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Aims. Research has shown that self-esteem predicts success and well-being in important areas of life, such as relationships, work, and health. Thus, it is important to study self-esteem, its development and the factors that influence its development. Parents have a major influence on adolescents’ self-esteem and good relationships between adolescents and parents have been found to be associated with adolescents’ higher self-esteem. Only little research has been done on the association of the adolescent-parent relationship with a person's self-esteem in middle age. The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the adolescent-parent relationship is associated with self-esteem at age 16. The second aim was to find out how the quality of the adolescent-parent relationship predicts the self-esteem of the subjects at age of 52, considering the level of self-esteem in adolescence. Methods. The data is part of the Stress, Development and Mental Health (TAM) research project of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. The data has been collected when the respondents were 16, 22, 32, 42 and 52 years old. In this study, data collected in 1983 and 2019 were used when the subjects were 16 (N=2194) and 52 (N=1160) years old. The variables used in the analyses were conflict proneness, closeness and trust, and self-esteem. Research questions about the associations between adolescent-parent relationships and self-esteem at age 16 and 52 were answered using stepwise linear regression analysis. Results and Conclusions. The study found that the adolescent-parent relationship was associated with self-esteem in adolescence (at age 16) and predicted self-esteem in middle age (at age 52), when the level of self-esteem in adolescence was considered. From the aspects of the adolescent-parent relationship, it stood out that girls showed a stronger association of conflict proneness with lower self-esteem and boys showed a stronger association of parental trust with higher self-esteem and a stronger association of conflict proneness with lower self-esteem. In middle age, women showed a stronger association of closeness in the adolescent-parent relationship with higher self-esteem, while men showed a stronger association of parental trust with higher self-esteem. The results suggest that a good adolescent-parent relationship is associated with good self-esteem in adolescence, but also with higher self-esteem development to middle age. A key factor behind good adolescent-parent relationships is effective and trusting communication - this could also be a potential area for development in interventions.

Aims. The purpose of this thesis was to examine whether a gymnastics coach’s personality is connected to self-esteem of a gymnast, and if some of the personality traits have supporting or weakening effect on the gymnast’s self-esteem. Also, I examine the general level of gymnasts’ self-esteem. The two hypotheses were the following. First, gymnastics coach’s personality traits agreeableness (A), openness (O) and extraversion (E) are positively connected to gymnasts’ self-esteem and thus support their self-esteem. Second, the gymnastics coach’s personality traits neuroticism (N) and conscientiousness (C) are connected negatively to gymnasts’ self-esteem, i.e. have weakening effect to gymnasts’ self-esteem. Recently, the controversial coaching methods in top-level sports and their effect on the well-being and self-esteem of the athletes has received significant media attention. Thereby, I strive to contribute to the knowledge of factors that do support the well-being and self-esteem of athletes. Methods. The research data was collected with two separate online questionnaires which were shared to Finnish gymnastics clubs’ coaches and gymnasts. Gymnastics coaches answered only the questionnaire that measured personality while gymnasts answered only the questionnaire that measured the level of their self-esteem. Total of 22 gymnastics coaches from five different clubs and, 105 gymnasts aged between 10 and 21 years, from four different clubs located in Espoo, Tampere and Turku answered the questionnaires. The main quantitative analyses of this thesis were correlation analysis and ordinary least squares linear regression analyses. Results and conclusions. The gymnasts in the sample of this thesis had on average very high level of self-esteem. The level of self-esteem was negatively correlated with the gymnast’s age. The results of the regression analyses imply that higher extraversion of a gymnastics coach is positively related to the self-esteem of a gymnast. Thereby, the results suggest that characteristics that are linked to extraversion, such as sociableness, warmth and enthusiasm, of a gymnastics coach support the self-esteem and thereby the well-being of a gymnast.