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The Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Adolescent Depression: The Roles of Social Support and Gender

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Abstract

In this study, we explored the roles of differential social support in strengthening capability to cope with stress for positive responding against depressive symptoms and further explored the moderating role of gender with a sample of 1,674 junior high school students. Participants responded to a series of scales including their levels of perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and quality of social supports. The results evidenced the mediating roles of family and others’ support in the relationship between perceived stress and depression and the mediating effects were found to fit only boys instead of girls. What’s more, the moderating effect of social support between perceived stress and depression was only found in the subcategory of friend support. The moderating effect of friend support between perceived stress and depression was found to have significant gender differences. The significance and limitations of the results were discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank National Natural Science Foundation of China (31200778), Special Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (201104168) and MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (12YJC190039) for funding this research. We thank Drs. Rhoda E. and Edmund F. Perozzi for their extensive review and English language assistance on this paper.

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  1. School of Psychology, Shannxi Normal University, 199 South Chang’an Road, Xi’an, 710062, China

    Baoshan Zhang, Xinwei Yan, Fengqing Zhao & Fei Yuan

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  1. Baoshan Zhang
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  2. Xinwei Yan
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Correspondence to Fengqing Zhao.

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Zhang, B., Yan, X., Zhao, F. et al. The Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Adolescent Depression: The Roles of Social Support and Gender. Soc Indic Res 123, 501–518 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0739-y

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