Abstract
International research has found changes in how today’s young people evaluate themselves. The present Swedish research contributes with new findings by distinguishing different patterns of change in self-evaluation in two age groups. The study investigates generational and gender differences in five self-evaluation dimensions in two samples, one from 1983 (N = 3052 10–16-year-old students) and one from 2013 (N = 1303 10–18-year-old students). Three age groups were analyzed. The generational comparison for primary school (ages 10–12) showed higher scores in 2013 than in 1983 for all five self-evaluation dimensions. Interactions between generation and gender were found for psychological well-being, relations to others, school competence evaluations, and the total score, demonstrating, in contrast to international research, a greater increase for girls than for boys. Noteworthy is that girls in primary school had higher scores in 2013. The generational comparison for lower secondary school (ages 13–15) demonstrated higher scores for school competence, relational self-evaluations, and a total higher score in 2013. Interactions between generation and gender were found for total, physical, and psychological well-being evaluation scores, indicating an increase for boys and a decrease for girls in 2013 compared to 1983. The gender comparison for secondary school (ages 16–18, 2013), showed gender differences for physical, psychological well-being, school competence evaluations, and for the total score to the advantage of boys. The study discusses changes in self-evaluation in relation to phenomena such as permissive child-rearing, decreased demands in school, increased self-enhancement behavior through social media, and narrow body ideals in today’s society. The study recommends that interventions directed toward groups with low self-evaluation scores should be considered.
Highlights
International studies suggest self-evaluation differences between today’s young generation, ‘the Millennials’1 and those born some decades earlier, ‘Generation X’2 (Twenge and Campbell, 2001; Gentile et al, 2010; Bachman et al, 2011; Von Soest and Wichstrøm, 2014)
The results from the two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) that examine the main effects of generation (1983 and 2013) and gender and a possible interaction of the two variables are presented separately for the overall sample, for primary school and for lower secondary school
We suggest that increases in primary school children’s total and family related self-evaluation scores might be an effect of changed parenting
Summary
International studies suggest self-evaluation differences between today’s young generation, ‘the Millennials’ and those born some decades earlier, ‘Generation X’2 (Twenge and Campbell, 2001; Gentile et al, 2010; Bachman et al, 2011; Von Soest and Wichstrøm, 2014). Scientific reports in many Western countries show a decrease in wellbeing and an increase in depression and self-harm behavior among adolescents (Collishaw et al, 2010; Fleming et al, 2014) Phenomena, such as an increase in permissive childrearing methods, changed demands in school, increased self-enhancement behavior through the Internet and social media, and increasingly narrow body ideals, are used to explain why Millennials demonstrate seemingly contradictory trends – increases in self-esteem and decreases in subjective well-being. Eckersley and Dear (2002; Park et al, 2014) claim that these results do not conflict because the increase in self-focus in individualistic cultures produces inflated feelings of selfworth These inflated feelings of self-worth are accompanied by unrealistic expectations on choice, opportunity, and attainment in many aspects of life. Because such high expectations cannot be met, they may lead to experiences of failure that result in decreased subjective well-being (Eckersley and Dear, 2002; Park et al, 2014)
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