Negative Life Events and School Adjustment among Adolescents in Out-of-Home Care: The mediating effects of self-esteem and social withdrawal

AbstractData from the first year of a longitudinal study of 562 African American adolescents were analyzed to examine coping methods and competence outcomes as measured by academic performance (national percentile ranking [NPR] on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills) and academic self-esteem. With resilience conceptualized as adaptive coping, regression analyses were performed to test a model of risk and resilience that takes into account family and neighborhood characteristics, youths' perceptions of their contexts, coping strategies, identity processes, and achievement outcomes. With all measures in the regression model, significant predictors of NPR for males were mother's education and academic self-esteem; predictors for females were mother's education, parental life dissatisfaction, youths' perception of family conflict, and academic self-esteem. Predictors of academic self-esteem for males were mother's education, negative life events, and youths' perception of family conflict; predictors for females were negative life events and youths' perception of family conflicts. The findings indicate that, as adaptive coping responses, both academic self-esteem and academic achievement are responsive to particular protective factors. The authors suggest that prevention and intervention efforts should be sensitive to specific coping methods and abilities that could promote resilient outcomes.

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Still Doing Fine? the Interplay of Negative Life Events and Self–Esteem during Young Adulthood

European Journal of Personality ◽

10.1002/per.2066 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 358-373 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Julia Tetzner ◽

Michael Becker ◽

Jürgen Baumert

Keyword(s):

Life Events ◽

Young Adulthood ◽

Protective Factor ◽

Negative Life Events ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Selection Effects ◽

Protective Effects ◽

Personality Psychology ◽

Change Models ◽

Bidirectional Relationship

This longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relationship between negative life events and self–esteem during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood (N = 2272). Drawing on theories of human development over the lifespan and just–world theory, we analyzed age–graded changes in self–esteem and their interplay with negative life events at three measurement points over a 12–year period. We addressed both the short–term and the longer term effects of single as well as multiple negative life events on changes in self–esteem (socialization effects). We further investigated whether the pre–event level of self–esteem affected the likelihood of negative life events occurring (selection effects) and, finally, whether it had protective effects in terms of helping people adjust to negative events. Latent change models yielded four main findings: (i) self–esteem increased during young adulthood; (ii) socialization effects were observed over shorter and longer timespans, but (iii) selection effects were only found for multiple negative life events, with low self–esteem predicting a high number of negative life events; (iv) high pre–event self–esteem acted as a protective factor, attenuating declines in self–esteem after experience of multiple negative life events. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology

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