And in both adolescence and young adulthood, blacks have higher self-esteem than whites. By age 30, whites trailed both Hispanics and blacks in terms of self-esteem, according to the report published online July 4 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland made this finding after analyzing U.S. survey data of more than 7,000 young adults from 1994 to 2008. The participants ranged in age from 14 to 30 years. Over the course of 14 years, the study authors examined how five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) affected the youth's self-esteem.

In addition, the researchers also looked at the participants' sense of life mastery, risk-taking tendencies, gender, ethnicity, health and income.

The researchers found that conscientiousness, emotional stability, a feeling of mastery and being extraverted are key to predicting the direction a person's self-esteem will take as they grow up, and that income did not affect this course. These findings, they pointed out, could assist health professionals in targeting treatments.

And, contrary to popular belief, there are no significant differences in the way men and women feel about themselves during those periods of development, the investigators found.

Source: HealthDay News, Self-Esteem Levels Vary by Age, Race, Study Finds, July 18, 2011.