Irene Caye M.

Cinco

PHI41

REACTION PAPER ON “IMPLICIT SELF-ESTEEM DECREASES IN

ADOLESCENCE: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY”
This is a reaction to the research paper entitled “Implicit Self-Esteem Decreases in
Adolescence: A Cross-Sectional Study” by Cai et al. The objective of the research is to examine
and compare implicit and explicit self-esteem in adolescence from a developmental perspective.

The research explored the development of implicit self-esteem in adolescents, as this

topic has remained an active one in both the areas of implicit social recognition and self-esteem.
Researching this topic from a developmental perspective might also help us understand the
developmental trajectory of implicit self-esteem as well as the relationship between implicit and
explicit self-esteem. Most studies about this topic have merely focused on implicit self-esteem
among adults, that is why the purpose of this research, on the other hand, is to explore the
development of implicit self-esteem among adolescents.

The researchers used quantitative method to obtain data. The total number of participants
is 599 and all are adolescents comprised of both junior and senior high school aged students in
East China. Their age range is from 11 to 18 years old. All the participants were asked to
complete the explicit and implicit self-esteem measures on computers inside individual, quiet
rooms. The researchers assessed explicit self-esteem using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
while they assessed implicit self-esteem using IAT.

The researchers found out that implicit self-esteem decreases as age increases during
adolescence. This declining trend also showed consistency with the self-development theory and
the “storm and stress” account as previous studies have similarly revealed that implicit self-
esteem is sensitive to long term acculturation and self-regulation as well as to momentary
situational changes. The research further established that implicit self-esteem changes as a
function of age-related or developmental shifts, which then extended our perception of the
malleability of implicit self-esteem.

Moreover, the results of the research enriched our overall understanding of the
development of self-esteem in adolescence. The researchers carefully examined age differences
in implicit self-esteem and found out that implicit self-esteem was mainly independent of
explicit self-esteem during the period of adolescence. The researchers also noted that this result
has been consistent with previous studies which observed that this relationship is also weak in
adult samples.
 In conclusion, the research showed consistency with previous findings of other studies in
the same topic by revealing that implicit self-esteem steadily declines, even in adolescents, while
explicit self-esteem increases at first and then declines later. These developmental shifts imply
that there may be other factors, such as social desirability and social comparison information that
have an influence in the results obtained from explicit measure. All in all, the research findings
suggest that both implicit and explicit perspectives are essential in fully understanding
developmental changes in self-esteem in the period of adolescence.