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Many longitudinal studies have investigated whether self‐esteem predicts depressive symptoms (vulnerability model) or the other way around (scar model) in adolescents. The most common method of analysis has been the cross‐lagged panel model (CLPM). The CLPM does not separate between‐person effects from within‐person effects, making it unclear whether the results from previous studies actually reflect the within‐person effects or whether they reflect differences between people. We investigated the associations between self‐esteem and depressive symptoms at the within‐person level, using random intercept cross‐lagged panel models (RI‐CLPMs). To get an impression of the magnitude of possible differences between the RI‐CLPM and the CLPM, we compared the results of both models. We used data from three longitudinal adolescent samples (age range: 7–18 years; study 1: N = 1948; study 2: N = 1455; study 3: N = 316). Intervals between the measurements were 1–1.5 years. Single‐paper meta‐analyses showed support for small within‐person associations from self‐esteem to depressive symptoms, but not the other way around, thus only providing some support for the vulnerability model. The cross‐lagged associations in the aggregated RI‐CLPM and CLPM showed similar effect sizes. Overall, our results show that over 1‐ to 1.5‐year time intervals, low self‐esteem may negatively influence depressive symptoms over time within adolescents, but only weakly so. © 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces the articles published in the June 1988 issue of the "European Journal of Personality." Expansion of the domain of personality language by introducing personality-descriptive verbs; Review of literature on questionnaires used for measuring depression, anxiety and neuroticism; Reminiscence of authors' experiences with the Act Frequency Approach to personality.

The present article examines the common factor structure of various self-evaluative personality constructs. Consistent with previous research, we found considerable redundancy between constructs. Two basic forms of self-evaluation could be distinguished: Positive Self-regard (PSR) reflects people's contentedness with themselves in comparison with their own standards. Constructs such as depression, self-esteem and neuroticism have very high loadings on this factor. In contrast, Claim to Leadership (CTL) reflects the subjective conviction that one is called to take charge and lead others. This conviction is often called 'narcissism'. PSR mainly reflects an intra-personal kind of self-evaluation, whereas CTL reflects an inter-personal kind. Both forms of self-evaluation independently predict intellectual self-enhancement, but only one of them (PSR) also predicts self-reported mental health. Moreover, the two forms of self-evaluation are differentially associated with self-reported and peer-reported inter-personal traits (Dominance and Affiliation). Finally, the concepts of 'Grandiosity' and 'Vulnerability' from narcissism research may easily be reframed in terms of CTL and PSR. The two-dimensional framework may help overcome the conceptual confusion that exists around different forms of self-evaluation and streamline the field for future research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]