The relation between self-esteem and regulatory emotional self-efficacy in daily life: a study among university students

In the present study, we aimed to explore the dynamic relationships among self-esteem, self-efficacy in managing negative emotions (SRN), and expressing positive emotions (SEP) in a short-term, daily framework. We used data collected over 10 days from 101 Italian and 237 Spanish young adults. Results from a Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model indicated that the relationships were mostly at the trait-level, since the positive correlations among the latent random intercepts of self-esteem, SRN, and SEP were medium-to-large in size. At the state-level, we found a similar pattern of correlations (although their size was smaller than the correlations at the trait-level) in which higher-than-expected levels of self-esteem on a given day (e.g., Monday) were related to higher-than-expected levels of SRN and SEP at the same day. Interestingly, we also found that higher-than-expected levels of SRN on a given day predicted slightly higher-than-expected levels of self-esteem the next day (but not vice-versa). These results did not change when the effects of country, age, gender, and daily events were included in the Ri-CLPM. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our findings for informing clinical and personality psychologists about the daily dynamics between emotion regulatory processes and self-esteem are discussed.