Depression and Aggression in Chinese Migrant Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Family and Peer Support

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

Aggressive behavior is an external expression of depression among adolescents (Wolff & Ollensick, 2006). The cooccurrence of aggression and depression is associated with poor social adjustment and increased future psychological diagnoses compared to having either of the conditions alone (Keiley et al., 2003). Moreover, the relationship between aggression and depressive symptoms has been shown to be moderated by family and peer support (Desjardins & Leadbeater, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine the association of depression with aggression, and the moderating role of family and peer support among Chinese migrant adolescents.
Due to comprehensive economic reform policies in China, many rural residents relocated from their home regions to cities for job opportunities, and many of them brought their families, especially children, with them (Chen & Chen, 2010). In 2010, there were 35.81 million migrant children in China, 4 million of whom lived in Beijing (China State Statistics Bureau, 2011). Compared with their local citizen peers, migrant children have been reported to show higher levels of depression and more behavioral problems (Luan, Lu, Tong, & Lv, 2013). Understanding the risk and buffering factors associated with migration may help government and educators develop policies and programs to improve well-being of migrant children.
Participating were 6,970 4th to 9th grade rural-to-urban migrant children living in Beijing during the data collection and who were originally from 29 provinces in mainland China. Depressive symptoms were assessed through the Chinese version of Children’s Depression Inventory (Liu et al., 2009), and aggressive behavior were measured by a Chinese translation of the Youth Self-Report (Wang et al., 2005). Two self-report items measured peer support ranging from 1 (no support) to 4 (full support) with a reliability of .44. Family support was recorded by taking the average score on participants’ rating of support and help from fathers, mothers, brothers/sisters, and other family members, ranging from 1 (no support) to 4 (full support). The reliability of family support was acceptable (α = .73).
Preliminary correlations indicated that both family and peer support negatively related with depression (r = -.32., p < .01; r = -.15, p < .01; respectively; see Table 1) and aggression (r = -.14, p < .01; r = -.08, p < .01; respectively ). There was a positive association between depression and aggression (r = .37., p < .01). Hierarchical regression tested the moderating effect of family and peer support separately (see Table 2). Length of time since migration and age at migration were included as control variables. Results showed that aggression was predicted negatively by family support and positively by depression; however, the moderating effect of family support was not significant. Peer support did moderate the association between aggression and depression. Plotting the regression lines and calculating the simple slopes showed that the association between aggression and depression was lower at higher levels of peer support. The findings suggest that among Chinese migrant adolescents, higher levels of depression predicted more aggressive behavior, and this association was attenuated by positive peer support.

Authors

• Qi Dai, University of Oklahoma
  Presenting Author

• Lara Mayeux, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hairong Song, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author