“Children’s Domain-Specific Self-Evaluations and Global Self-Worth: A Preregistered Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis”, Yixin Tang, Eddie Brummelman, Sheida Novin, Mark Assink, Sander Thomaes2023-08-10 (sociology)⁠:

Which domain-specific self-evaluations are most central to children’s global self-worth? And does this differ between countries with different levels of collectivism–individualism?

We conducted a preregistered cross-cultural meta-analysis [OSF] to address these questions. We included 141 independent samples (21 countries/regions, 584 cross-sectional effect sizes), totaling 33,120 participants in middle to late childhood, a critical age for self-worth development.

Overall, global self-worth was most strongly correlated with self-evaluations in the domain of physical appearance (r = 0.64), followed by behavioral conduct, peer relations, academic competence, athletic competence, and parent relations (rs = 0.39–0.54). Global self-worth was equally strongly correlated with agentic and communal self-evaluations (r = 0.51 and 0.52, respectively). The strength of these associations did not vary statistically-significantly by country-level collectivism-individualism.

These findings reveal the robust correlates of self-worth across cultures and raise important new questions about when and how culture shapes the development of children’s global self-worth.