Girls' relationship authenticity and self-esteem across adolescence

Feminist psychologists have long posited that relationship authenticity (i.e., the congruence between what one thinks and feels and what one does and says in relational contexts) is integral to self-esteem and well-being. Guided by a feminist developmental framework, the authors investigated the role of relationship authenticity in promoting girls' self-esteem over the course of adolescence. Latent growth curve modeling was used to test the association between relationship authenticity and self-esteem with data from a 5-year, 3-wave longitudinal study of 183 adolescent girls. Results revealed that both relationship authenticity and self-esteem increased steadily in a linear fashion from the 8th to the 12th grade. Girls who scored high on the measure of relationship authenticity in the 8th grade experienced greater increases in self-esteem over the course of adolescence than girls who scored low on relationship authenticity. Further, girls who increased in authenticity also tended to increase in self-esteem over the course of adolescence. The importance of a feminist developmental framework for identifying and understanding salient dimensions of female adolescence is discussed.