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Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 559564
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The study demonstrates on a nationally representative sample of Estonian students and university appli-
Received 29 January 2008 cants (N = 4572) that although self-reported academic self-esteem is a strong and accurate predictor of
Received in revised form 9 June 2008 school achievement, additionally rather low, not high, general self-esteem is a signicant predictor of
Accepted 16 June 2008
superior school performance when academic self-esteem and multicollinearity is controlled for. Two
Available online 26 July 2008
compensatory mechanismsdefensive pessimism and self-protective enhancementmay explain the
paradox of low self-esteem: academically successful students have a more critical view of themselves
Keywords:
and students with more modest academic abilities compensate for their academic under-achievement
General self-esteem
Academic self-esteem
by elevating their general self-esteem. Children start to use self-protective enhancement but from age
Hierarchical self-concept 12 to 14 they also start using defensive pessimism to protect themselves from the consequences of
Academic achievement failure.
Defensive pessimism 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Self-protective enhancement
0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.06.017
560 H. Pullmann, J. Allik / Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 559564
Table 1
Mean level and gender differences of the main variables and relations of academic achievement to general and academic self-esteem
Note. N = number of valid cases; GPA = grade point average; RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; AcSES = Academic Self-Esteem Scale; RSES* = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
controlled for the AcSES; AcSES* = Academic Self-Esteem Scale controlled for the RSES; VIF = the variance ination factor; $, # = the mean level statistically signicantly (at
least p < .05) higher for girls and boys.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
H. Pullmann, J. Allik / Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 559564 561
each study group. The students academic self-evaluation was re- out (RSES* in Table 1). For instance, the statistically signicant po-
lated to academic achievement, reecting quite accurately their sitive correlations between the RSES and GPA turned out to be
performance at school. The Pearsons correlation between the insignicant in the elementary school grades when academic
AcSES and GPA ranged from r = .39 to .64 with the mean correlation self-esteem was taken into account. Moreover, the partial correla-
of .53. tions between the RSES and GPA demonstrated negative signs
Unlike academic self-esteem, Pearsons correlation between when controlled for the AcSES for older students and in the appli-
general self-esteem and academic achievement increased from cants sample (Table 1).
r = .28 up to .33 (p < .001) during elementary school grades, reach- Because there were statistically signicant positive correlations
ing the highest value in Grade 6 (r = .42, p < .001), and declined between the self-esteem scales, all the regression models were
rapidly afterwards. General self-esteem explained only about 4% checked for multicollinearity effect using variance ination factor
of the total variance of academic performance in Grade 10 and (VIF) to describe the extent to which the standard error of the spe-
the correlation between the RSES and GPA became insignicant cic regression coefcient was enlarged due to collinearity. The
among secondary school leavers (Grade 12) and in the applicants mean VIF value was 1.38 (Table 1, for details), indicating that mul-
sample. However, the positive relationship between RSES and ticollinearity was not a problem in the regression models (a rule of
AcSES remained stable for all the grades (the mean correlation of thumb states that there is evidence of collinearity if VIF > 10).
.53, p < .001), indicating that students more condent of their aca- Additionally, all the main variables were standardized (m = 0,
demic abilities tended to rate their general self-worth more favour- SD = 1) for the analyses to reduce possible problems associated
ably. Moreover, the relationship between general and academic with multicollinearity.
self-esteem remained unchanged (r = .50, p < .001) when academic For more detailed analyses, a mediating effect of general self-es-
achievement, gender, and age was controlled for. The mean corre- teem on the association between academic self-esteem and school
lations between the RSES and AcSES were r = .48, .53, and .53 for performance was tested. First, a standardized criterion variable
low, medium, and high academic performance groups, respec- (GPA) was regressed on academic self-esteem alone and, then,
tively, based on the tripartite split of the GPA. jointly on academic and general self-esteem for the total sample.
What is the joint effect of academic and more global self-esteem The results of the regression analysis revealed, rstly, that the po-
on school performance? The association between general self-es- sitive validity (i.e., zero-order correlation with the criterion) of the
teem and academic achievement changed dramatically when the AcSES on GPA increased signicantly from = .55 to .61 after the
students evaluations of their academic abilities were partialled inclusion of the RSES in the equation with a signicant increase
Fig. 1. Relationship between academic achievement and general self-esteem when students are divided into three groups according to their low, medium, and high levels of
academic self-esteem. Note: The left-upper panel summarizes the results for elementary school, the right-upper panel for basic school, the left-lower panel for high-school,
and the right-lower panel for the university applicants sample. B = unstandardized slope regression coefcient. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
562 H. Pullmann, J. Allik / Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 559564
in R2, Fchange(2, 4601) = 63.33, p < .001. Secondly, the initial positive ions about their general self-worth also have some associations
validity of general self-esteem on academic performance demon- with academic accomplishments: After elementary school, stu-
strated an opposite sign, changing from = .21 to a negative value dents with lower general self-esteem are more likely to be aca-
of = .11 (ps < .001) after inclusion in the equation along with the demically successful when their self-rated academic self-esteem
AcSES. Thus, an inconsistent mediation model was found (Sobel is taken into account.
test value z = 7.74, p < .05) since the direct and mediated effects This is certainly not the rst paradox of self-esteem (see Bau-
of the AcSES (0.61 and 0.06, respectively) to GPA while holding meister, 1993; Higgins, Snyder, & Berglas, 1990; Morf & Rhodewalt,
the RSES constant had opposite signs. 2001). Low general self-esteem among minorities, particularly
The next question was whether relation between general self- Black American, has been considered a self-evident truth. Never-
esteem and school performance differed for students with various theless, systematic reviews have shown that neither African Amer-
levels of academic self-perceptions. For that purpose, all partici- icans nor minorities living in the Western countries have lower
pants within the same grade/sample were divided into three general self-esteem (Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000; Porter & Wash-
groups (low, medium, and high) on the basis of the tripartite split ington, 1993; Twenge & Crocker, 2002; Verkuyten, 1994, 2005).
(33 and 66 percentiles) of the RSES and AcSES scores. The group Although African Americans have lower academic outcomes they
with a medium level of the AcSES had, on average for the total sam- typically have a higher general self-esteem compared to White
ple, 0.40 point higher GPA than participants in the low AcSES group Americans (Osborne, 1995; Van Laar, 2000). A similar discrepancy
and, in turn, the high AcSES group had 0.48 point higher GPA score is found between the academic achievement of men and women
than the medium AcSES group. and their overall self-esteem. Similar to many previous reports
To test a moderating effect of the AcSES on the associations be- (e.g. Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999), boys in the current
tween the RSES and GPA, standardized scores of the AcSES and RSES study received lower grades than girls; however, their general
scales were entered at the rst step and the interaction term (Ac- self-worth did not suffer from such a disadvantage. Thus, there
SES RSES) was entered at the second step. The results conrmed are several situations in which the level of self-esteem is different
that there was no interaction between general and academic self- from what could be expected by common sense or expert knowl-
esteem in relation to academic achievement for the total sample. edge (see also Baumeister et al., 2003).
More specically, the cross-product of the self-esteem measures In most cases, the self-esteem paradoxes are resolved by attrib-
(AcSES RSES) did not contribute a statistically signicant variance uting some adaptive functions to general self-esteem. For example,
beyond the proportion of criterion variance accounted for by the the most likely explanation for the fact that self-esteem of African
main effects, R2 = 0.000, Fchange(1, 4600) = .24, p = .62. Indeed, the Americans does not suffer from poorer academic outcomes is aca-
slopes were identical despite students level of academic self- demic disidentication (Steele, 1988, 1997). It was proposed that
perceptions: B = 0.12 (t = 7.15), B = 0.11 (t = 7.62), and B = African American children detach their self-esteem from academic
0.11 (t = 5.13) for low, medium and high academic self-esteem outcomes, thus, protecting them from the feeling of failure. For in-
groups, respectively, ps < .001. stance, analyses of data drawn from a nationally representative
To examine the developmental patterns of the nding, regres- longitudinal study of American students revealed a pattern of
sion analyses were performed separately for students of elemen- weakening correlations between self-esteem and academic out-
tary (Grades 2, 3 and 4), basic (Grades 6 and 8) and high (Grades comes from Grades 8 to 10 for African American students whereas
10 and 12) schools, and university applicants. The results are the correlations for white students remained relatively stable
graphically demonstrated in Fig. 1. In the youngest sample (stu- (Morgan & Mehta, 2004; Osborne, 1995, 1997). The results of the
dents aged 711 years), the relationship between the RSES and present study indicated a similar process of disidentication
GPA was positive (B = 0.09, p < .05) among students with high aca- among Estonian schoolchildren. Starting from Grade 8, the correla-
demic self-condence: students who thought highly about their tion between general self-esteem and academic outcome weak-
academic competence tended to have a higher self-esteem with ened and became virtually zero among high-school graduates.
an increase of their school grades. However, for elementary school These data seem to suggest that Estonian students tend to disasso-
students in Sample 1, who had a low opinion about their academic ciate their general self-esteem from their academic success and
abilities, the relationship between the RSES and GPA was statisti- failure during their studies. This, however, is a misleading conclu-
cally signicantly negative (the left-upper panel in Fig. 1). sion since if the self-reported affective evaluations of their aca-
Moreover, except for the elementary school sample, the results demic performance were taken into account, the association
of regression analyses were simple and uniform: the simple slope between general self-esteem and academic achievement became
between GPA and RSES was negative within a group with the same insignicant (younger students) or substantially negative (older
level of academic self-evaluation. Although the regression coef- students). Thus, the academic disidentication among Estonian
cients were not particularly high (ranging from B = 0.06 to schoolchildren is more apparent than real, disappearing after aca-
0.28), they were still statistically signicant and demonstrated demic self-esteem is controlled for.
a systematic negative relationship between general self-esteem There are two possible lines of explanation why low general
and school performance when academic self-esteem was con- self-esteem does not necessarily signal a poor academic perfor-
trolled for (Fig. 1). Consequently, the results conrmed a robust mance and these two lines need not be incompatible with each
pattern that students with low levels of general self-esteem within other. Both of these explanations assume that self-concept is a
their respective academic self-evaluation level were the most suc- multidimensional construct in which general and academic self-es-
cessful in academic context and had higher objectively assessed teem can serve different functions (Marsh & OMara, 2008). Firstly,
academic performance compared to those with a more positive it is possible that cognitively better developed and academically
overall self-esteem. successful students have a more critical outlook on themselves.
Secondly, students with more modest academic abilities compen-
sate their academic deciency by elevating their general self-
4. Discussion esteem.
Students with higher cognitive abilities and superior academic
The main nding of the present study is a mixture of expected results seem more likely to reect on and be aware of their own
and surprising results: although academic self-esteem systemati- thoughts and feelings (Hattie, 1992). Being aware of their short-
cally and accurately predicts school achievement, students opin- comings, they are less certain and more critical of themselves
H. Pullmann, J. Allik / Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 559564 563
and therefore rate themselves lower on general self-esteem. The esteem is responsible for the fact that, beside high academic self-
greater ones awareness of falling short of personal standards of esteem, low general self-esteem may be a signicant predictor of
correctness, the lower self-esteem (Hattie, 1992, p. 47). Because academic achievement as measured by the grade point average.
there is a strong and systematic relationship between actual aca- Starting from about age 12 to 14, academically more successful
demic performance and students evaluations of their academic students may have a more critical view of themselves and, in turn,
achievements, this critical outlook is characteristic of individuals even young students with more modest academic abilities com-
with generally high academic self-esteem. As our data demon- pensate deciencies in their studies by elevating their general
strated, except for elementary school level, there is a negative rela- self-esteem.
tionship between the RSES and GPA in the high academic self-
esteem groups: among academically talented students a lower Acknowledgements
general self-esteem leads to slightly better grades.
Perhaps another way to describe an elevated self-criticism is This project was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation
defensive pessimism (Norem & Cantor, 1986). It is likely that aca- (Grant 7020) and the Estonian Ministry of Science and Education
demically talented students, who on average have higher evalua- (Grant SF0180029s08). We thank Kaia Laidra and Liisa Raudsepp
tions of their academic abilities, may strategically set low their for their assistance with collecting the data.
expectations towards their academic achievements. They do so in
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