Self-Esteem Index Scoring Influences
University of Nebraska Lincoln
Abstract
There are so many factors that can influence an individual’s self-esteem index score. This study includes some major factors that can cause an individual’s score to be altered. This study used data from a survey of 534 students from the University of Nebraska Lincoln that are friends with someone who is enrolled in an introductory statistics course to investigate correlations with self-esteem. The results collected from this study show that the number of close friends an individual has was the only significant effect of self-esteem scores. Ethnicity/race, age, gander, family income during the person’s senior year of high school, how many people they consider to be close friends, and whether or not they are a member of a fraternity or sorority showed significant data but did not support the research hypothesis. Similarities to previous findings on factors that influence self-esteem scores are discussed.
Influences of Self-Esteem Index Scores
The purpose of this study is the determine if there are different factors that affect individual’s overall self-esteem rating. These factors include the individual’s ethnicity/race, age, gender, family income during senior year of high school, how many people they consider as close friends, and whether or not they are a member of a fraternity or sorority.
Found in the article named “The role of perfectionism in daily self-esteem, attachment, and negative affect” was initially performed to discover if there was a relationship between persona standards and self-critical standards based off the idea of self-esteem, negative effect, and attachment in a person’s life. In this article, the participants answered a questionnaire at the end of each day for seven days straight. Dunkley, Berg & Zuroff (2012) found that there were in-fact differences between each individual based off different traits and situations. Self-critical perfectionism showed to have a stronger relationship with attachment while the personal standards were related more to negative affect and emotional perfectionism. Over all, this study showed that self-esteem is more so influenced by personal thought process and attachment factors than a negative mood. Found in the second article by the name of “Peer influences, body-image dissatisfaction, eating dysfunction and self-esteem in adolescent girls” studied the relationship between self-esteem factors and peer influencing. This study showed that other peer’s views of a person play a major role in one’s self-esteem of their body projection. A person’s self-esteem has been found to be mostly based off a personal idea, but eating disorders, self-effort, and body dissatisfaction was more so influenced by wanting to impress her peers (Shroff & Thompson, 2006). The third article “What constitutes vulnerable self-esteem? Comparing the prospective effects of low, unstable, and contingent self-esteem on depressive symptoms” had researchers trying to discover if there was a relationship between depression and low self-esteem. This study came up with a hypothesis that instability, lower self-esteem levels, and contingency are the factors to most likely cause an individual to have a higher risk of depression. There were two studies conducted in this article that found contingency and instability did not influence higher levels of depression, but that self-esteem levels were higher influences of having higher levels of depression (Sowislo, Orth, & Meier, 2014).
This current study is being conducted to discover if there is a relationship between self-esteem and some specific factors that occur in an average college student’s life. There are so many different factors that affect and correlate with low self-esteem that could cause a major negative impact to an individual’s life and their ability to perform at the best of their ability in situations as simple as their day to day life. These three articles relate to this study in ways that they all studied specific factors to find out if they influenced an individual’s self-esteem.
This study is based off six different research hypotheses that will be tested to see if they impact an individual’s self-esteem scores. First, there will be a positive correlation between the variables of a higher self-esteem rating with people whose family had a higher income during their senior year of high school. Second, there will be a positive correlation between self-esteem ratings and people who are older in age. Third, it is predicted that people with White ethnicity will have higher self-esteem ratings than those of other races. Fourth, on average, boys will tend to have higher self-esteem scores than girls. Fifth, it is predicted that there will be a positive correlation with self-esteem ratings and the higher number of close friends that an individual has. And last, it is predicted that a person will have a higher self-esteem rating if they are in a fraternity or sorority compared to those individuals who are not a part of the Greek system.