Whereas Chinese adolescents have a tendency to contribute to the manifestation
of interpersonal stressors and subsequent depressive symptoms, Canadian adolescents seem to both generate and react to stressors in their lives.
Is it the societal expectations for young adolescent girls or the way in which young girls are socialized that places them at risk
for interpersonal stressors?
In the current study, Cronbach's alphas for the 29 items rated as
dependent interpersonal stressors ranged from 0.88 to 0.90 for Canadian adolescents and 0.91 to 0.94 for Chinese adolescents across administrations indicating high internal consistency.
Participants included 410 early adolescents (53 % female; 51 % African American; Mean age = 12.84 years) who completed measures of social anxiety and depressive symptoms at three time points (Times 1 — 3), as well as measures of
general interpersonal stressors, peer victimization, and emotional maltreatment at Time 2.
However, depressive symptoms significantly mediated the pathway
from interpersonal stressors, peer victimization, and familial emotional maltreatment to subsequent levels of social anxiety symptoms.
«Parents, educators, and clinicians should understand that girls» greater exposure to
interpersonal stressors places them at risk for vulnerability to depression and ultimately, depression itself,» says Hamilton.
According to Hamilton, the next step will be to figure out why girls are exposed to
more interpersonal stressors: «Is it something specific to adolescent female relationships?
Psychotherapy is an effective treatment for women suffering from PPD because it helps address the
many interpersonal stressors that arise during the postpartum period.
Interestingly, in a 2 - year longitudinal study on a sample of college students, Hankin et al. (2005) found that experiencing
additional interpersonal stressors over time mediates the relationship between attachment insecurity and prospective increase in depressive and anxious symptoms.
Because relationship conflict reduces teamwork quality [1] and is an
important interpersonal stressor associated with group work [13]; [14], we build on the differential exposure - reactivity model to argue that personality influences both the engagement in relationship conflict (stress exposure) as well as the coping strategies mobilized to deal with the stress triggered by it (reaction to stress).
Using the terms of the differential exposure - reactivity model [23], conscientious group member tend to identify and avoid
predictable interpersonal stressors [28], to preserve harmonious interpersonal relations and thus they are less likely to be exposed to the stress associated with relationship conflict.
To test our hypothesis that individuals possessing lower levels of perceived control would report greater increases in depressive symptoms (Time T) following the occurrence of
dependent interpersonal stressors (Time T - 1) than individuals possessing higher levels of perceived control (i.e., a diathesis - stress perspective), we utilized idiographic, time lagged, multilevel modeling.
Although research indicates that
general interpersonal stressors, peer victimization, and familial emotional maltreatment predict symptoms of social anxiety and depression, it remains unclear how these stressors contribute to the sequential development of these internalizing symptoms.
Consequently female adolescents may also be more vulnerable to develop depressive symptoms in front
of interpersonal stressors, such as those arising from having a best friend with high depressive symptoms (Rudolph 2002; Starr and Davila 2008).
Interpersonal stressors (peer and family stress) and non-interpersonal stressors (school and sports stress) were assessed.
Research on adjustment to the disorder,
interpersonal stressors and obstacles to treatment compliance were located by computerised searches and the author's knowledge of the literature.
Thus, the present study examined the sequential development of social anxiety and depressive symptoms following the occurrence of
interpersonal stressors, peer victimization, and familial emotional maltreatment.
Findings suggest that
interpersonal stressors, including the particularly detrimental stressors of peer victimization and familial emotional maltreatment, may predict both depressive and social anxiety symptoms; however, adolescents who have more immediate depressogenic reactions may be at greater risk for later development of symptoms of social anxiety.
Path analyses revealed that
interpersonal stressors, peer victimization, and emotional maltreatment predicted both depressive and social anxiety symptoms concurrently.