Main Findings
Our main finding is that the significant differences in global self-esteem that existed between the communistic dictatorship Bulgaria and the Western democracy Sweden before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had disappeared when re-examined with the same method, in the same locations, and by one of the same investigators 25 years later. This was found to be mainly related to larger similarities between countries in the sub-scale ‘Relations with others’ where Bulgarian adolescents had significantly increased their score, whereas the Swedish scores decreased (non-significant) as well as the improvements in Bulgaria in ‘Psychological well-being’ over time. The score from the sub-scale, ‘Relations with others’, was suggested in our previous study to be significantly lower in Bulgaria related to dictatorship governance [7]. Both global self-esteem as well as ‘Psychological well-being’ and ‘Relations with others’ were found to have a significant interaction between time and country, indicating that the country differences in self-esteem were modified by time, i.e. our proxy for governance.
The difference in score between the countries in the sub-scale ‘Psychological well-being’ has changed, which also has affected the global self-esteem. The previous difference where the Swedes had significantly higher results than the Bulgarians has now changed to the diametrically opposed. The interactions between country and time in this sub-scale were significant in all strata. The significant difference between the sexes in global self-esteem, as well as the sub-scales ‘Physical characteristics’ and ‘Talents and skills’, which existed in Sweden at T1 were no longer significant at T2. We interpret this as that the difference between the sexes decreased over time.
The girls in both countries had lower results in the sub-scale ‘Psychological well-being’ than the boys at both waves. Thus the pattern with girls reporting lower levels of psychological wellbeing that we are used to seeing in western democracies over decades [9, 11, 26] was also found in Bulgaria at both times, with different governance.
Previous studies
We were only able to find one previous study comparing self-esteem between a democracy and a dictatorship of the two cold-war blocs [27].
This study based on a sample of deflected Soviet citizens and conducted on a rather small sample with vague methodological descriptions reported differences in self-esteem when compared with American citizens matched for age, sex, occupation and education where the Soviet Russians showed rather high and secure self-esteem and little self-evaluation and doubt of their inner selves. The authors found that the collective dependence and the mutual surveillance systems as well as the arrogance of the élite and the dissolving of social structures put great strains on the relations. This may have had a strong effect on both relations to authorities as well as relations to others as the loyalties between family and other groups, such as the komsomol, could alter interchangeably. The Soviet society also included an official shaming strategy that might have led to a general desensitization from shame.
According to the authors of that study, a non-striving tendency is supposed to have been formed through an ever-present call from the authorities for action that, however, never led to much positive reinforcement and thus to a complacent fading of activity. The authors also stated that the evidence for their statements were vague and that more studies were needed.
Other related studies
Closely related studies on adolescent developmental psychology related to dictatorship in the Soviet-bloc, albeit not studying self-esteem, are studies on Jewish adolescent immigrants to Israel from the (former) Soviet Union compared with Israeli born adolescents in Israel, which in itself might constitute a selection bias. The authors describe the Soviet regime’s style of education as characterised by harsh punishment and control [28]. The child-rearing in the families was equally described as harsh following Soviet child-rearing literature, which recommended isolating or ignoring the child as well as withdrawing of love and privileges as a method of punishment after misbehaviour [28–30]. Parenting like this, based on harsh punishment with little reinforcement, has been linked with behaviour disorders [28] and the adolescents showed high rates of conduct disorder, violence, antisocial behaviour, and a higher alcohol consumption [28, 30].
These studies comparing Israeli and former Soviet adolescents in Israel claimed that there was a huge difference between the societies; in the western democratic societies there was an emphasis on self-actualisation and individualism whereas the Soviet society focused on the needs of the collective in the communistic society and personal needs were neglected [28]. Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, has also discussed the differences between individualism and collectivism where individualism can be defined as a preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families whereas collectivism represents a preference for a tightly-knit framework in society in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty [31].
Rational self-control and the cultivation of self-discipline for the higher goal of society was the basis for the paedagogical ideology based on the doctrines of the main Soviet paedagogical theoretician Antonin Makarenko [32, 33]. This paedagogical theory severely influenced child-rearing in the family in the Soviet-bloc, amongst others Bulgaria [34].
The change in macro-environmental stressors in Bulgaria
It is very plausible that the macro-environmental stressors in the two countries have equalised as Bulgaria has lost many large stressors that were intimately related to the communistic dictatorship [7]. This loss could be suggested as an explanation for the increased global self-esteem as well as the self-esteem in the sub-scale ‘Relations to others’ in the Bulgarian data at T2. Our suggestion, in this article, was that the macro-environmental stressors in the first wave of data-collection, when Bulgaria was a communistic dictatorship, could be attributed to as ‘Dictatorship damage’. This being mainly related to the repression from the governing system, which was suggested to decrease global self-esteem, primarily in the sub-scale ‘Relations to others’. The cross-sectional design of this study made it impossible, however, to deduce any causality and there were many other differences between the countries.
The system of mutual surveillance facilitated a repression of the people in the communistic dictatorship has been referred to as a cornerstone of the communistic society [2]. Hiding and suppressing non-authorised viewpoints, thoughts and emotions due to the fear of being labelled as an enemy of the state might particularly have influenced self-esteem in relation to others. It could be theorised that lower self-esteem in relation to others was related to the fear of being considered an unwanted element by anyone from the ever-present system of mutual surveillance. Hiding one’s inner thoughts from the world creates difficulties in assessing other’s perceptions of oneself as well as realising one’s own strengths [35]; both may lead to lower self-esteem [8]. When undesired facts about oneself are disconnected from the persona through dissociation, which may be a suitable way for survival, dissociation may occur as another strong stressor [35].
The normative ‘correct’ views on different subjects were mostly delivered by the dictatorship’s propaganda system and circulating rumours often replaced open information because open information was always censored [2]. Censorship led to difficulties in distinguishing true facts from propaganda and inability to source criticism. This combined with the repression and lack of freedom could thus theoretically lead to a sensation of lack of control, lack of sense of coherence and low self-esteem in totalitarian societies [36]. The presence of in- and out-groups in Bulgaria may be another potential explanation why the scores for the sub-scale ‘Relations to others’ was higher in the democratic Sweden in 1989 although other differences between the countries may have influenced the differences in results between Sweden and Bulgaria [7].
Condition for social support
The overall goal of production in the communistic dictatorship [2] could be seen as a condition for the social support of the individual and thus as something that would diminish relational self-esteem and, in continuation, global self-esteem. Harter states that the perception of support does not need to be consistent with objective ratings and that the conditionality of the perceived level of social support, e.g. achieving a good academic result, is inversely correlated to self-esteem. The conditionality of the perceived level of social support may have been more pronounced in a communistic dictatorship than in a Western democracy and it is important to keep in mind that the perception of support, rather than the actual support, may be more important in developing high self-esteem [8].
The insatiable demand of ever-higher production in combination with the communistic pedagogical system with pre-fabricated truths and goals could be non-negotiable in terms of decision latitude, defined as a constraint to the freedom to take action in a stressful situation This lack of decision latitude in totalitarian systems would give more adverse effects of stress, or strain symptoms, such as depression, loss of self-esteem and physical illness [37].
Relations to family
It seems more likely that there should be more changes in the stressors that influenced the differences in relations outside the family as the country differences in the sub-scale ‘Relations to others’ has equalised and ‘Relations to family’ still has differences in the second wave of data-collection. The increases in the sub-scale ‘Relations to family’ is, however, very interesting as it is the only sub-scale where we see improvement in both countries over time.
A partial mechanism for the increase in Relations to family in Bulgaria could be that in the post-communistic era the state by itself no longer acts as a new ‘ideological family’ as it was supposed to in the communistic dictatorship [4] but this could not account for the increase in Sweden.
Parental roles have been shown to have an effect on self-esteem and, secondary, on psychological well-being and expression of psychological symptoms in European adolescents [38]. According to a Swedish study examining three cohorts of adults in 1958, 1981, and 2011, a more authoritative and less authoritarian parental role has evolved in Sweden, and in democracies worldwide, over the last decennia [39]. An authoritarian parenting style forms a hierarchically structured family where the parents, mainly the father, demands obedience and unquestioning acceptance of authority and where disobedience usually is met with punishment. The parenting style is characterised by harshness, low warmth and inconsistency [40]. Almost all the changes from authoritarian parenting roles occurred between the 1981 and 2011 cohorts. The trend towards egalitarianism and democracy in Sweden over the last decennia with an amalgamation of social, economic, legal, and political factors is suggested to have influenced the family roles towards a more authoritative and less authoritarian and hierarchal parenting role challenging the traditional authority of the father with a less gender-stereotypical model. We presume that these changes in social, economic, legal, and political factors that also took place in the former Soviet-bloc might have had an impact on their previous harsh, over-protective, and punishing parenting style [28–30]. This could possibly be a reason why we see a significant increase in ‘Relations to family’ in both countries as parental styles are related to psychological well-being and self-esteem in adolescents. Adolescents with parents conducting an authoritative parenting role, i.e. patterns of warmth, non-punitive discipline, and consistency, had significantly higher self-esteem, than those being treated with an authoritarian parental style and the relation to parents and peers in adolescence have additive and complementary roles [40]. Although it is possible that peers are the most important relations for adolescents, the two subscales on relations did not measure peers specifically.
The deterioration of psychological well-being in Sweden
The deterioration of ‘Psychological well-being’ in Sweden follows other studies in Western democracies over in the whole post-war period [26, 41–43]. Many hypotheses concerning the genesis of this have been formed. The status anxiety could increase with a comparison not just on the local level but also nationally and globally through social media. An increased distance between expectations and possibilities in life has also been proposed to increase deteriorating psychological well-being although living conditions have improved [26]. This could also become exaggerated by the global comparisons in social media, which could lead to even higher and more improbable expectations. We have no reason to believe that these comparisons with others should be less expressed in Bulgaria than in Sweden but a protecting factor towards this might be a feeling of improvement over time in the last generations that arguably should be higher in the former dictatorship Bulgaria where the improvements both in macro-environmental stressors as well as living conditions have improved greatly in the last decades in a way that should be very tangible to the adolescents.
Other areas of inequality
It would seem that great inequalities in child well-being in such areas such as material well-being, health and safety, Educational well-being, behaviours and risks, housing and environment should lead to differences in self-esteem measured with a multi sub-scale questionnaire such as ITIA would produce better self-esteem in the less deprived countries. The fact that there is no difference in self-esteem, despite the differences in the above mentioned areas of well-being between Sweden and Bulgaria as reported by UNICEF in 2013, could possibly also be attributed to the amelioration in Bulgaria compared with the inequality in the times of dictatorship rather than in comparison with other countries today [44].
Differences between the sexes
Since there were no significant interactions between sex and time in either country for the scores in ITIA global or any of the subscales, we have no evidence that the sex differences in self-esteem has changed over time. In spite of this, we see a pattern that sex differences at T1 were larger than at T2 in several of the scales. Today, there is a significant difference between the sexes only in the sub-scale ‘Psychological well-being’ and this is the same in both countries. This could account for a change to equal forms of governance in both countries. This change seems mainly driven by an equalisation between the sexes in Sweden as the difference between the sexes in Sweden has decreased and where the data has changed we see a decrease in the boys’ scores and an increase in the girls’ scores in ITIA global scale, ‘Physical characteristics’, and ‘Talents and skills’, although without any significant interaction between sex and time. This follows the changes in parental roles and the development of a more gender equal society in Sweden and elsewhere in the Western democracies [39].
Strengths and Limitations
The possibility to find causal evidence between governance and self-esteem in this study is limited due to the fact that we analyse a proxy (country) for the variable that we seek to examine (governance) [24]. The change from dictatorship to democracy is, however, an immense change for everyone in society and as time-lag studies have been reported to be the best study design for examining generational changes as historical events and cultural trends, which are found to have the greatest impact on the attitudes of adolescents [24].
Changes between late 1988-91 and the world 25 years later were the cultures of both countries had closed the gap between them by being more connected through the Internet and social media. Both countries have since joined the European Union and globalisation leads to an equalisation of cultures. This could be seen as factors that are watering down the findings of this study. However, those changes would not have happened if Bulgaria continued being a communistic dictatorship as censorship was, and still is, a hallmark of dictatorships where information-exchange and social media are controlled and censored by the governing dictator and the EU is a union of democracies with market economies. So the changes are essentially an effect of the change in governance.
The key strength of this study lies in its unique data from both sides of the Iron curtain. All of the data were collected by a single bilingual physician, specialised in child and adolescent psychiatry, in a familiar classroom situation for the children. Data from the first wave from Bulgaria were collected before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the last collected Swedish first wave data were acquired only one and half years later in a stable democratic society, i.e. a time difference that should not have had an effect upon the results. The survey was made with a reliable, well-validated scale previously used in comparisons between countries and with translations to other languages. The Bulgarian version of the scale was made in a thorough process of translation and re-translation performed by bilingual physicians.
The choice of schools in relation to socioeconomic levels was designed in an attempt to nullify social differences within the countries and thus to get a sample that could be deemed representative for the country.
All data-collection was effectuated when the states of governance had had a long time (a generation) to influence the adolescents and were at the times deemed as stable and was made in the same way with the same well-validated questionnaire by the same investigator. Getting an opportunity like this to study such a topic is thus very rarely encountered in a world where there are many dictatorships, and the debate on how a nation should be governed from a psychological point of view is too seldom discussed on a scientific basis. All opportunities to study dictatorships from within are of great value and should, therefore, be carried out to be able to further understand the psychology of dictatorships.