Self-esteem promises to serve as the nexus of social experiences ranging from social acceptance, interpersonal traits, interpersonal behavior, relationship quality, and relationship stability. Yet previous researchers have questioned the utility of self-esteem for understanding relational outcomes. To examine the importance of self-esteem for understanding interpersonal experiences, we conducted systematic meta-analyses on the association between trait self-esteem and five types of interpersonal indicators. To ensure our results were not due to self-esteem biases in perception, we focused our meta-analyses to 196 samples totaling 121,300 participants wherein researchers assessed interpersonal indicators via outsider reports. Results revealed that the association between self-esteem and the majority of objective interpersonal indicators was small to moderate, lowest for specific and distal outcomes, and moderated by social risk. Importantly, a subset of longitudinal studies suggests that self-esteem predicts later interpersonal experience. Our results should encourage researchers to further explore the link between self-esteem and one’s interpersonal world.

自尊有望成为社会经验的纽带，范围包括社会接受度，人际特质，人际行为，人际关系质量和人际关系稳定性。然而，先前的研究人员对自尊在理解关系结果中的作用提出了质疑。为了检验自尊对于理解人际经验的重要性，我们对特质自尊与五种人际指标之间的关联进行了系统的荟萃分析。为了确保我们的结果不是由于感知上的自尊偏见所致，我们将荟萃分析的重点放在196个样本中，共有121,300名参与者，研究人员通过局外人报告评估了人际关系指标。结果显示，自尊与大多数客观人际指标之间的关联很小至中等，对于特定的和远端的结果则最低，并且受社会风险调节。重要的是，一些纵向研究表明，自尊可以预测以后的人际交往经历。我们的研究结果应鼓励研究人员进一步探索自尊与人际关系之间的联系。