The Relationship between Self-Esteem and Depression when Controlling for Neuroticism

Much research has examined the interplay of depression and self-esteem in an effort to determine whether depression causes self-esteem (scar model), or vice versa (vulnerability model). In the current longitudinal study (N = 2,318), we tested whether neuroticism served as a confounding variable that accounted for the association of depression and self-esteem, using both cross-lag models and latent growth models. We found neuroticism accounted...