Baseline instability are long term fluctuations in self-esteem that occur slowly and over an extended period of time.
Barometric instability, on the other hand, reflects short term fluctuations in one's contextually based global self-esteem.
Fragile high self-esteem, however, reflects positive feelings of self-worth that are vulnerable to threat, as they require continual bolstering, protection, and validation through various self-protective or self-enhancement strategies.
According to them it seems reasonable to conclude from these and earlier findings that individuals may be vulnerable to depressive tendencies as a result of high variability in, and low levels of, self-esteem.
There was found that stability is relatively low during early childhood (probably because of lack of cognitive growth), increases throughout adolescence and young adulthood, and then declines during midlife and old age.
Environmental factors could also play a role, such as stressful life events may lead to changes in self-esteem during adolescence.
Factors including overreliance on the evaluations, love, and approval of others, an impoverished self-concept, and excessive dependency needs have been implicated for why immediate feelings of self-worth of some individuals are highly unstable.
When self-knowledge is confused and conflicted it will fail to provide meaningful input into people's behaviours and reactions and instead promote heightened responsiveness to immediately salient situational cues and outcomes.
Having a poorly developed self-concept may lead individuals to rely on and be more affected by specific evaluative information, thereby enhancing unstable self-esteem.