The resilience of self-esteem in late adulthood.
OBJECTIVE
The authors examined the resilience of self-esteem after loss in the lives of older adults. Specifically, the authors investigated the relationship between loss and change in self-esteem during a 3-year period.


METHODS
A subsample of older adults (n = 1,278) from the Americans' Changing Lives Study was used to examine loss in the domains of health, financial security, or work and career and self-esteem before and after the loss.


RESULTS
There was a small but significant decrease in self-esteem between Wave I and Wave II of the study. Loss in one of the domains explained less than 1% of the variance in self-esteem change.


CONCLUSIONS
The low incidence of loss and small change in high levels of self-esteem are further evidence of resilience in older adults' psychological well-being. The implications for older adults' use of cognitive strategies to manage losses and promote gains are discussed.
Collins
Amy L
AL
Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. lovea@bc.edu.
Smyer
Michael A
MA
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D004651:Employment; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012649:Self Concept; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States