Adolescents with and without Physical Disabilities: Which Processes Protect Their Self-Esteem?

ABSTRACT

The objective of the study was to analyse whether young people with physical disabilities have lower global self-esteem and less positive domain-specific self-concepts than peers without physical disabilities, as well as which processes protect their self-esteem. Data were collected from 179 German adolescents with physical disabilities and 296 adolescents without physical disabilities. Both groups did not differ in global self-esteem. However, adolescents with physical disabilities had lower self-concepts of athletic competence and social acceptance. Perceived athletic competence tended to show weaker associations with self-esteem in adolescents with physical disabilities than in the control group. Regarding processes of protecting self-esteem, adolescents with physical disabilities reported higher levels of emotional support when dealing with problems, a stronger tendency to present oneself in a favourable light, and stronger selection of goals that are easily attainable. A regression analysis indicated that a lower self-esteem of young people with physical disabilities compared to the control group emerged after statistically controlling for the elevated levels of self-protective processes in the former group. We conclude that social support, goal adjustments, and positive self-presentation protect the reports on self-esteem in young people with physical disabilities. Practitioners should be sensitive to the risk for biased self-reports when assessing self-esteem.

KEYWORDS:

• Goal setting
• physical disability
• self-concept
• self-esteem
• self-representation
• social support

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.