Background Many children are being maltreated; this causes a lot of psychological problems, such as low self-esteem. A low self-esteem can cause lifelong negative consequences. Goal This study...Show moreBackground Many children are being maltreated; this causes a lot of psychological problems, such as low self-esteem. A low self-esteem can cause lifelong negative consequences. Goal This study examined the relation between different types of child maltreatment and self-esteem in adolescence and the effect of gender. Methods The data is acquired from a Dutch multi-method two-generation research called RE-PAIR (Janssen et al., 2021). The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short Form (Bernstein & Fink, 1997) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Avison & Rosenberg, 1981) are completed by 115 respondents (78 girls and 37 boys), of which 80 non-clinical adolescents and 35 adolescents with depression. The relations and moderation are researched via regression analyses. Results Child maltreatment accounts a significant part of the variance in self-esteem (R2=.130; p < .05). Emotional abuse is the strongest negative predictor of self-esteem (β = -.293; t(86) = -2,287; p < .05). In addition, there was an interaction-effect of gender (t(88) = - 2,554; p < .05). In girls, emotional maltreatment is significant negative related to self-esteem (β = -.443; t(61) = -3.856; p = < .001), but not in boys (β = .048; t(27) = .249; p = .805). Discussion Child maltreatment has a negative relation with self-esteem, in which emotional maltreatment in particular plays a key role. Girls’ self-esteem decreases when they have experienced maltreatment. As a next step, we should try to reduce or prevent low self-esteem in maltreated populations.Show less
ow self-esteem lies at the core of various psychiatric disorders. Emotional maltreatment during childhood is associated with low self-esteem and elevated sensitivity to social rejection later in...Show moreow self-esteem lies at the core of various psychiatric disorders. Emotional maltreatment during childhood is associated with low self-esteem and elevated sensitivity to social rejection later in life. However, it is unclear how childhood emotional maltreatment impacts on the extent to which moment-to-moment self-esteem is shaped by social evaluation. This study examined associations between retrospectively reported emotional maltreatment and self-esteem reactivity in response to social evaluation. Young adult participants (n = 78; 55 female) reported on childhood emotional abuse and neglect and current trait self-esteem. Since behavioural data collection was not possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I created a simulated dataset by matching participants’ self-report data to self-esteem responsivity data from other participants with identical trait self-esteem scores who performed a social evaluation task. Results showed that childhood abuse and neglect were negatively related to trait self-esteem. Task data revealed that approval increased self-esteem and disapproval decreased it. Simulated data showed no evidence of emotional abuse and neglect moderating self-esteem responsivity to social evaluation. These findings suggest that, while childhood maltreatment is linked to low trait self-esteem later in life, lower self-esteem is likely not caused by greater self-esteem reactivity to social evaluation. These findings highlight the need to research alternative pathways by which a history of emotional maltreatment may contribute to the maintenance of low self-esteem.Show less
