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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1396682

Cognitive ability, gender, and well-being in school contexts: longitudinal evidence from Sweden

Provisionally accepted
Björn Boman Björn Boman 1Marie Wiberg Marie Wiberg 2*
  • 1 Stockholm University, Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 2 Umeå University, Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    While well-being does generally constitute a moderate predictor of school achievement, research on the predictive validity of cognitive ability for well-being in school contexts remains scant. The current study analyzed longitudinal relations between cognitive ability measured at age 12 (Grade 6) and well-being measured at age 18 (Grade 12, valid N = 2705) in a Swedish sample, using several multivariate model techniques. The results indicate that cognitive ability was not a statistically significant predictor when several predictors were entered in a multiple regression model. However, gender was a significant covariate as girls and young women have a substantially lower degree of self-reported well-being. This casts light on the limitations of cognitive ability as a construct for some non-cognitive outcomes, at least in shorter and narrower spatial-temporal contexts.

    Keywords: cognitive ability, Well-being, Intelligence, gender, longitudinal analysis

    Received: 06 Mar 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Boman and Wiberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Marie Wiberg, Umeå University, Umeå, 901 87, Västerbotten, Sweden

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