Abstract:
Divorce rates have increased in the past three decades. Much research has focused on the effects of divorce on children and adolescents' emotional adjustment. Measures of self-esteem are one way to determine emotional development. Less attention has been devoted to understanding the effect
divorce has on another very important developmental stage, early adolescence. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect divorce has on early adolescents' self-esteem. It was proposed that the number of life events and divorce-related events would mediate the effect that divorce has on
early adolescents' self-esteem. It was found that early adolescents from divorced
families had lower self-esteem than early adolescents from intact families. There was no evidence that life events or
divorce-related events mediated this effect. No significant relationship was found between life events and self-esteem for either the intact or divorce group independently. However, when the two groups were combined, a significant relationship
was found between life events and self-esteem. The quality, "good" vs. "bad", of the reported events made no difference in
these analysis.
