add inter correlations of depression and anxiety and how these two effect social relationships and self esteem with appropriate reference and lastly write that no research to the best of our knowledge has been conducted investigating this interplay and thus we are hypothesising .........

Anita Z Goldschmied

Hi Anita,

Thanks for your explanation, I understand where you're coming from. However my professor would like to see why I think there's a moderation, without explaining the 'why' by using direct relations. Do you have any recommendation on how to approach that?

Hello, you need to make it very clear why you are expecting there to be a weaker relationship between self-esteem and social relationships in the presence of either depression or anxiety. From my own off-the-cuff intuition, I would think that higher scores on depression or anxiety would further aggravate (magnify) the relationship between self-esteem and social relationships, and not, as you say, weaken (buffer) it. I say this because it would seem that those with low self-esteem who are not depressed or anxious may be better able to engage in, or tolerate, being in social relationships, compared to those with low self-esteem who are depressed on anxious. The added burden of depression or anxiety may increase fatigue, heighten over-sensitivity, and further impair interpersonal skills in engaging in social relationships. Since you mention that you are expecting a weakening of the relationship, it seems that you are expecting that this deterioration in engaging in social relationships would be greater for those with high self-esteem who are depressed or anxious than those with low self-esteem who are depressed or anxious, however I would assume the opposite.

Of course, I may be wrong here. Maybe those with low self-esteem have become accustomed over time in maintaining relationships despite the burden posed by their low self-esteem, such that the additional burden of depression or anxiety does not contribute as much to the deterioration of engaging in social relationships as it would for those with high self-esteem. Those with low self-esteem might be more likely to have been coping with long-term depression (dysthymia) or anxiety over time. Those with high self-esteem could find a bout of depression or anxiety symptoms as more shocking, such that they contribute more to deterioration of engaging in social relationships. This pattern of findings might be supported by adaptations-level theory, for instance.

If there is truly an absence of empirical evidence, you should seek out strong social psychological theories to justify your testing of your hypothesis. Otherwise, your testing will merely be exploratory and not be based on any kind of explanatory rationale no matter what relationship (magnifier or buffering) you are hypothesizing between self-esteem and social relationships. And your interpretation would be ex post facto, which is not desirable.

Good luck!