title: Global self-evaluations and perceived instability of self in early adolescence: a cohort longitudinal study.
abstract: A cohort longitudinal design with four adjacent cohorts of students (n = 1689) followed over two years was used to study key issues identified in the research literature on the development of self-evaluations in early adolescence. There was no clear relationship between age/grade and self-evaluations. We found no support for a "stressful periods" hypothesis with respect to self: Possible changes were very gradual and quite small. However, there was a consistent "relative age" effect implying that younger students within a grade had more negative self-evaluations. There were small but consistent sex differences in self-evaluations in favor of the boys; more detailed analyses of very negative self-evaluations suggested that the early adolescent years are the period in which a sex difference in depression related symptomatology begins to emerge. Finally, the usefulness of some kind of effect size measure and advantages and problems associated with a cohort longitudinal design were discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: F D
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Alsaker
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Olweus
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010553:Personality Development; D010555:Personality Inventory; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012649:Self Concept; D012931:Social Environment