When Insecure Self-Worth Drains Students’ Energy: Academic Contingent Self-Esteem and Parents’ and Teachers’ Perceived Conditional Regard as Predictors of School Burnout

Whereas both the family and school environment have been suggested to affect school burnout risks, the role of conditionally regarding parenting or teaching, in which affection is granted conditional on student achievement, in the development of school burnout has not yet been examined. This longitudinal study investigated students’ academic contingent self-esteem and parental and teacher conditional regard as antecedents of school burnout. The study sample consisted of Flemish early adolescents (n = 3409; M_age = 12.4 years (SD = 0.49) at the first measurement occasion; 50.3% males), which were surveyed twice (start of Grade 7 and Grade 8). Using Latent Change Modeling, academic contingent self-esteem was found to predict school burnout. Parental and teacher conditional regard both contributed to school burnout, partly through academic contingent self-esteem. Whereas negative conditional regard had the strongest implications for school burnout, positive conditional regard contributed most strongly to contingent self-esteem. Associations were systematically found both at the between-student level (i.e., high levels of antecedents were related to high levels of school burnout) and at the within-student level (i.e., increases in antecedents over time were related to concomitant increases in school burnout). These findings emphasize that communicating conditional approval to adolescents may increase school burnout risks, thus jeopardizing their healthy academic development.