BELONGINGNESS AND TEMPORAL BRACKETING IN PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF CHANGESIN SELF-ESTEEM

First-person accounts of events that raised or lowered self-esteem wer e collected from a sample of middle-aged women. Descriptions of events that raised self-esteem tended to emphasize the achievement of social belongingness, whereas accounts of losing self-esteem featured failur es to connect with others, and these patterns were especially pronounc ed among people whose trait self-esteem was low. The accounts of raisi ng self-esteem had more inclusive, integrative time spans than the acc ounts of lowering self-esteem. This could mean that it takes longer to lower self-esteem than to raise it. It also suggests that people seek to separate past losses of self-esteem from their present selves. (C) 1998 Academic Press.