Understanding the Different Realities, Experience, and Use of Self-Esteem

African American adolescent females possess higher self-esteem than any other racial or ethnic adolescent female group. This article tests two popular empirically supported explanations for Black high self-esteem: contingency of self-esteem theory and the locus of control model. This article builds on past research to illustrate the specific mechanisms of self-esteem for Black and White adolescent girls. To facilitate an investigation of these theories, self-esteem was explored as a bidimensional construct consisting of self-worth and self-deprecation. The sample consisted of 453 Black and 1,902 White adolescent females. Multivariate regression analyses produced the following outcomes: The contingency of self-esteem theory and the locus of control model were not supported. A significant race by social support interaction found that even in low support situations Black adolescent females reported less self-deprecation than White females