Psychological Science ›› 2016, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (5): 1116-1122.

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The Effect of Adolescents’ Peer Attachment on Depression: The Mediating Role of Friends Social Support and Self-Esteem

  

  • Received:2015-09-16 Revised:2016-04-07 Online:2016-09-20 Published:2016-09-20
  • Contact: Xiao-Jun Sun

青少年同伴依恋对抑郁的影响:朋友社会支持和自尊的中介作用

连帅磊1,孙晓军*2,田媛2,闫景蕾3,牛更枫1,童媛添1   

  1. 1. 华中师范大学心理学院
    2. 华中师范大学
    3. 武汉体育学院
  • 通讯作者: 孙晓军*

Abstract:

Adolescence was an important period during which adolescents developed lots of psychical and psychological characteristic so as to be prepared for being adults. However, faced with great psychical changes, mental changes as well as developmental crises, adolescents were especially likely to be depressive. According to researches in both China and abroad, the prevalence of depression among adolescents was very high. It ranged from 20% to 44% and grew fast with each passing day at the same time. Therefore, many researchers has done lots of work to find out factors that had significant effects on adolescents’ depression. In the past few years, researchers have shown increasing interest in adolescents’ peer attachment, because it has been demonstrated that peer attachment was an important protective factor for adolescents’ social development and mental health. However, there were few researches focused on the protective effect of peer attachment on adolescents' depression. Moreover, developmental psychologists pointed out that adolescents were increasingly rebellious toward parents with the development of self-awareness and their peer intercommunication would increase gradually. These made peer attachment became an important source of social support, needs of security and belonging, which were all important protective factors for adolescents to avoid from being depressive. In addition, previous researches showed that social support and self-esteem had important effects on depression and both social support and self-esteem were negatively correlated with depression. In order to explore the relationship among peer attachment, social support, self-esteem and depression as well as mechanism of peer attachment on adolescents’ depression, this study focused on the mediating role of social support and self-esteem between peer attachment and adolescents' depression and its’ learning stage difference. A survey research method was adopted in which Inventory of Peer Attachment, Perceived Social Support Scale, Self-Esteem Scale as well as Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale were administered to 668 middle and high school students. Data were collected and analyzed with SPSS 17.0,and the bias-corrected percentile Bootstrap method was used to analyze the serial mediating roles of social support and self-esteem between peer attachment and adolescents' depression. The results indicated: (1) the relationships between each pair of peer attachment, social support and self-esteem were significantly positive, while the three were negatively correlated with depression. Peer attachment not only had direct negative effect on depression, but also could significantly predict social support and self-esteem; social support could significantly predict self-esteem; both social support and self-esteem could significantly negative predict depression. (2) For all the participants, peer attachment not only had direct negative effect on depression, but also could affect adolescents’ depression through the mediating role of self-esteem. There are learning stage difference on the mediating role of social support and the serial mediating role of both social support and self-esteem. These findings highlighted the acting mechanism of peer attachment on adolescents’ depression through the serial mediating role of social support and self-esteem. Peer attachment influenced adolescents' depression through social support and self-esteem as well as their combined effect. Adolescents with positive peer attachment, such as peer trust, would get more social support and have higher self-esteem, and finally have lower level of depression.

摘要:

为探讨青少年同伴依恋与抑郁的关系,以及社会支持和自尊在二者关系中的作用机制,采用父母和同伴依恋问卷(IPPA)中的同伴依恋分量表、领悟社会支持量表(PSSS)、自尊量表(SES)和流调中心用抑郁量表(CES-D)对668名中学生进行调查,结果发现:(1)青少年同伴依恋、朋友社会支持和自尊两两之间呈显著正相关,且三者与抑郁均呈显著负相关。(2)青少年同伴依恋不仅能直接负向预测抑郁,而且还能通过自尊的单独中介作用对抑郁产生影响;朋友社会支持的单独中介作用以及社会支持?自尊的链式中介作用在初、高中生群体中存在差异,即在初中生群体中,同伴依恋能够通过社会支持的单独中介作用以及社会支持?自尊的链式中介作用对抑郁产生影响,而在高中生群体中,这两种间接作用均不显著。研究结果揭示了青少年同伴依恋对抑郁产生影响的心理机制,为引导青少年建立良好的同伴依恋,促进自尊及心理健康发展提供了有益建议。