Boys' And Girls' Depressive Symptoms From Early To Middle Adolescence ——Developmental Trajectories And The Dynamic Associations With Peer Relationships

Depression is a common mental disorder and often expressed within,and intricately linked to,interactions and relationships with peers.In view of the high prevalence and harmfulness of adolescent depression,the mechanism of its onset and development has been an important research topic in developmental psychology and developmental psychopathology.It is worth noting that early and middle adolescence is not only a critical period for the development of depressive symptoms,but also an important period for the onset of gender differences in depressive symptoms.At the same time,peer relationships as well as the association between peer relationships and depressive symptoms in adolescents also began to show obvious gender characteristics,which are closely related to the development of depressive symptoms and their gender differences.Numbers of longitudinal studies have described the developmental trajectories of boys' and girls' depressive symptoms in adolescence and examined the associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships.In brief,depressive symptoms showed an increasing trend in adolescence,especially in girls;peer relationships were related to the development of depressive symptoms,girls showed higher interpersonal dependence and were more likely to be affected by peer relationship.Despite the contributions of the existing studies,they still have some limitations.First,little is known about the gender differences in the heterogenetic development of depressive symptoms.Given the gender differences in the prevalence,etiologies,and average developmental trends of depressive symptoms,it is valuable to identify the depressive symptoms trajectories in boys and girls separately to verify whether boys' and girls' depressive symptoms develop in similar or different pathways.Secondly,few studies investigated the associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships in a dynamic perspective.On one hand,several studies have verified the predictive effect of adolescent peer relationships on depressive symptoms trajectories.Most of them,however,failed to consider the development of peer relationships,which may also relate to depressive symptoms trajectories.On the other hand,depressive symptoms can be influenced by,and contribute to poor peer relationships,besides,to the extent that the characteristics of individuals and the interactions between adolescents are changing during the transition to adolescent,the magnitudes of associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships may also likely to change through development.However,few of them have considered the developmental factors that may influence the strength or nature of these associations.Based on the considerations listed above,by using a longitudinal design,the Research One of this dissertation aimed to examined whether boys' and girls' depressive symptoms develop in similar or different pathways;the Research Two of this dissertation attempted to investigated how the interpersonal factors and their changes were linked to depressive symptom trajectories;the Research Three of this dissertation focus on the presence of,and systematic development changes in,the longitudinal reciprocal influences between depressive symptoms and peer relationships during the developmental period of early to middle adolescence.Participants were 2,179 young adolescents(1,044 girls,1,135 boys;Mage in spring of 6th grade = 11.64 years;SD =.52)who participated in the Longitudinal Study of Chinese Children and Adolescents(LSCCA).Data of this study were collected annually in the spring semester across Grade 6 to 9(in the years 2009-2012).Depressive symptoms and friendship quality were rated by adolescents themselves.Peer nomination process was used to measure peer status(i.e.,peer acceptance and peer rejection).SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 7.0 were used to analyze the data.The atent growth moded(LGM)and latent class growth analysis model(LCGA)were used to describe the general developmental trajectory and heterogeneous developmental trajectories of depressive symptoms in boys and girls separately,and the cross-lagged panel model(CLPM)and the random intercepts cross cross-lagged panel model(RI-CLPM)were used to analyze the dynamic associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships.The main findings of this dissertation were as following:1.In regarding to the developmental trajectory of boys' and girls' depressive symptoms from early to middle adolescence,this study showed that:(1)Both boys' and girls' depressive symptoms showed an increasing trend from early to middle adolescence.And girls reported a greater increase in depressive symptoms.(2)There is heterogeneity in the developmental trajectory of adolescent depressive symptoms.We identified three and four trajectories of depressive symptoms respectively for boys and girls,including both gender-common and gender-specific pathways.In particular,three trajectories were identified in boys: consistently low depressive symptoms trajectory(68.3%),slightly increasing depressive symptoms trajectory(24.4%),consistently high depressive symptoms trajectory(7.3%);Four trajectories were identified in girls: consistently low depressive symptoms trajectory(56.9%),slightly increasing depressive symptoms trajectory(26.5%),moderated increasing depressive symptoms trajectory(12.9%),consistently high depressive symptoms trajectory(3.7%).2.Turning to the peer relationships and their changes were linked to depressive symptom trajectories,this study showed that:(1)Early peer relationships were correlated to depressive symptoms trajectories.Boys with lower peer acceptance and friend support,higher peer rejection and friend conflict were more likely to follow the slightly increasing and consistently high trajectories rather than the consistently low trajectory.Girls with higher friend support and lower friend conflict were more likely to belong to the slightly increasing,moderate increasing and consistently high trajectories rather than the consistently low trajectory.And girls whose friend conflict was high were more likely to follow the moderated increasing trajectory rather than the slightly increasing trajectory.(2)The developmental changes in peer relationships were different between depressive symptom trajectories.For boys,compared to the consistently low and slightly increasing trajectories,boys on the consistently high trajectory showed a significant decreasing trend of peer rejection.For girl,compared to other trajectories,girls on the consistently high trajectory showed a significant decreasing trend of peer rejection,while girls on the moderated increasing trajectory showed a significant increasing trend of peer rejection.3.In term of the dynamic associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships,this study found that:(1)Regarding longitudinal associations between peer acceptance and rejection and depressive symptoms,findings did not converge across the CLPM and the RI-CLPM.In particularly,the CLPM indicated support for a symptoms-driven effect from depressive symptoms to subsequent peer rejection and both interpersonal risk and symptoms-driven effects between peer acceptance and depressive symptoms.However,the RI-CLPM support a stable correlated rather than dynamic relations between peer acceptance/rejection and depressive symptoms.(2)Turning to longitudinal associations between friend support and conflict and depressive symptoms,the CLPM and RI-CLMP approaches both showed bidirectional longitudinal associations between them.(3)There were changes in the depressive symptoms-peer relationships associations.The longitudinal linkages between friend support and depressive symptoms increase to significant during middle adolescence.By contrast,the lagged predictions from prior friend conflict to subsequent depressive symptoms were invariant over time.(4)Significant gender differences were found in the correlations among the random intercepts of peer acceptance and rejection and depressive symptoms.The stable correlations between peer status and depressive symptoms were stronger for boys than girls.By contrast,the longitudinal associations(both stable correlations and cross-lagged effects)between depressive symptoms and friendship quality were similar for girls and boys.In summary,findings of this study indicated that the heterogeneous trajectories of depressive symptoms from early to middle adolescence performed both gender-common and gender-specific pathways,and the depressive symptoms trajectories were not only correlated to early peer relationships but also the developmental change of peer relationships.In addition,this study shed light on the dynamic associations between depressive symptoms and multiple types of peer relationships.Importantly,this study tested the changes in these association for the first time.The findings provide evidence for the gendered developmental patterns of Chinese adolescent depressive symptoms,and highlighted the necessity of using a developmental perspective in examining the associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships,offering important implications for depression prevention and intervention.