Self-esteem trajectories over three decades predict opposition to social equality in midlife

The paper, in plain language

A question that needs three decades of data

Where does opposition to equality come from? Snapshot studies cannot separate cause from consequence, so we turned to the Young in Norway Study, which has followed the same people across five waves from 1992 to 2020 — from a mean age of about fifteen to about forty-three. Self-esteem was measured at every wave, in three domains; attitudes toward social equality, gender equality and immigration were measured in midlife.

What we found

Both the starting point and the journey mattered: adolescents with low self-esteem, and people whose self-esteem developed poorly over the following three decades, opposed social equality more in midlife — across all three outcomes, and holding when we controlled for early political orientation, gender, age and parental education. The effects are small, as honest longitudinal effects usually are; their significance lies in the timespan, not the size.

Why it matters

Political psychology tends to explain attitudes with other attitudes. This evidence suggests something quieter and earlier: how people come to feel about themselves in adolescence leaves a trace in how they feel about hierarchy thirty years on — which makes adolescent self-worth an unexpected variable for anyone interested in inclusive societies. The equality outcomes were only measured at the final wave, so the design cannot rule out every alternative; it is, however, exactly the kind of question only a cohort like this can begin to answer.