2011 Volume 53 Issue 4 Pages 277-287
The purpose of this study was to clarify the structure of the influence that daily hassles and resilience (i.e. mental recuperative power) have on the self-esteem of schoolchildren.
The sample consisted of 495 fifth and sixth grade children attending two different elementary schools within the Aichi prefecture. A survey was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire, which consisted of a resilience scale, a self-esteem scale, an aggression susceptibility scale, and a daily hassles scale. An objective value for stressors was derived by averaging the seriousness score of daily hassles in all subjects. The sensitivity to stressors was defined as what subtracted the objective value for stressors from the daily hassles scale, and divided by the total number of stresses.
Some results are shown below.
A factor analysis using the principal factor method and a promax rotation was conducted using the 24 items of the resilience scale, and the four factors of resilience, termed “positive future orientation", “seeking interests and concerns", “emotional regulation", and “perseverance", were identified.
A covariance structure analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that resilience, objective assessment of stressors, sensitivity to stressors, and aggression susceptibility all affect an individual's self-esteem. The fit indices of the final model were Χ2=296.65 (df=123, p<.001), GFI=.936, AGFI=.911, and RMSEA=.054.Sensitivity to stressors and aggression susceptibility were both found to be negatively correlated with self-esteem. Perseverance was the only factor of resilience which affected self-esteem through sensitivity to stressors. Furthermore, of the four resilience factors, positive correlations with self-esteem were found for “positive future orientation"(β=.16, p<.01), “seeking interests and concerns" (β=.40, p<.01) and “perseverance"(β=.27, p<.01).
Our study concludes that increasing levels of resilience leads to both a direct and indirect increase in self-esteem.
