
Subjective socioeconomic status moderates self-esteem reactivity to daily stressor exposure: Evidence from a daily diary approach.
Chua, Y. J., Majeed, N. M., Lua, V. Y., Cheng, C. Y., & Hartanto, A.
2023
Abstract
Research on self-esteem reactivity has demonstrated that self-esteem fluctuates in response to daily stressor exposure, and the strength of this relationship varies between individuals. Drawing upon the positive link between objective socioeconomic status (SES) and self-esteem, how subjective SES influences self-esteem reactivity to daily stressor exposure was explored. Using a 7-day daily diary study, the current study (Nparticipants = 243, Ndays = 1651) adopted a multilevel analysis to demonstrate that subjective SES attenuated the within-person association between daily stressor exposure and daily self-esteem, even after controlling for demographics and objective indicators of SES. The interactions were also consistent across social stressors and non-social stressors. The findings provide evidence supporting the protective role of subjective SES in self-esteem reactivity to daily stressor exposure.