3-094 - When the need to belong goes wrong - Social relations and internalizing problems

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Ample research indicates that human beings have a need to form satisfactory relations with others (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Failure to successfully engage in social contact with others may thus result in a broad range of internalizing problems (e.g., Hymel, Rubin, Rowden & LeMare 1990). In this symposium, we examine the relation between peer-relations and internalizing problems using various sophisticated methods (such as social network analyses, polynomial regression, and response surface models), in various age-groups (ranging from late childhood to late adolescence), in an attempt to answer unresolved problems regarding this relation. The first paper uses polynomial regression combined with response surface modelling, to examine whether low relationship satisfaction or high belongingness needs alone are enough to predict feelings of depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem, or whether the discrepancies between belongingness needs and the fulfilment of these needs matter. The second paper examines whether interpersonal mechanisms (social support, social contact and social problems) and motivations might explain why low self-esteem in pre-adolescence is a vulnerability factor for depression in late adolescence and early adulthood. The third paper examines friendship and rejection networks of children who already experience depression and social anxiety. Specifically, this paper investigates if children who have similar levels of depression and social anxiety may deliberately choose to befriend each other and reject children with different levels of internalizing problems, are rejected by other children and therefore become friends as a default option, or if they reject other children in general and withdraw from forming friendship relations.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Gerine M.A. Lodder, University of Groningen

Discussant

• Janne Vanhalst, KU Leuven

Individual Presentations

• The unmet need to belong in relation to loneliness, self-esteem and depression - Maaike Verhagen, Radboud University Nijmegen; Presenting Author: Gerine M.A. Lodder, University of Groningen; Roy Baumeister, Florida State University

• Self-esteem in pre-adolescence predicting depressive symptoms in late adolescence: Mediation by motivational and social factors - Presenting Author: Maurits Masselink, University Medical Center Groningen; Eeske van Roekel, University of Groningen; Albertine J. Oldehinkel, University of Groningen and University Medical Center Groningen

• Friendships, Rejection and Internalizing Problems: Testing Models of Selection - Presenting Author: Wendy L. G. Hoglund, University of Alberta; Gijs Huitsing, University of Groningen; Gerine M.A. Lodder, University of Groningen; Rene Veenstra, University of Groningen