Day-to-Day Relationships among Self-Concept Clarity, Self-Esteem, Daily Events, and Mood

Abstract

Twice a week for up to 10 weeks, 103 participants provided measures of their daily self-concept clarity (SCC), mood (negative affect [NA] and positive affect [PA]), and self-esteem (SE), and they described the events that occurred each day. Multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses found that daily SCC covaried with daily positive and negative events, with daily NA, and with daily SE. None of these relationships was moderated by trait levels of SE, SCC, PA, NA, or measures of depressogenic self-concept, anxiety, or depressive symptoms. Analyses that simultaneously included SE, mood, and events suggested that relationships between daily SCC and daily events were mediated by daily NA and daily SE. Such mediation suggests that daily events lead to changes in mood and SE, which in turn lead to changes in SCC. Additional analyses found that temporal variability of SE, PA, NA, and SCC was negatively correlated with trait SCC.