54 | Submissions search question where a Pearson correlation was used to evaluate the relation between social support and self-esteem. Results revealed a significant, slightly moderate, positive correlation between social support and self-esteem (r = .23, p < .05) after recoding self-esteem. Finally, in order to test the moderation effect of parental marital status on social support and self-esteem, a hierarchical multiple regression was run and results are presented in Table 2. Parental marital status was entered into Step 1 and did not significantly predict variance in self-esteem (R2 = .000, F change (1, 104) = .009 p = .92). Social support was entered into Step 2 of the model and predicted 5.5% of the variance in self-esteem (R2 change= .055, F change (1, 103) = 6.01, p <.05). As hypothesized, increases in social support predicted increases in self-esteem (β = .22). To test for moderation an interaction term was entered into Step 3 of the model. Following guidelines outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986), the predictor variable was centered before calculating the interaction term (i.e., Parental Marital Status X Social Support). Results showed that the R2 change statistic was not significant, (R2 change =.001, F change (1, 102) = .07, p = .80), indicating that parental marital status did not significantly moderate the relationship between social support and self-esteem in the present study.
Discussion The results of the present study confirmed the second hypothesis. Social support moderately predicted self-esteem beyond what would be expected due to chance. Moreover, as social support increased, so did self-esteem. There was no relation between parental marital status and self-esteem in emerging adults, and thus parental marital status did not affect the relation between social support and self-esteem. Therefore, the first and third hypotheses were not confirmed in this study. Although there are some studies encompassing emerging adults and divorce, it should be noted that the term emerging adult does not always refer to an individual in college. Adults who experienced paren-
tal divorce in childhood or adolescence are likely to have decreased self-esteem, which can have negative life outcomes in adulthood (Baker & Ben-Ami, 2011; Trzesniewski et al., 2006). The findings of the current study are promising, showing little to no difference between emerging adults who come from intact or divorced families on levels of self-esteem. Perhaps the negative impacts of divorce can be overcome by the time a person reaches college. Furthermore, this study may confirm the results of Trzesniewski et al. (2006), that emerging adults who attend college have higher self-esteem on average than their non collegiate peers. The findings of the current study are limited for various reasons. First, participants did not report when the divorce occurred or the quality of the divorce, and this is critical because parental divorce that encourages the child to choose sides or degrade one parent during adolescence can have more negative outcomes in emerging adulthood (Baker & Ben-Ami, 2011). The construct of parental marital status was dichotomous, and therefore did not account for all of the variance that could be considered. Furthermore, we did not control for other influencing factors of self-esteem such as anxiety or stress. Future research should use a more diverse sample size not exclusive to NYU, or college students. Future studies should also examine the time that divorce occurs and self-esteem in emerging adulthood, and what other influencing factors may predict those individuals who come from divorced families with either high versus low self-esteem.