COMMICAST
Vol. 6 No. 2 (2025): September

The effect of interpersonal communication intensity and openness on self-esteem among communication students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

Muslimah, Muslimah (Unknown)
Rasyid, Erwin (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Sep 2025

Abstract

Self-esteem is a crucial component of students’ psychological well-being and is strongly shaped by the quality of interpersonal communication. This study investigates the influence of communication intensity and openness on the self-esteem of Communication Science students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. A quantitative survey was conducted with 81 randomly selected respondents using a validated questionnaire. Data were analyzed through Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. The results indicate that openness has a moderate positive correlation with self-esteem (r = 0.402, p < 0.05), while intensity shows a lower yet significant correlation (r = 0.363, p < 0.05). Together, the two variables explain 16.2% of the variance in self-esteem, although only openness demonstrates a near-significant individual effect. These findings suggest that the quality of communication is more influential than its frequency in shaping self-esteem. The study contributes to communication science by extending Social Penetration Theory within the Indonesian context and emphasizing openness as a key factor in student development. Practically, the findings encourage universities to integrate open-communication training and peer-mentoring programs to support students’ psychological well-being. The main limitation of this study is the relatively small sample and focus on a single program, which restricts generalizability. Future research should involve larger and more diverse populations and include additional variables such as emotional intelligence and social support to provide a more comprehensive understanding.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

commicast

Publisher

Subject

Humanities Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media Social Sciences

Description

Commicast is an online, multi-media, academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. Commicast is an interdisciplinary journal that, while centered in communication, literature and culture, is open and ...