Self-Esteem and Social Interactions in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Study

Theory and empirical evidence suggest that self-esteem and the quality of social relationships are mutually related across long time spans, however, little is known about this association in daily life. Experience sampling data of 232 Dutch Master’s students (Mage = 24.6, SDage = 2.7) was collected across 4 waves; each consisting of 14 days of 4 daily assessments (23,107 data points). We applied Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling to study the within-day associations between momentary self-esteem (assessed in the morning and evening) and social interactions (anticipated and experienced). First, results showed that quality of social interactions during the day was associated with evening- but not morning self-esteem. Second, positive anticipation of social interactions was associated with morning- but not with evening self-esteem. Third, trait self-esteem did not moderate the within-day associations. Together, results suggest that when having higher self-esteem, people anticipate more positive social interactions at the same time, but they do not experience more positive social interactions later on. Having but not anticipating more positive social interactions seems to contribute to higher self-esteem later on. Differentiating between anticipated and experienced interactions and using multiple daily assessments helps obtain a more fine-grained understanding of the dynamic processes between self-esteem and social interactions.