The Relationship Between Belief In A Just World And Depression On Juvenile Criminals:Multiple Mediation Effects Of Self-esteem And Resilience

Juvenile delinquency has been a serious society issue,the relevant psychological health researchs about delinquent teenagers has been the important task which is concerned closely by the law,psychology fields.Depression is the main emotion problem that criminal juveniles facing.The relevance ratio of depression symptoms of criminal juveniles is significantly higher than general juveniles.Believe in a just world means a kind of faith that people holds generally,that is the world is just,in this world people get what they deserve,and all what they got are what they deserve.Belief in a just world is individual positive perception and understanding of the physical and social environment,and it has important adaptation function.Belief in a just world is very important to the criminal juveniles.High belief in a just world of criminal teenagers perceives their legal proceedings as more just;experiences more guilt;shows less misconducts during imprisonment and can better deal with their depression.From the perspective of just world belief this study deeply probes into the protective factors and its mechanism of action that reduces depression of delinquent teenagers.This study investigated 266 delinquent teenagers from two Xuzhou detention centers,and adopted the Dalbert scale of belief in a just world,scale of self-esteem,teenagers resilience scale and self-rating depression scale.We investigated the belief in a just world of criminal teenagers and internal mechanisms that belief in a just world affected depression through the self-esteem and resilience.The results showed that:(1)The general belief in a just world of criminal teenagers was significantly higher than personal belief in a just world;there was significant difference on the belief in a just world of different growth environment;there was significant difference on self-esteem of different growth environment and criminal records;There was significant difference on resilience of different degrees of education and criminal records;there was significant difference on depression of different degrees of education,ages,and criminal records.(2)Belief in a just world,self-esteem,resilience and depression were significantly and positively correlated with each other.(3)Belief in a just world had a negative prediction function on depression.(4)Self-esteem was proved to partly mediate the association between belief in a just world and depression.(5)Resilience was proved to fully mediate the association between belief in a just world and depression.(6)In the process of belief in a just world influencing depression,self-esteem and resilience played a role of chain mediation,that is belief in a just world affected resilience by self-esteem,and then affected depression.