Depression is a prevalent mental health condition that has a complicated psychological framework; therefore, making sense of the contributing elements that lead to its symptomology, such as self-esteem (SE) and self-concept clarity (SCC), can provide helpful insights to both clinical practice and theory. This study investigates the interplay between depression symptoms and SE discrepancy by examining the potential mediating role of SCC, which is the degree to which self-beliefs are internally consistent. A longitudinal research design was employed to evaluate 66 US-based adults over three points in time, each one week apart, on SCC measured by the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS), implicit SE measured by the Self-Esteem Implicit Association Test (Self-IAT), explicit SE measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and depression symptoms as measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Based on prior research, we hypothesized that SCC mediates the relationship between SE discrepancy and depressive symptoms, with all three individual variables of implicit SE, explicit SE and SCC presenting a negative correlation with depression. Consistent with our hypothesis, our results indicated a negative correlation between explicit SE and depression cross-sectionally (r = -0.41, p < .001 in Wave 1; n = 66). In subsequent waves, the correlation was significant in Wave 3, or two weeks later (r = -0.40, p = .018; n = 39), but not in Wave 2 (r = 0, p = 0.98; n = 55). In line with predictions, SCC was found to be negatively correlated with depression (r = -0.50, p < .001 in Wave 2; r = -0.49, p = .003 in Wave 3). Repeated measures ANOVA findings demonstrated that SCC strongly predicted lesser depressive symptoms, but SE discrepancies had inconsistent effects. In terms of clinical application, our results demonstrate that explicit SE and SCC could be considered when assessing for depression.
Gabriella Bann (Sun,) studied this question.