| Depression is one of the most common psychological problems among adolescents(especially junior high school students who are in the transitional period of primary school to junior high school).Depression not only increases the psychological experience of individual suffering,affects the individual's cognitive style,normal learning and social activities,but also is associated with problem behaviors such as smoking and suicide.Therefore,it is urgent to develop effective prevention and intervention programs for depression so as to promote mental health of adolescents.The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the wisdom intervention program of school belonging for junior high school students can significantly reduce depression in adolescents.It also explores whether the school belonging plays a mediating role and whether neuroticism has a moderating effect.This study not only formulates a set of operational solutions for improving students' school belonging,but also has certain value for the prevention of depression in adolescents.The present study selected first grade junior high school students in Chongqing as subjects.Participating students were randomly assigned to either the belonging-treatment condition or a control condition.The reading material about school belonging was distributed to students in the belonging-treatment condition,whereas the reading material which was not related to school belonging was distributed to students in the control condition.Participants were required to complete a writing task to internalize the intervention information after reading the materials.These materials were obtained through coding the results of an open questionnaire survey for senior students before the experiment.The pretest(T1)before the intervention was conducted to collect data on school belonging and depression,the first posttest(T2)was conducted in the second week after the intervention to collect data on school belonging and neuroticism,the second posttest(T3)was performed in the fourth week after the intervention to collect data on depression.There were 316 participants participating in all the three data collections(157 in the experimental group and 159 in the control group).The results indicated:(1)There was a significant difference in depression between the experimental group and the control group after intervention,the depression level of students in the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group,indicating that the wise intervention was effective.(2)The mediation analysis found that the wise intervention can significantly improve students' school belonging,which in turn reduce the individual's depression level,indicating that school belonging fully mediated the association between the wise intervention and adolescent depression.(3)Neuroticism plays a moderating role between wisdom intervention and school belonging(first part of the mediation chain).Wisdom intervention can significantly improve school belonging among the students with low neuroticism and then improve depression,however,it does not significantly improve school belonging and depression among students with high neuroticism.The nature by which neuroticism plays a moderating role is consistent with the reverse buffering model.In summary,wise intervention can prevent teenage depression by improving their school belonging.The beneficial effect of wise intervention is more pronounced when the level of neuroticism is lower.Therefore,while affirming the positive role of the wise intervention of school belonging,we should not be overly optimistic or exaggerate the effects of such intervention program.We should also pay attention to the adverse effects of risk factors such as neuroticism.These findings highlight the individual differences in the preventive of adolescent depression and emphasize the importance of carrying out"precision mental health". |
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