title: Girls' relationship authenticity and self-esteem across adolescence.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. eimpett@gmail.com
authors.forename: Emily A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Impett
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sorsoli
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schooler
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Henson
authors.forename: Deborah L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Tolman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D019513:Feminism; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010379:Peer Group; D011582:Psychological Theory; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior