Peer sexual harassment, appearance esteem, and emotional problems: Testing a mediation model across early adolescence.

This study used a longitudinal sample of early adolescent boys and girls (ages 10-12; N = 1113) to test a theoretically and empirically informed model suggesting that exposure to peer sexual harassment (age 10) predicts more emotional problems (age 12), and that lower appearance esteem (age 11) mediates this relation. On the within-person level, which is the level on which the processes theoretically should play out, we found no support for the proposed mediation model for boys or for girls. Unexpectedly, we found that following times of more exposure to peer sexual harassment than usual, early adolescents instead experienced higher appearance esteem and fewer emotional problems than usual. More research is needed to replicate and understand these unexpected findings.

Swedish middle school students' psychosocial well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study.

Child well-being concerns amidst the COVID-19 pandemic have been reported from countries with strict lockdowns and school closures. Sweden's middle school students attended school as normal during the pandemic, but it is still unknown how their well-being has changed during the pandemic. This study aimed to assess differences in Swedish students' psychosocial well-being from before to during the pandemic. Longitudinal data (N = 849) were collected via self-report surveys across two time-points separated by approximately one year. The second data collection took place 8-9 months after the start of the pandemic in Sweden. We measured psychological adjustment, relationships to significant others and school adjustment. Findings revealed significant mean-level decreases in students' school adjustment during the pandemic. There were no meaningful mean-level decreases in students' relationships to significant others. Students' psychological adjustment showed significant but mostly negligible mean-level decreases, and no differences in emotional problems during the pandemic. The findings are explained based on students' developmental stage and the handling of the pandemic in the Swedish school context. Based on this first longitudinal study on students' wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, we conclude that Swedish middle school students who continued formal schooling show mainly positive adaptations, and thus appear to be resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic.