Self‐esteem memories and school success in early adolescence

Early adolescents recounted experiences when they felt ‘especially good’ or ‘especially bad’ about themselves in the past year. Consistent with prior research using adult participants, negative memories focused primarily on social themes, whereas positive memories also prominently included achievement themes. Girls described more social themes than did boys for both positive and negative memories. The content of self‐esteem memories was related to teachers' formal assessments of adolescents' social and academic functioning: The presence of achievement themes in positive and negative memories was associated with more positive teacher ratings. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.