Semi-structured interview for self-esteem regulation research

There are numerous controversies in research exploring personality dynamics and intrapsychic processes, e.g. insufficient insight provided by available measures such as self-report questionnaires. As a consequence, new methods are developed. Some of the recent theories indicate that self-esteem is not a stable personality trait, but a dynamic construct fluctuating as a result of (mostly) social interactions. I present a semi-structured interview protocol as a method of data collection which can provide rich verbal and non-verbal material referring to selfesteem regulation. Analysis system is not included as there can be many different approaches to use collected data, e.g. qualitative content analysis or narrative inquiry methods. In this paper, I present exemplary statements of participants corresponding to every part of the interview. The examples are explained considering theoretical background. Finally, the strengths and limitations of presented method are discussed, as well as possible research areas to explore with it.