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Description: In this study, we used nationally representative data from over 2,000 German twin families and a nuclear twin family design (NTFD) to further our understanding of the genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in self-esteem. Compared to classical twin designs (CTD), NTFDs allow for finer-grained descriptions of the genetic and environmental influences on phenotypic variation, produce less biased estimates of those effects, and provide more information about different environmental influences and gene-environment correlation that contribute to siblings’ similarity. Our NTFD results suggested that additive and non-additive genetic influences contribute to individual differences in self-esteem as well as environmental influences that are both shared and not shared by twins. The shared environmental component mostly reflected non-parental influences. A secondary aim of this study was to test whether the estimates obtained from the NTFD differ across different levels of socioeconomic status. We present the analyses and results relevant to this question in a supplementary research report.