Research Trends
Stress
One important topic in Swedish psychological research is stress. For example, Swedish workers have described their jobs as mentally taxing at increasing rates since the 1980s. Research has related this rise in stress at the workplace with repeated organizational restructuring.
Stockholm University’s Department of Psychology is home to the Stress Research Institute, which investigates the relationship between social environments and health, paying special attention to stress-related effects. Their research is organized into three categories: the Division for Sleep and Alertness Research, the Division for Epidemiology, and the Division for Psychoneuroimmunology. One of their ongoing research project, titled “This is not part of my job! Longterm health consequences of illegitimate tasks in welfare work,” examines the importance of illegitimate tasks for health and well-being over time, and it considers whether COVID-19 had an effect on this phenomenon.
Adolescent Psychology
A significant area of study globally is the psychological development during adolescence. Sweden is no exception to this trend. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is one of many scholars focusing on researching this discipline. A notable creation of his is the book Adolescent Psychology Around the World. In this work, he creates a book that comprehensively reviews the psychological stage of adolescence worldwide. It accurately captures perspectives of numerous cultures regarding adolescent psychology without imposing Western frameworks onto non-Western contexts. Dr. Arnett acknowledges that adolescence appears differently across the world and that the norms vary significantly depending on each culture. With this in mind, he chose to ask for the contribution of authors who were indigenous to each country being discussed for correct representation. The authors were asked to follow the template of sections composed of the following topics: background information, period of adolescence, beliefs, gender, family relationships, friends and peers, love and sexuality, health risk behavior, education, work, media, politics and military, and other unique issues. Sweden was one of the many countries that followed this template. Some aspects of the sections covering Sweden that stood out were Sweden’s high value on education, adolescents recently being less engaged in politics, Sweden being the first country to view spanking as a criminal offense and provide early sex education, the lack of socialization between adolescents, and Sweden having one of the highest divorce rates in the world at the time (2011). The chapter provides abundant information on developing adolescents in Sweden, sharing some unique characteristics of the discipline in the country and proving that adolescent psychology is a trend worthy of focus.
