Abstract
Daily experiences are considered important antecedents of self-esteem, yet evidence remains scarce, leaving questions about the type of experiences and directionality of effects. We examined the within-day associations between daily events and state self-esteem during the student-to-teacher transition. We followed N = 333 Dutch teacher education students (Mage = 20, 81% female) in 3 measurement waves across 8 months, during which participants gained increasing work experience. We assessed self-esteem (8451 datapoints) and success and valence appraisals of study/work and social events three times a day for 14 days at each wave. Using dynamic structural equation modelling, we examined bidirectional within-person effects. First, positive and successful study/work events and positive social events predicted state self-esteem across hours. Valence but not success appraisals predicted later state self-esteem. Appraisals of events in study/work, social, and events related to both domains were concurrently related to state self-esteem. Second, most of the individuals differed in the magnitude of effects between daily event appraisals and state self-esteem. Third, participants with a stronger (vs. weaker) teacher identity fluctuated less in response to daily study/work events. These findings inform theories of self-esteem development by suggesting that both agentic and communal experiences can impact self-esteem across hours.
Plain language summary
Relationships between experiences of events and confidence in daily life during the transition to becoming a teacher: Daily study/work and social events can impact how confident people feel in their daily life, that is, their daily sense of self-esteem. Yet, evidence is lacking for whether daily events in study/work, social, or both domains are important for self-esteem during periods of transition from education-to-work. Less is known about the direction of these links, that is, whether experiencing daily positive events makes people feel confident or vice versa, if people who experience higher self-esteem experience daily events as being more positive. In this study, we used daily survey data collected across 8 months during the transition to becoming a teacher through a teacher education program to understand how and what type of daily events are related to self-esteem. By analysing survey data from 333 Dutch students, we found three important insights. First, events that were perceived as positive and successful in the study/work domain and positive social events were linked with higher self-esteem in the same moment and hours later. Experiences of self-esteem were also linked with positive perception of daily events hours later. Perceptions of daily events in study/work domain, social domains, and events related to both domains were all simultaneously related to higher self-esteem at the same moment in time. Second, people differed in how strongly daily events were related to self-esteem, such that in some individuals this link was stronger than in others. Third, individuals who had a stronger sense of teacher identity experienced a weaker link between daily events and self-esteem across hours, suggesting that the confidence of students who strongly identify with the teacher role is less affected by daily ups and downs. These insights suggest that daily experiences in both study/work and social domains are important for daily ups and downs in self-esteem and are likely to be important for its long-term development.
Introduction
Self-esteem is an individual’s subjective evaluation of their worth (Donnellan et al., 2011). High self-esteem has wide-ranging benefits in the domains of school, work, and health (for a meta-analysis, see Orth & Robins, 2022). As such, there is growing interest in exploring the changeability of self-esteem. In young adulthood, trait self-esteem shows the greatest normative change (i.e. increase) and the largest individual differences in change (e.g. Orth et al., 2018; Chung et al., 2014; for a review, see Reitz, 2022). Theory has linked these pronounced changes to the high density of major life transitions in young adulthood (Orth & Robins, 2014; Roberts & Wood, 2006). Evidence shows that major life events, especially in the work domain, can impact self-esteem change; however, change is often heterogeneous (Bühler et al., 2024; Reitz, 2022).
Current research grapples with the question: What processes explain these diverse self-esteem changes during life events in young adulthood? Major life events are thought to trigger trait change via short-term situational and state processes (Reitz, 2022; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017), which requires zooming in on experiences in daily life. As self-esteem can be conceptualized as both state- and trait-like (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Donnellan et al., 2011; Trzesniewski et al., 2003), examining what triggers rapid changes in state self-esteem might provide valuable insights into processes underlying slower trait change. However, empirical evidence is lacking, and it is unclear which specific aspects of daily life experiences can trigger self-esteem change.
The present study aims to address this gap by examining the link between daily events and state self-esteem in young adults transitioning from being a student to working as a teacher, hereafter referred to as ‘student-to-teacher transition’. Our first aim was to examine the bidirectional associations between subjective appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem. Specifically, we focus on valence (i.e. extent to which an event is pleasant) and success (i.e. the extent to which an event is considered a success) appraisals of daily events in study/work (i.e. agentic) and social (i.e. communal) domains, as daily success or failure experiences in agentic (Wojciszke et al., 2011) and communal domains (Leary & Baumeister, 2000) are considered to play a key role in driving self-esteem change during life transitions (Reitz, 2022). However, only a few studies have examined the relative importance of agentic and communal experiences for self-esteem during educational and work transitions (e.g. Reitz et al., 2020; Wagner et al., 2018). Furthermore, evidence on the relative importance of these two domains in the context of daily event self-esteem dynamics during major life events is lacking. By examining bidirectional links between daily events in both domains and self-esteem across hours using three bursts of experience sampling (ESM) data, we aim to contribute novel insight into the processes underlying self-esteem change during the transition.
The second aim of this study was to examine heterogeneity in daily event-state self-esteem associations. Individuals are likely to experience greater self-esteem fluctuations in response to daily events they consider as being self-relevant (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). These individual differences are important because over time, greater fluctuations are likely to accumulate into greater trait self-esteem change (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). To explain the considerable heterogeneity in self-esteem development, researchers first need to understand heterogeneity in daily self-esteem processes (Reitz, 2022). However, the extent of the heterogeneity in daily processes underlying state self-esteem fluctuations is unknown.
The third aim of this study addressed the question of sources of this heterogeneity by examining whether identification with the teacher role moderated the association between daily events and state self-esteem. Theories on personality development posit that change is most likely when young adults commit to the new social role during life events (Roberts & Wood, 2006). The self-esteem of young adults who identify more strongly as teacher might respond more strongly to daily study/work events during their teacher transition. By examining teacher identity as a source of heterogeneity in daily processes, we aim to offer a more nuanced understanding of individual characteristics that can impact processes underlying self-esteem development.
Bidirectional associations between daily events and state self-esteem
Agentic and communal sources of state self-esteem
Self-esteem is assumed to fluctuate in response to experiences of success and failure (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Hogan & Roberts, 2004). Theories differ regarding the specific domains in which they consider success and failure experiences as most influential for self-esteem. Some theories argue that self-esteem is agency-based, and some argue it is communion-based (for a review, see Reitz, 2022).
Agentic theories of self-esteem suggest that experiences that help people in ‘getting ahead’ such as competence (Wojciszke et al., 2011) and status (Mahadevan et al., 2019) are important sources of self-esteem. Consistent with this prediction, feeling competent and knowledgeable (Wojciszke et al., 2011), socioeconomic status (Twenge & Campbell, 2002), and work-related experiences (Krauss & Orth, 2022) have been associated with trait self-esteem. Transitions in the work domain, such as the transition from university to work (e.g. Reitz et al., 2020) have been more consistently related to self-esteem change (Bühler et al., 2024). At the state level, indicators of academic achievement (Crocker et al., 2002, 2003) and experiences of pride (Diwan et al., 2024) have been linked to state self-esteem fluctuations.
Communal theories of self-esteem argue that experiences that help people in ‘getting along’ such as acceptance, satisfaction in social relationships are important sources of self-esteem (Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Sullivan, 1953). In line with these ideas, communal indicators of social relationships have been associated with trait self-esteem (e.g. De Moor et al., 2021; Harris & Orth, 2020). Communal transitions such as beginning a romantic relationship (Luciano & Orth, 2017) and becoming a parent (van Scheppingen et al., 2018) have been linked with self-esteem change. At the state level, daily social experiences have been linked to state self-esteem (e.g. Bleckmann et al., 2023; Denissen et al., 2008; Enting et al., 2024).
Reitz (2022) suggested that success and failure in both agentic and communal domains might impact self-esteem, but that their relative importance might vary across developmental periods. Building on the idea of ‘contingencies of self-worth’ (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001), people’s self-esteem during a specific life transition might be more contingent on the domain that is predominant in that transition. Consistent with this notion, agentic experiences such as changes in daily achievement (but not affiliation) satisfaction have been linked to trait self-esteem change (Reitz et al., 2020) and agentic (but not communal) turning point narrative have been linked to daily self-esteem fluctuation (Guðmundsdóttir et al., 2024) during the university-to-work transition.
However, communal experiences might also matter in (agentic) educational and work transitions, especially if success in the communal domain is developmentally salient. Social inclusion has been linked to self-esteem fluctuation during an international exchange, an educational transition during which social experiences are key for assimilating in the new country (Hutteman et al., 2015). A study on adolescents in the school contexts (where peer relationships are likely important) has found that experiences of social inclusion (but not grades) were related to self-esteem change (Wagner et al., 2018). Similarly, communal experiences at work (e.g. attuning to students) may be important for successfully adopting the teacher role during the student-to-teacher transition. With few exceptions (Guðmundsdóttir et al., 2024; Reitz et al., 2020), research examining the relative importance of daily agentic and communal experiences for self-esteem during the education-to-work transition is lacking. Furthermore, studies have not disentangled the effects of communal experiences in agentic contexts (e.g. related to work vs. unrelated to work). Thus, in this study, we examine three types of events: daily study/work events (capturing agentic experiences), daily social events (capturing communal experiences), and daily events related to both domains (e.g. communal experiences occurring in agentic contexts).
Subjective appraisals of daily events and self-esteem
In addition, little is known about the impact of subjective appraisals of daily events on self-esteem. Previous studies have mostly either examined objective reports of events (e.g. receiving grades, Crocker et al., 2003) or subjective experiences unrelated to events (e.g. pride; Diwan et al., 2024; social inclusion; Wagner et al., 2023). Process theories of personality and self-esteem change suggest that more than the mere occurrence of events, their perceived evaluations might be key antecedents of fluctuations in states (Reitz, 2022; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). To test this theoretical prediction for self-esteem, two types of subjective appraisals of daily agentic and communal events are most promising. First, evaluations of success (and failure) in agentic and communal situations are expected to trigger fluctuations in state self-esteem (Reitz, 2022). We therefore examine ‘success appraisal’ – the extent to which an event is perceived as a success. Second, not all daily agentic and communal events may qualify as a success or failure; instead, they may be experienced more generally as positive or negative. Research shows that people experience positive emotions in response of appraisals of daily events irrespective of whether they occur in achievement contexts or not (Goetz et al., 2010). Perceived valence of events may thus capture broader positive or negative feelings in response to agentic and communal situations. We therefore examine ‘valence appraisals’ – the extent to which an event is perceived as pleasant.
Directionality of the daily event appraisal-state self-esteem link
The agentic and communal theories of self-esteem and the evidence reviewed so far suggest that appraisals of daily agentic and communal events prospectively predict state self-esteem. However, it is likely that state self-esteem also prospectively predicts appraisals of daily events. The self-verification theory suggests that people tend to interpret experiences in ways that are consistent with their self-views (e.g. Swann Jr., 2012). Supporting this theory, individuals with higher (vs. lower) self-esteem react more positively to experiences of success (e.g. Wood et al., 2005). In the communal domain, one study showed that self-esteem predicts self-perceived (but not peer perceived) popularity, suggesting that people interpret their social success in a manner consistent with their level of self-esteem (Reitz et al., 2016). Therefore, it is possible that individuals with higher (vs. lower) self-esteem perceive daily agentic and communal events as more successful and positively valanced.
Taken together, it is plausible that associations between appraisals of daily agentic and communal events and state self-esteem are bidirectional. Transactional approaches hypothesize reciprocal transactions between an individual and their environment (e.g. Neyer & Asendorpf, 2001). Building on these transactional theories, process frameworks of personality change (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) and self-esteem change (Reitz, 2022) suggest that short-term transactional processes (e.g. reciprocal associations between situations and states) bring about long-term trait change through associative processes (e.g. reinforcement learning, Wrzus, 2021). To understand whether such short-term transactions are observed for self-esteem, the bidirectional associations between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem need to be examined.
Previous research has reported mixed findings regarding the bidirectional effects between agentic and communal experiences and self-esteem. In the agentic domain, one meta-analysis of longitudinal studies reported effects of equal magnitude in both directions (e.g. for academic achievement, Wagner et al., 2024), whereas another reported stronger effects of self-esteem than vice versa (for work experiences, Krauss & Orth, 2022). In one ESM study, descriptively, the effect size of self-esteem predicting pride (feeling accomplished) was somewhat larger than the reverse effect, although the difference was small (Diwan et al., 2024). Second, in the communal domain, while one longitudinal study reported stronger effects of communal experiences on self-esteem than vice versa (De Moor et al., 2021), a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies found bidirectional effects of equal magnitude (Harris & Orth, 2020). In daily life, while most of the studies reported unidirectional effects of quality of social interactions on self-esteem (Denissen et al., 2008; Enting et al., 2024; Subrahmanyam et al., 2020), one study reported bidirectional effects of equal magnitude (Schmidt et al., 2021). Considering these mixed findings, an empirical approach is needed to understand whether bidirectional effects between daily event appraisals and state self-esteem are stronger in one direction or another.
Timescale of the daily event appraisal-state self-esteem link
Previous studies also vary widely in the timescales across which they examined bidirectional associations in daily life. In both agentic and communal domains, effects have been examined concurrently (e.g. Bleckmann et al., 2023; Heppner et al., 2008; Wagner et al., 2023), within days from morning to afternoon/evening (e.g. Crocker et al., 2002, 2003; Enting et al., 2024; Schmidt et al., 2021), and across days (e.g. Denissen et al., 2008; Diwan et al., 2024; Murray et al., 2003; Subrahmanyam et al., 2020). Bidirectional effects across shorter timescale of hours within days need to be examined because some effects may be short-lived than the timescales captured in previous studies. For example, Enting and colleagues (2024) found that quality of social interactions in the morning predicted evening self-esteem but not vice versa. The authors concluded that the lagged effect of self-esteem on quality of social interactions may unfold across even shorter timeframes than morning to evening. Therefore, we examined bidirectional effects across 3 hours in the present study.
Furthermore, whether event appraisals are only concurrently associated with self-esteem or whether these effects spill over across several hours needs to be examined. When events occur one after another within a day, they may have combined effects on self-esteem, which has not yet been examined. Such effects have been hypothesized for major life events, for example, the negative effect of becoming unemployed may dampen the self-esteem boost people experience in response to later reemployment (Reitz et al., 2022). Similarly, it is plausible that the appraisal of an earlier event affects self-esteem beyond the effect of a current event. Thus, we examined whether lagged effects of event appraisals have significant effects beyond concurrent effects.
Teacher identity as a moderator of the link between daily events and self-esteem
Theories suggest that individuals differ in the extent to which their state self-esteem responds to daily experiences in different domains (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Emerging evidence supports this notion. In the agentic domain, individuals differ in self-esteem fluctuation in response to receiving graduate school admission decisions and grades (Crocker et al., 2002, 2003). Studies have reported significant variability in the links between pride – state self-esteem (Diwan et al., 2024) and quality of daily social interactions and state self-esteem (Enting et al., 2024) during the university-to-work transition. Research has also reported significant individual variability in the links between daily situations and (Big Five) personality states (Kuper et al., 2022). The heterogeneity in associations between appraisals of daily agentic and communal events and state self-esteem needs examination as this may be an important individual difference variable that may explain heterogeneity found in trait self-esteem change.
A potential reason for variability in daily processes could be that individuals can differ in the how much their self-esteem is dependent on succeeding in the transitions in different domains. For example, contingency theory of self-esteem suggests that individuals differ in their beliefs about what they must do to be a worthy person, which leads to variability in the (e.g. agentic and communal) domains on which their self-esteem is contingent (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Evidence supporting this perspective shows that the (trait) level of contingency on a specific domain measured using a questionnaire can explain individual differences in reactivity of state self-esteem to daily events in that domain. This evidence has been reported for contingency on agentic (e.g. academic, Crocker et al., 2002, 2003) and communal (e.g. relationship, Knee et al., 2008, friendship, Cambron et al., 2010) domains.
During the student-to-teacher transition, it is plausible that individuals differ in the extent to which their self-esteem is contingent on daily study/work (that is, agentic) events that indicate success in this transition. The social investment principle (Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2007) argues that individuals take on new social roles during young adulthood and during that process, they increasingly invest into these roles. Hence, experiences that signify mastery of the new role are likely to affect self-esteem during the transition (Reitz, 2022; Roberts & Nickel, 2021). However, individuals differ in the extent to which they invest in the new role, and as a result, in the extent to which this role is introjected in young adults’ identity (Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2007). Based on this idea, in the student-to-teacher transition, individual differences in teacher identity, that is, the extent to which individuals perceive themselves as a teacher (Hanna et al., 2020), could indicate the investment in the teacher role. Some aspiring teachers identify more with the teacher role than others and hence, daily (agentic) study/work events might impact their self-esteem more than for those who identify less with the teacher role. Educational identity has been examined as a moderator of individual differences in Big Five personality change (den Boer et al., 2023); however, the same has not been examined for processes of self-esteem. We therefore examined whether teacher identity moderates the associations between the appraisals of daily study/work events and state self-esteem.
The present study
The goal of the present study was to examine the bidirectional association between appraisals of daily events in the (agentic) study/work domains and (communal) social relationships domain and momentary self-esteem during the student-to-teacher transition. We examined success and valence appraisals of daily events in agentic and communal domains. We followed N = 333 Dutch teacher education students in an intensive longitudinal study as they proceeded in their program and gained increasing exposure to working as a teacher across 8 months. We examined three research questions.
The first research question was whether appraisals of success in and valence of daily agentic (study/work) and communal (social) events are bidirectionally associated with fluctuations in state self-esteem. We hypothesized that the extent to which a daily study/work event [H1(a)] and a daily social event [H1(b)] is perceived as a success positively predicts momentary self-esteem across 3 hours within a day. Further, we hypothesized that the valence of daily study/work events [H1(c)] and social events [H1(d)] positively predicts momentary self-esteem across 3 hours within a day. We also modelled the effect of self-esteem on daily event appraisals across 3 hours to explore the directionality of these associations. We further explored (a) whether the hypothesized lagged effects remained significant when the concurrent association of event appraisals and self-esteem was included and (b) concurrent effects of appraisals of 3 types of events simultaneously: study/work events (capturing agentic events), social events (capturing communal events), events rated as being related to both study/work and social domains (capturing communal events in agentic contexts).
The second research question was to examine the extent to which individuals differ in the associations between the appraisals daily agentic and communal events and state self-esteem. We hypothesized that individuals significantly differ in the extent to which the success appraisal of daily study/work events [i.e. agentic events, H2(a)] and social events unrelated to study/work [i.e. communal events, H2(b)], the valence of daily study/work events [i.e. agentic events, H2(c)] and social events unrelated to study/work [i.e. communal events, H2(d)] predicts state self-esteem across 3 hours.
The third research question was to examine whether teacher identity moderates individual differences in the daily event appraisal and state self-esteem link. Individuals may be differentially sensitive specifically to the daily (agentic) study/work events depending on the extent to which they identify with the teacher role. We hypothesized that those with stronger teacher identity would experience a stronger lagged association between the success appraisal [H3(a)] and positive valence [H3(b)] of daily (agentic) study/work events and state self-esteem. To test the robustness of the moderating effect of teacher identity, we examined this effect controlling for individual differences in trait self-esteem and teaching experience in post-hoc analyses.
Method
Open science information
Hypotheses and analyses regarding the effects of valence of daily events were pre-registered. We first pre-registered hypotheses and analyses relating to the valence of daily study/work events [H1(c), H2(c), H3(b)] at https://osf.io/t57u6. After analysing the valence of study/work event data, we registered the same hypotheses and analyses for valence of daily social events [H1(d), H2(d)] in a follow-up registration because we were interested in disentangling the effects of social events related to study/work and not related to study/work (see https://osf.io/mc79s). Hypotheses relating to the success appraisals of daily study/work and social events were not pre-registered; however, the same analytic procedures were followed as valence of events (see supplemental material S1 for changes to pre-registered analyses). The data, scripts used for analysing the data, and output of the data analyses are openly available on https://osf.io/4x72h/.
Study design
The data used in the present study was collected as part of an intensive longitudinal study on the development of personality and self-esteem during a teacher education bachelor program across one and a half years (Project Stride, https://osf.io/b8dur/). The project received ethical approval from the ethics review board of Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University (RP601). Students from four cohorts of a vocational full-time teacher education program at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands participated in this study. After the first wave, first-year students started their first part-time internship for 2 days per week (had no prior work experience at wave 1), second- and third-year students started part-time internships 2 days per week (had 1 or 2 years of work experience at wave 1), and fourth-year students transitioned to their final full-time internship (had 3 years of work experience at wave 1). The student-to-teacher transition represents a gradual education-to-work transition through teaching internships. The longitudinal study included five waves of data collection spaced 4 months apart with 14-day ESM bursts at each wave. We included all data that was available at the time of pre-registration, which were 3 waves of data on valence of events and self-esteem, and 1 wave of data on success appraisal of events, as this measure was only included in the second wave.
Participants
Participant Number, Cohort Distribution, and Work Experience per Wave.
Combined data from all three waves was used to examine hypotheses about valence of daily events. We included N = 333 participants that participated in the ESM part of the study in at least one of the three waves. Participants reported 2940 study/work events, 2415 social events, and 528 events that were related to both study/work and social domains and 8451 datapoints on self-esteem in the combined dataset. Data from the second wave was used to examine hypotheses about success appraisals of daily events, which included n = 142 participants that reported 853 study/work events and 610 social events unrelated to study/work in total across 42 ESM surveys. To test the moderating role of teacher identity, we used data from wave 1 which included N = 282 participants.
We interpreted the post-hoc sensitivity of our sample sizes to detect the hypothesized effects based on the minimum detectable effect sizes provided by Arend and Schäfer (2019). Based on these rules of thumb, we had 80% power to detect within-person effects as small as .09 with the success appraisal data (N > 125, measurement occasions >30, small to medium intraclass correlation) and as small as .08 with the valence appraisal data (N > 200, measurement occasions >30, small to medium intraclass correlation). To detect the moderating effect of teacher identity (N > 200, measurement occasions >30, small to medium random effect variance), we had 80% power to detect the cross-level interaction effects in the range of .21–.41.
Procedure
Participants were invited to participate in the study through the teacher education institute where they were studying. Participants were invited via different channels such as emails, through teachers, via the Instagram channel of the program, and via a referral system where participants of the study could refer the study to other students for an additional reward. At each wave, participants completed an online questionnaire and ESM questionnaires on their smartphones using the Ethica app, 4 times a day for 14 days. Participants were prompted via a notification to complete the first survey in the morning (7am–11am), the second survey during their lunch break (approximately between 12pm to 3pm), the third survey at the end of their study/workday (4pm–7pm) and the fourth survey which was a longer daily diary survey at the end of the day (8pm–12am). Thus, surveys were released approximately 4 hours apart during the day and participants could respond to each survey within a 3-hour window from when the survey was first released. Participants received two reminder notifications if they did not complete the survey after the first notification. Motivating messages were periodically sent to participants during the ESM burst to increase compliance. Participants did not receive a financial reward for participating in the first wave of the study as participation was a part of the bachelor program that includes a learning portfolio. Participants could earn in total 19 euros in the second wave and 33 euros in the third wave. From the second wave onward, participants also received vouchers worth of 10 and 20 euros through a lottery system and received personalized reports of their personality and daily life experiences based on the surveys.
Measures
We measured the valence of daily events and state self-esteem in ESM surveys and teacher identity in the online questionnaire at each wave. We measured success appraisals of daily events only during the second wave.
Appraisals of daily events
Valence appraisals of daily events
The valence of daily events was measured using two items on the type and pleasantness of events (Myin-Germeys et al., 2001) three times a day (excluding the first ESM survey of the day). Participants were asked: ‘Think about the event or situation (since the previous questionnaire) that affected you the most’. Participants could choose multiple types that were applicable from the following types of events: interpersonal or social, health-related, daily living, free time/sport/hobby, housing-related, work, internship- or occupational-related, educational or school-related, and other. Participants rated the pleasantness of the event on a 7-point scale (−3 = very unpleasant, 3 = very pleasant). Based on the event type categories, we operationalized study/work (agentic) events as those events that were rated as ‘educational or school-related’ or ‘work, internship- or occupational-related’ (but not rated as social) and social (communal) events as those events that were rated as ‘interpersonal or social’ (but not rated as study/work), and study/work and social events (communal events in agentic contexts) as those events that were rated as being related to both social and study/work categories. To capture this categorization, we created 3 binary variables capturing whether an event was rated as being in the target category or not. Based on these binary variables and the scores of the pleasantness item, we created 3 valence score variables such that pleasantness of an event was included in the variable if the event was rated as being in the target category. If not, the variable was coded as a missing value. For example, if at a given measurement moment an event was rated as being social (and not study/work related), the pleasantness rating of the event was included in the valence of social events variable, whereas if the event was not related to social domain, a missing value was included in the valence of social events variable.
Success appraisals of daily events
In the second wave of the longitudinal study, another item was added to assess whether the reported event was considered a success, which was assessed with the valence items three times a day (excluding the first ESM survey of the day). We asked participants to report the extent to which they considered the event to be a success on a scale of 1 = not at all, 5 = very much. We also provided participants with the response option not applicable, since some of the daily events may not be under participants’ control and therefore may not inform their success appraisals. We treated the events as missing values when success appraisals were rated as not applicable. We created 3 success appraisal scores for the three categories of events in the same manner as for valence of events.
State self-esteem
We measured state self-esteem by using a modified version of the item ‘I feel that I am a person of worth at least on an equal plane with others’ taken from the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965; Dutch translation: Franck et al., 2008). We added the prefix ‘at this moment’ to prompt participants to report their current experience of state self-esteem. We removed ‘at least on an equal plane with others’ because we were interested in participants’ state self-esteem in contrast to their own typical level of self-esteem (within-person) and not in contrast with others (between-person). The final item was ‘At this moment, I feel that I am a person of worth’, rated on a 5-point rating scale (1 = not at all, 5 = very much). We measured state self-esteem in all 4 ESM surveys during the day but only included state self-esteem data from three surveys because they included the event measure (excluding the morning survey). This measure was positively correlated with two prevalent 1-item measures of self-esteem: ‘At this moment, how satisfied are you with yourself?’ (Valkenburg et al., 2021; r = .79) and ‘At this moment, I have high self-esteem’ (Robins et al., 2001; r = .71).
Teacher identity
We measured teacher identity using the global teacher identity subscale of the teacher identity measurement scale (TIMS, Hanna et al., 2020), which measures the extent to which individuals perceive themselves as a teacher. Participants rated 4 statements on a 5-point rating scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). For example, ‘I see myself as an elementary teacher’. Teacher identity was measured during waves 1 and 2, but not in wave 3 to reduce participant burden. We used teacher identity data from wave 1 as a time-invariant covariate because teacher identity scores from two waves were highly correlated (r = .72). The teacher identity measure showed sufficient internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .72).
Analytic approach
Statistical models
We examined the hypotheses using the Multilevel Lag-1 Vector Autoregressive Model, MLVAR (1) model (McNeish & Hamaker, 2020) as pre-registered. The MLVAR (1) model was particularly suitable for examining our hypotheses, as this dynamic structural equation model (hereafter, DSEM) allowed us to examine the cross-lagged effects of appraisals of daily events on state self-esteem as well as vice versa and individual differences in these effects in multilevel time-series data. Furthermore, as DSEM models use latent variance separation to separate within-level variance from between-level variance (Asparouhov et al., 2018), these models adequately control for the effects of unmeasured time-invariant covariates (Hamaker et al., 2018) and allow for testing contemporaneous effects in addition to lagged effects (Muthén et al., 2024). We first estimated a base model (Figure 1(a)) and then modified this model to explore concurrent effects and the effect of teacher identity. Dynamic Structural Equation Models.
We calculated the time variable for our models based on the times when participants answered ESM surveys, that is, response time (see supplemental material S2). Although the surveys were released 4 hours apart, participants could respond within 3 hours of survey release. Participant response times thus provide a more accurate estimate of the time lag between assessments because participants were asked to report an event that occurred since the time they completed the previous questionnaire. The response time variable indicated that the average time gap between consecutive ESM responses within a day was approximately 3 hours; therefore, we modelled effects across 3-hour intervals within a day.
We estimated the base model (Figure 1(a)) to examine the cross-lagged effect of appraisals of daily events on self-esteem and vice versa. At the within-level, we modelled autoregressive effects [i.e. self-esteem and event appraisals at t-1 (approximately 3 hours prior) predicting self-esteem and event appraisals at t]. We modelled cross-lagged effect of daily event appraisal at t-1 (approximately 3 hours prior) on state self-esteem at t [H1 (a-d)]. To examine the reverse effect, we modelled the cross-lagged effect of self-esteem measured at t-1 on daily event appraisal at t. The ‘cross-lagged effects’ represent the effect of event appraisal (self-esteem) at a given moment within a day on self-esteem (event appraisal) measured 3 hours later. At the between-person level, we specified the autoregressive effects, the cross-lagged effects, and residual variances as random effects. We examined the variance of the cross-lagged effect of daily event appraisals on self-esteem 3 hours later to make inferences about H2 (a–d). At this step, we ran 4 models, 2 examining the effect of valence of daily (agentic and communal) events and 2 examining the effect of success appraisals of daily (agentic and communal) events.
We then ran 3 modified versions of the base model. First, we added the effect of daily event appraisal at the current moment (t) on self-esteem at the current moment (t) to the base model to explore concurrent effects and if cross-lagged associations remain significant after the concurrent effects are added (Figure 1(b)). As the concurrent effect is modelled in addition to autoregressive and cross-lagged effects, the concurrent effect represents correlated change in the variance remaining after autoregressive and cross-lagged effects are accounted for. Thus, the ‘concurrent effects’ represent coupled processes, that is, moment-to-moment correlated changes in event appraisals and state self-esteem. Second, we modified the base MLVAR (1) model to examine the concurrent effects of the different types of events in one model (Figure 1(c)). In one model, we simultaneously modelled the autoregressive and concurrent effects of valence of three categories of events on self-esteem [study/work (agentic), social (communal), events related to both (communal events in agentic contexts)]. In another model we simultaneously modelled the concurrent effects of success appraisals of two categories on self-esteem [study/work (agentic) and social (communal)]. We did not model the effect of success appraisals of events related to both domains (communal events in agentic contexts) since we had too few datapoints on this category. In a fourth step, to examine the effect of teacher identity, we added two effects to the base model (Figure 1(a)): the effect of teacher identity (between-person) on self-esteem (i.e. main effect) and the effect of teacher identity on the within-person link between appraisals of study/work events and self-esteem (i.e. cross-level interaction) to test H3(a),(b).
Setup and inference criteria
We calculated the descriptive statistics, reliability, and validity estimates in Jamovi version 2.3.18 (The Jamovi Project, 2023). The MLVAR (1) model (and DSEM models in general) make use of Bayesian estimation (Asparouhov et al., 2018). We grand mean centred teacher identity as this variable was the only included at the between-person level. We estimated the models in Mplus version 8.6 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017). DSEM models require that there should not be a trend in time-series data. As we found no changes in our variables within and across 3 waves, we decided to combine the valence appraisal data from three waves to boost statistical power (see supplemental material S2). Only the MLVAR (1) model for testing the effect of successful daily social events on state self-esteem did not converge according to the convergence criteria (see supplemental material S2). We concluded that an effect was significant when the credible intervals did not include 0. We examined the size of the average within-person effect based on the following rule of thumb guidelines: .10 small, .30 medium, .50 strong (Lodder et al., 2021). For between-person differences in within-person effects, we examined the range of within-person effect sizes.
Results
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive Statistics for the Study Variables.
aScale ranging from −3 = very unpleasant, 3 = very pleasant.
bScale ranging from 0 = not applicable, 1 = not at all, 5 = very much.
c5-point rating scale, descriptives for valence appraisals, self-esteem, and teacher identity are based on combined sample from 3 waves, N = 333 and for success appraisals are based on data from wave 2, N = 142, ICC = intraclass correlation.
Correlations of Event Appraisals With State Self-Esteem and Teacher Identity.
Note. ***p < .001.
RQ1: Do appraisals of daily events predict state self-esteem fluctuations within days?
Lagged Associations Between Success Appraisals of Study/Work Events and State Self-Esteem (N = 142).
aEstimates are standardized with STDYX standardization (within-level standardized estimates averaged over clusters) and are included in parentheses.
bAssuming latent variable capturing the autoregressive and cross-lagged effects are normally distributed, the average effect estimate plus or minus 1.96 standard deviation of the variance estimate yields range of person specific effects for 95% of the population.
Lagged Associations Between Valence of Events and State Self-Esteem (N = 333).
aEstimates are standardized with STDYX standardization (within level standardized estimates averaged over clusters) and are included in parentheses.
bAssuming latent variable capturing the autoregressive and cross-lagged effects are normally distributed, the average effect estimate plus or minus 1.96 standard deviation of the variance estimate yields range of person specific effects for 95% of the population.
Lagged Associations Controlling for Concurrent Associations.
Note. The effects presented in this table correspond to the effects from model presented in Figure 1(b). We ran three modified models to investigate concurrent effects, one per appraisal measure. Effects of valence appraisals were based on 3 waves of data (N = 333) and effects of success appraisals were based on 1 wave of data (N = 142).
Concurrent and Simultaneous Effects of Types of Events on State Self-Esteem.
Note. The effects presented in this table correspond to the effects from modified model presented in Figure 1(c). We ran two models to investigate simultaneous effects, one for valence appraisals and one for success appraisals. Effects of valence appraisals were based on 3 waves of data (N = 333) and effects of success appraisals were based on 1 wave of data (N = 142).
RQ2: Do individuals differ in the association between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem?
We examined the variance of the cross-lagged effect of daily event appraisals on state self-esteem from the MLVAR (1) models using unstandardized and standardized estimates to examine H2(a), (c), (d). We used the range of unstandardized within-person effects (see Tables 4 and 5) to make inferences about the individual differences in this effect in the population. These ranges indicated that individuals differed in the magnitude and direction of the lagged effects of success and valence appraisals of study/work (agentic) events and valence appraisals of social (communal) events on state self-esteem (Tables 4 and 5). To further probe the extent of individual differences based on unstandardized estimates, we calculated the range of within-person unstandardized effects that fall within the range of −1SD to +1SD of the average unstandardized within-person effect (see Table S1). These effects indicated that the lagged effects were small and mostly positive, in the ranges of −.02 to .16.
To make inferences about individual differences in cross-lagged effects in our sample, we plotted the ranges of within-person standardized estimates and the average standardized effect (Figure 2). Ranges of standardized within-person effects indicated that the effects of event appraisals were positive for most individuals in our sample and of small-to-medium size. The results therefore supported our hypotheses that individuals differ in the lagged associations between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem [H2 (a), (c), (d)]. As concurrent effects were more prominent as compared to lagged effects, we also examined the individual differences in concurrent effects. These analyses showed patterns of individual differences in the concurrent associations between event appraisals and state self-esteem that were similar to the lagged associations (Tables S4-S5). Individual Differences in Associations Between Daily Event Appraisals and State Self-Esteem. Note – The within-level standardized effect sizes for participants in the sample are extracted from the Mplus outputs for the MLVAR (1) base models and plotted in R. The red line indicates zero and black lines indicate STDYX standardized average within-person effect. The figure on individual differences in the effect of successful social events predicting state self-esteem is not included here as the model testing this effect did not converge to the data.
RQ3: Does teacher identity moderate the link between daily events and state self-esteem?
We examined whether teacher identity moderated the lagged association between appraisals of study/work events and self-esteem using a cross-level interaction within the MLVAR (1) models to test H3(a), (b). In terms of success appraisals, the effect of teacher identity on the lagged association between success appraisals of study/work (agentic) events and state self-esteem was not significant (Table 4), indicating that teacher identity did not explain the individual differences in this link. Thus, H3a was not supported. For valence appraisals, we found a moderation effect of teacher identity on the lagged association between valence of study/work (agentic) events and state self-esteem (Table 5). The direction of the moderator effect was opposite to our expectations. This indicated that individuals with higher level of teacher identity may respond in their self-esteem to a lesser extent to daily study/work (agentic) events than individuals with lower levels of teacher identity. Therefore, our results suggest an effect in the opposite direction than expected in H3b.
We conducted post-hoc analyses to test whether trait self-esteem and cohort groups (capturing differences in teaching experience) have confounding effects on the moderation effect of teacher identity (supplemental material S4). These analyses showed that trait self-esteem and cohort did not confound the moderating effect of teacher identity (Table S6). We also tested the moderating effect of teacher identity on the concurrent association between valence of study/work events and state self-esteem since concurrent effects were prominent. However, the moderating effect on the concurrent association was not significant (Table S4). Taken together, our findings showed that teacher identity had a negative moderating effect on the lagged association between valence of study/work events and self-esteem. However, we did not find the same effect for the concurrent association and for the lagged effect of success appraisals of study/work events on self-esteem.
Effect of valence appraisals predicting self-esteem per wave
For the cross-lagged effect of valence appraisals predicting self-esteem, we analysed the data on valence appraisals and state self-esteem per wave to examine whether the effects differ per wave. First, we examined whether the average within-person (unstandardized) cross-lagged effects are significant in each wave (see Tables S2-S3), which showed that effects were significant except in the third wave. Second, we visualized individual differences in (standardized) effects across waves, to understand whether individual differences are smaller or larger in some waves. These visualizations showed different patterns of individual differences in effects across waves (see Figures S1-2). For example, for the effect of valence of social events predicting state self-esteem, individuals differed in the magnitude and direction of the effect in the second wave but only differed in magnitude in the other waves (Figure S2). In general, figures showed that individuals differed to a greater extent in the effects in the first wave as compared to later waves. We therefore tested whether participant dropout between wave 1 and wave 2 accounted for these differences in variances of effects, for example by comparing dropped out participants with participants that stayed in the study after the first wave (see Tables S2-S3). Dropout between waves 1 and 2 did not explain differences in variance of effects across these waves.
As we found some differences in the average within-person effects and individual differences in effects between waves, we tried to statistically examine whether magnitude of effects differed from one wave to the next (e.g. wave 1 to wave 2). However, the model testing for these differences did not converge to the data (see supplemental material S3). In conclusion, there may be some differences in these effects across waves; however, these differences need to be further examined.
Discussion
The present study aimed to examine the associations between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem in young adults during the student-to-teacher transition using three waves of experience sampling data spanning 8 months. First, findings suggested that appraisals of daily events evolve concurrently with state self-esteem rather than showing lagged associations. Appraisals of study/work (agentic) events, social events unrelated to study/work (i.e. communal events), and social events related to study/work (communal events in agentic contexts) were simultaneously and concurrently associated with state self-esteem. Directionality of lagged effects (when concurrent effects are not included) suggested that valence appraisals were bidirectionally related, whereas success appraisals were unidirectionally related to state self-esteem. Second, individuals considerably differed in the magnitude of daily event appraisal-state self-esteem (lagged and concurrent) effects, showing small-to-medium sized effects. Third, teacher identity moderated the lagged (but not concurrent) association between valence of daily study/work events and state self-esteem.
Associations between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem
Our findings suggest that appraisals of daily study/work events, social events, and events related to both domains show concurrent effects (i.e. correlated changes) with state self-esteem. These findings support predictions of both agentic (Wojciszke et al., 2011) and communal (Leary & Baumeister, 2000) theories of self-esteem. Taken together, our findings support the notion that subjective evaluations of daily experiences are central mechanisms through which daily experiences impact fluctuation in state self-esteem (Reitz, 2022; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). Our findings differ from previous studies that showed agentic experiences were more important for self-esteem than communal experiences during the university-to-work transition (Guðmundsdóttir et al., 2024; Reitz et al., 2020). These different patterns of findings provide insights into the conditions under which agentic and communal experiences affect self-esteem during a life transition.
The fact that some studies found a dominance of agentic experiences, while we found effects for both, is consistent with the notion that their importance varies across transitions due to unique developmental demands (Reitz, 2022). The two studies examining the university-to-work transition concluded that this life transition posits predominantly agentic demands (e.g. learning new skills, Guðmundsdóttir et al., 2024; Reitz et al., 2020). Young adults motivated to succeed as an employee might be particularly affected by success in the agentic domain (Reitz, 2022). In contrast, the student-to-teacher transition we examined does involve agentic demands, but due to the nature of the teacher role, this transition also involves demands in the communal domains (e.g. supporting students). Future research should examine whether the relative importance of daily agentic versus communal events depends on what developmental tasks are salient in a certain transition.
We examined short-term effects between daily agentic and communal event appraisals and self-esteem. The previous study that found effects of daily agentic (but not communal) experiences examined whether changes in aggregated states were linked with trait change (Reitz et al., 2020). In this study, it is possible that daily communal experiences had effects on state self-esteem, but these effects were not long-lasting and therefore not associated with trait self-esteem change. Recent evidence suggests that how self-esteem is related to other constructs (e.g. depression) is different depending on its operationalization as state versus trait (Braun et al., 2021) and the timescale across which associations are examined (Haehner et al., 2025). To understand which daily (agentic or communal) experiences have fleeting versus long-lasting impact on self-esteem development, future research on linking short-term associations to long term trait change is needed.
Our findings suggest that event appraisals and state self-esteem show moment-to-moment correlated changes and cross-lagged effects do not explain additional variance in state self-esteem beyond concurrent effects. This finding adds to the previous literature on timescale of effects and suggests that effects of daily experiences on self-esteem are observed concurrently and across longer timescales within the day (e.g. from morning to evening as reported in previous studies; Enting et al., 2024; Schmidt et al., 2021). Interestingly, we found that the lagged effect of self-esteem on valence of study/work (agentic) events on self-esteem remained significant after the concurrent association was included. This suggests a spillover effect, such that state self-esteem from 3 hours prior may inform the extent to which individuals perceive a current agentic event to be pleasant, beyond current levels of state self-esteem.
While our findings suggest that effects are primarily concurrent, our findings on the lagged effects (without concurrent effects) inform the strength of (bidirectional) effects observed in agentic and communal domains. For valence appraisals, in both study/work (agentic) and social (communal) domains, standardized effect sizes indicated that the effect of valence appraisals predicting state self-esteem was stronger than vice versa. In the agentic domain, one previous ESM study has reported an opposite pattern; the effect of self-esteem predicting pride was somewhat larger than vice versa (Diwan et al., 2024). It is plausible that self-esteem is a stronger predictor of experiences of pride as these emotional experiences might be closely tied to experiences of accomplishment (Tracy & Robins, 2007). However, in case of event appraisals, it’s plausible that individuals experience a positively valanced event in the study/work domain that may not always be under their control and therefore self-esteem may not influence their perception of this event. In the communal domain, our findings are consistent with studies that have reported unidirectional effects of daily social interactions on self-esteem (Denissen et al., 2008; Enting et al., 2024; Subrahmanyam et al., 2020) as well as stronger effects of satisfaction with social relationships on self-esteem than vice versa across longer periods (De Moor et al., 2021). Furthermore, our findings showed that success appraisals of study/work events predicted state self-esteem, but the reverse effect was not significant. It’s plausible that this effect exists, but we were unable to detect this effect in one wave of data due to lack of statistical power. Taken together, our findings suggest that event appraisals had stronger prospective effects on state self-esteem across 3 hours than vice versa when concurrent effects were not included.
Individuals significantly differed in the daily event self-esteem associations
We found that individuals differed in the lagged and concurrent associations between appraisals of daily events and state self-esteem. The ranges of lagged and concurrent effects for 95% of the sample indicated that individuals differed in the direction and magnitude of these associations. However, for the majority of participants in the population (between −/+ 1SD of the average within-person effect), and for the most individuals included in our sample, effects were mostly positive and small in size. This indicates that when individuals experience a positive/successful event, they tend to experience higher self-esteem levels concurrently and 3 hours later.
Previous studies have reported similar results, for example, in one study pride positively predicted state self-esteem in most, but in a small group, pride negatively predicted state self-esteem (Diwan et al., 2024). Another study reported that individual significantly differed in the magnitude of the within-day associations between quality of social interactions and state self-esteem (Enting et al., 2024). Similar to the findings on heterogeneity in situation-state associations for Big Five personality states (Kuper et al., 2022), our findings suggest that individual differences in daily event-state self-esteem link might be an important individual difference variable that can potentially explain heterogeneous changes in trait self-esteem during major life transitions (Reitz, 2022; Wagner et al., 2024).
Teacher identity and the association between daily events and self-esteem
Going beyond the main effects of event appraisals on self-esteem, we examined whether teacher identity moderated the associations between appraisals of daily study/work events and state self-esteem. We only found one significant moderating effect of teacher identity for the lagged association between valence appraisals of study/work events and self-esteem. This effect was in the opposite direction than we expected. Individuals with stronger teacher identity experienced a weaker (not, as expected, a stronger) link between valence of study/work events and state self-esteem than individuals with weaker teacher identity. This effect remained significant when we controlled for individual differences in trait self-esteem and teaching experience (inexperienced vs. experienced cohorts).
We expected that individuals that strongly identify with the teacher role might be dependent on success in this role for their self-esteem, that is, their self-esteem might be contingent on this domain to a greater extent (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001) or that young adults might invest in this role to a greater extent (Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2007). Our findings however suggest that identifying strongly with the teacher role might contribute to the stability of self-esteem in the face of daily events. Kernis (2005) argues that individuals with a stable sense of self-esteem are less responsive to daily positive and negative events. Similarly, it is a possibility that individuals with a stronger teacher identity experience a more stable sense of identity as a teacher, and as a result, their state self-esteem is less affected by daily ups and downs in the study/work domains that are closely related to their role as a teacher.
However, the moderating effect of teacher identity should be cautiously interpreted, as this effect barely achieved significance and robustness of this effect needs to be examined in future studies. We also tested whether this moderating effect replicated for concurrent associations as concurrent associations were more prominent in our study than lagged effects. The moderating effect of teacher identity did not replicate for concurrent associations. The same effect was also not found for lagged effects of success appraisals. It is plausible that we did not detect the latter effect, because success appraisals were only measured in one wave – we may not have had sufficient power to detect small effects. Future research with larger samples and number of datapoints is needed to examine the robustness of this effect.
Future research is also needed to understand to what extent other indicators of social investment and contingency of self-esteem explain individual differences in reactivity to daily events. Indicators of social investment in work (e.g. job involvement, Hudson & Roberts, 2016) have been related to personality change. These indicators can be examined as moderators of the link between daily event appraisals and state self-esteem. Future studies could also measure (trait) contingency of self-esteem on study and work domains using questionnaires, which would be a more direct measure of the extent to which self-esteem is invested in these domains and explain why individuals react differently to daily events in these domains (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001).
Limitations and future directions
The present study provided novel insights on the dynamic situation-based processes underlying state self-esteem fluctuation during the student-to-teacher transition. We collected ESM and questionnaire data from four cohorts of teacher education students across 3 time points during which participants transitioned into different teaching internships. This design allowed us to examine the moderating effect of teacher identity on the within-person associations of daily events and self-esteem in daily life. With the ESM data, we could capture appraisals of daily study/work events and social events without retrospective bias. Our results contribute novel insights on (a) the context-sensitive nature of sources of fluctuation in self-esteem and (b) the short-term processes possibly underlying self-esteem change during an important life event in young adulthood.
Nevertheless, there are some constraints on generalizability and limitations that should be addressed in future studies. Our sample included Dutch teacher education students who undertake increasing amounts of practical internships as they gradually transition into work. While we did not find differences in associations across inexperienced versus experienced cohorts of teacher education students, cohort differences may not fully capture differences in work experience. Particularly because relatively few students worked in full-time jobs related to teacher education in our sample, our findings may not generalize to individuals with greater amount of full-time working experience. For example, it’s plausible that individuals with more experience fluctuate less in response to daily study/work events as they may have already developed competence in their role. Furthermore, our sample included 80% participants who identified as female. Future research is therefore needed to examine the generalizability of our findings to samples with higher degree of work experience and gender balanced samples.
In terms of limitations, first, while we captured self-reported study/work events, social events, and events related to both domains, future research is needed to examine these daily events more closely. We asked participants to self-report the domain in which daily events occurred to reduce participant burden. We did not ask participants to write a brief description of the event itself. As a result, it remains unclear what occurred during each event and to what extent the event was relevant for participants’ student-to-teacher transition and sense of being a teacher. Future research could examine daily events by asking participants to briefly describe the event and by asking participants about the relevance of these events for the teacher role or the transition. This would also give deeper insights into the nature of developmental tasks important for the successfully navigating the transition (Reitz, 2022).
Furthermore, scores from valence and success appraisal measures were strongly correlated and except one cross-lagged effect, findings showed similar effects across appraisal measures. It is therefore plausible that these constructs capture the same appraisal of the daily event, making it difficult to disentangle and compare whether it is specifically the success appraisal or the positive/negative valence appraisal that triggers fluctuations in self-esteem. Future research could explore their uniqueness and examine other, potentially more different types of appraisals of daily events, for example, appraisals of control and importance of events, which have been linked with self-conscious emotions (Goetz et al., 2010). Moreover, we used a bipolar scale to measure the valence of daily events. Using this measure, we captured fewer negative events than positive events. As a result, we may have missed daily negative events that might be crucial for fluctuations in state self-esteem. Future work is therefore needed to examine the association between valence of daily events and state self-esteem using separate unipolar scales that could capture sufficient negative events.
Second, while we took a first step towards examining the directionality of the associations between daily event appraisals and state self-esteem, future research is needed to examine directionality further. We found bidirectional effects between valence appraisals of events and state self-esteem. Using the dynamic structural equation models, it is not yet possible to constrain effects and examine if the model with effects in one direction versus the other fits better to the data based on fit indices as in traditional SEM models (Hamaker et al., 2018). Moreover, one wave of data likely had limited power to detect the bidirectional effects of success appraisals of daily events. Future studies with larger samples sizes are needed to compare the strengths of effects in both directions.
Third, while we examined lagged versus concurrent effects of event appraisals on self-esteem within days, less is known about how these associations might evolve across timescales (e.g. days, weeks, months) and across different phases of the transition to contribute to trait self-esteem change (Reitz, 2022). It is plausible that the substantial individual differences we found in these daily dynamics explain individual differences in long-term trait self-esteem change during major life transitions. Future research could therefore use alternative modelling approaches, for example, continuous time models (Voelkle et al., 2018) to examine the timescale of these effects and link short-term dynamics to longer term changes. Furthermore, it is plausible that lagged and concurrent dynamics change in their magnitude in different phases of the transition as some of our exploratory analyses indicated. For example, it is possible that appraisals of daily events are more strongly associated with state self-esteem in the beginning of the transition, but as individuals gain more experience and develop a stable sense of self, daily experiences may not trigger as much fluctuation in state self-esteem. We were unable to test whether these dynamics differed from one wave to next, which should be done in future research with larger sample sizes.
Conclusion
The present study provided new insights into the situational processes underlying fluctuations in state self-esteem during a major life transition. Our findings suggest that self-esteem evolves together with daily agentic and communal experiences depending on the extent to which these domains are important for succeeding in the social role or developmental task within a life transition. As communal experiences in the context of an agentic role might be important for self-esteem, future research is needed to go beyond the domain of the transition and examine how (agentic and communal) experiences important for the role/developmental task predict self-esteem. We found that majority of individuals differ in the magnitude of these daily processes, which are important as these individual differences might build up over time to bring about individual differences in self-esteem change. Finally, our findings suggest that individuals that identify with the social role they take on during the transition might develop a more stable sense of self-esteem in response to daily ups and downs associated with the transition. Taken together, our findings suggest that heterogeneous, short-term, and bidirectional processes of fluctuation in self-esteem need to be linked to longer term self-esteem change to understand the heterogeneous effects of life transitions on individuals.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Dynamic associations between daily events and state self-esteem during the student-to-teacher transition
Supplemental Material for Dynamic associations between daily events and state self-esteem during the student-to-teacher transition by Ketaki A. Diwan, Anouke Bakx, Evelyne Meens, and Anne K. Reitz in European Journal of Personality.
Footnotes
Authors’ note
Some parts of this manuscript were presented at Society for Ambulatory Assessment Conference 2023 and European Conference on Personality 2024.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the PhD grant from the Herbert Simon Research Institute, Tilburg University, awarded to Prof. Dr Anne Reitz.
Open science statement
The study materials, data and analysis scripts used for this article can be accessed at https://osf.io/4x72h/. The data used in this study came from Project Stride (codebook openly available at: https://osf.io/b8dur/). The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF: https://osf.io/4x72h/ (Diwan et al., 2024). The study and analysis plans included in this study were pre-registered at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/T57U6 and 
Ethical approval
The study received ethical approval from the ethics review board of Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University (RP601) on 26 July 2021.
Consent to participate
All participants gave informed consent to participate in the study by clicking a button before starting the first survey in the study.
Consent for publication
All participants gave informed consent for publishing their anonymized data.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
