Drawing on an ecological approach with multiple informants, this study investigated the mediating role of youth–caregiver relationship quality in associations between different features of residential care settings' organizational social context and youth's psychopathology. Participants were 378 youth aged between 12 and 25 years old, and 54 caregivers aged between 24 and 57 years old, from 29 generalist residential youth care settings in Portugal. Given the hierarchical structure of data, analyses were performed using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that organizational social contexts characterized by higher levels of engagement, stress, and centralization, as perceived by the caregivers, were associated with lower levels of youth's externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive behavior and delinquency), reported by the caregivers, via better youth–caregiver relationship quality, perceived by the youth in care. These findings highlight the relevance of creating an organizational social context in residential care settings that supports caregivers in establishing high‐quality relationships with the youth in care, thereby promoting their mental health. This study contributes to the clarification of conflicting findings in previous studies of this field, by offering further empirical investigation of these issues.

This study analysed adolescents' self-representation construction process, relying on the Looking Glass Self Hypothesis (LGSH) in parent-child relationships. More precisely, it analysed the mediating role of mothers' and fathers' reflected appraisals (i.e., adolescents' perceptions of their parents' appraisals of them) in the association between parents' actual appraisals and adolescents' self-representations. Participants were 221 adolescents, 12 to 16 years old (Mage = 13.7, SD = 1.24; 58.6% girls), and their parents (mother and father). The standard paradigm was used to measure the LGSH elements: self-representations were measured with the Self-Representation Questionnaire for Adolescents, which was reworded to measure parents' actual and reflected appraisals. Structural equation modelling with bootstrap estimation supported the LGSH for all self-representation domains under analysis.Results revealed full mediation of mothers' reflected appraisals in associations between mothers' actual appraisals and adolescents' self-representations for the instrumental and social domains, and partial mediation for the emotional and opposition domains. As for fathers, full mediation was found for the instrumental, social and opposition dimensions, while partial mediation was observed for the emotional dimension. Results are discussed considering the specificities of the adolescent-mother/father relationship and the different self-representation domains.

Adolescents' signs of emotional insecurity in the context of interparental conflict (IC) e emotional reactivity, internal representations (i.e., constructive/destructive; spillover) and behavioral responses (i.e., withdrawal; inhibition; involvement) e were examined as mediators in the relation between IC and adolescents' self-representations. Self-reported measures were filled out by 221 Portuguese adolescents (59.3% girls; Mage ¼ 12.91), attending public elementary and secondary schools. IC predicted less favorable selfrepresentations. Adolescents' emotional reactivity and withdrawal mediated the relation between IC and emotional and physical appearance self-representations, while conflict spillover representations and constructive family representations mediated associations between IC and instrumental self-representations. This study emphasizes the importance of interparental conflict and adolescent emotional insecurity in the construction of their self-representations, having important theoretical and practical implications. It highlights the value of analyzing the specific role of several emotional insecurity dimensions, and informs practitioners' work aimed at promoting constructive conflict and adaptive emotional regulation skills.