Self-worth and psychological stress in junior high school students

Abstract

Effects of self-worth on the process of developing psychological stress at school in junior high school students were investigated. Junior high school students (n=237) participated in a questionnaire survey on three occasions. In the first test, it was shown that self-worth buffered the influence of academic stressors on anger. In the second test, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted using longitudinal data. Results indicated that self-worth mediated between appraisal of academic stressors and stress responses and that self-worth could change as a result of the impact of stressors. Moreover, an analysis of variance on intra-personal changes in self-worth scores indicated that self-worth had a buffering effect on psychological stress. It is concluded that students with greater self-worth had less stress-related problems, despite having more appraisals of academic stressors.