A transactional model of adolescent self-esteem

Adolescents (51 boys, 53 girls), 11 To 15 years old, and their mothers participated in a study to test a transactional model of self-esteem (TMS). The TMS proposes that self-esteem results from complex transactions among individual characteristics, cognitions, and behaviors of adolescents and parents. Structural equation models were used to examine direct and indirect effects of mothers' depressive symptoms and adolescent behavior problems on perceptions of each other, behaviors toward each other, and adolescent self-esteem. Measures included self-reports and ratings by teachers and observers. As hypothesized, there were direct paths to global self-esteem from adolescents' specific self-perceptions and mothers' positive communications, whereas paths from maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent behavior problems to self-esteem were indirect, mediated by mothers' perceptions and behaviors.