a genetically-sensitive design (comparing differences between MZ twins) to control for genetic influences on self-esteem in children aged 5 and 7. So far, I have found that self-esteem has a moderate genetic component, like most other individual differences, but also a substantial amount of environmental variance. To better understand this environmental variance, I examined the degree to which parents were critical toward each of their twins. In most parenting studies, in which children are being compared across families, the link between parenting behaviors and their child’s self-esteem could be entirely mediated by genetics. However, in my study, each twin served as a control for the other twin, so any differences in their self-esteem levels cannot be due to genetic differences. I have found that the amount of negativity a parent expresses towards one twin is related to that twin’s level of self-esteem, over and above any genetic transmission. Thus, parents do matter, despite claims to the contrary (Harris, 1995). This finding highlights one way that a child can develop low self-esteem, but more research is needed to understand the mechanism through which a child with a critical parent develops low self-esteem.

Previous research has shown that, in response to criticism, children as young as 5 or 6 show a helpless response (Heyman, Dweck, & Cain, 1992). Even at this age some children respond to criticism by making global, stable attributions about the self. Perhaps, one way that low self-esteem is formed is through such negative self-attributions in response to repeated criticism. It is likely that negative attributional style and negative self-representations are mediators of the parenting and self-esteem relation found in the previous study. I am very interested in this important issue and plan to pursue it vigorously in the future.

Recently, I received a grant from the MacArthur Foundation Midlife Research Network on Successful Midlife Development to examine why self-esteem is related to adjustment outcomes and how these relations change across adulthood. Specifically, I am disentangling the environmental and genetic contributions to self-esteem. My work suggests that self-esteem shares some of its genetic variance with temperamental constructs such as negative affect and neuroticism, but some of the genetic variance is unique to self-esteem. Knowing which constructs overlap genetically with self-esteem may help elucidate how genetic factors influence self-esteem and can guide theories of self-esteem formation.

 

Changing self-esteem?

My research has shown that self-esteem has significant environmental variance and is environmentally influenced by parenting style, suggesting that self-esteem is at least somewhat malleable. Moreover, results from my meta-analysis of self-esteem stability showed that stability is lowest during childhood and adolescence. In line with this, I have found that self-esteem becomes more schematized with age; that is, as children get older, they get faster at responding to self-esteem questions (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). Taken together, these results suggest that a promising way to change self-esteem might be to target children and/or adolescents when self-esteem is less stable and negative self views are less schematized.

In current research, I have intervened at this developmental period and attempted to change self-representations that are relevant to how adolescents cope with stressors, threats, or challenges in ways that undermine self-esteem. Certain types of self-representations, called self theories, have been specifically linked to these self-relevant processes and to handling challenges in a way that undermines, or protects, self-views. A rich context for studying these self-relevant processes is the achievement context, especially during the difficult transition to junior high school. Previous research has shown that the transition to junior high school provides many challenges both academically and socially and results in a normative decline in self-esteem (Eccles et al., 1993; Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy, Gosling, & Potter, 2002, Psychology and Aging).

I have focused on adolescents’ self theories of their intelligence, which have been shown to be a good predictor of global self-blame. Previous research has shown that students may hold different “theories” about the nature their intelligence (Dweck, 1999). Some believe that their intelligence is more of an unchangeable, fixed “entity” (an entity theory). Others think of their intelligence as a malleable quality that can be developed (an incremental theory). Research has shown that, even when students on both ends of the continuum show equal intellectual ability, students’ self theories shape their responses to academic challenge. In addition, research has shown that endorsing an entity view sets in motion a process of goals and attributions that results in declining self-esteem over time (Robins & Pals, 2002). Thus, I am currently testing the hypothesis that teaching students how to think like an incremental theorist will help them not “blame” the self in the face of increasingly challenging academic tasks associated with the transition to junior high school. I expect to find that students who are taught the incremental message will maintain or increase in self-esteem, whereas students in the control condition will show the normative decline in self-esteem found in previous studies of early adolescence. These results would show that self-esteem is malleable and responsive to intervention. My future research will focus on the long-term impact of this intervention, identifying mediating mechanisms of self-esteem change, and determining whether the intervention changes achievement through a change in self-esteem.

 

Promoting academic achievement

In a previous intervention study, I have focused on the effect of theories of intelligence on achievement outcomes. Ample experimental studies have supported the implicit theory of intelligence hypothesis mentioned above, but research on the implications of holding different theories of intelligence in the real-world are limited. Moreover, tests of how these differences play out during a time of great academic challenge was needed. If a student’s theory of intelligence plays an important role in how academic challenges are negotiated, then teaching students how to think like an incremental theorist should buffer them during the difficult transition to junior high school. Indeed, students who were taught an incremental theory increased in math grades after the intervention, while students in the control condition continued to decline (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, under review, Child Development, invited revision). I am currently replicating these findings using a larger, more diverse sample with a longer follow-up to test how generalizable these findings are and how long the effects last.  In addition, I will test hypotheses about why adopting an incremental view results in improved performance. For example, is this improvement mediated by changes in self-esteem (see Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003, SRCD paper presentation)?

In exploring the factors that influence achievement, I was struck by its robust link with antisocial behavior; however, the precise nature of this relation remains unclear. Three competing hypotheses have been proposed, but have yet to be fully tested (Hinshaw, 1992): the relation between reading achievement and antisocial behavior can be explained by (1) common genetic developmental antecedents, (2) common environmental antecedents, or (3) a reciprocal causal relation. Using a genetically informed longitudinal design, I found that common genetic antecedents could not explain the association between reading achievement and antisocial behavior; the association was primarily due to common environmental antecedents (Trzesniewski, Moffitt, Caspi, & Maughan, in press, Child Development). Surprisingly, this environmental influence was not due to hypothesized familial antecedents (e.g., child neglect, socio-economic status). Instead, the association was best explained by unfolding reciprocal influences of reading achievement and antisocial behavior, such that children lower in antisocial behavior were better readers (controlling for general cognitive ability) and better readers were less antisocial (controlling for previous antisocial behavior). These findings suggest that potentially modifiable environmental influences play a significant role in the development of reading skills.

Life Span Development Lab

@ The University of Western Ontario

CV