Poster #98 - Social Avoidance, Maternal Depression, and Socio-Emotional Functioning in Young Chinese Children

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Contemporary models of social withdrawal describe three subtypes that differ in their underlying motivational and emotional substrates (Rubin et al., 2009): (1) shyness (withdrawal due to social fear/socio-evaluative concerns); (2) unsociability (non-fearful preference for solitude); and (3) social avoidance (avoidance of social situations perceived as stressful/aversive). Social avoidance appears to be the most maladaptive subtype, with a growing number of studies demonstrating pervasive associations with a range of socio-emotional difficulties (e.g., emotional dysregulation, loneliness, peer rejection/victimization, depression), both in the West (e.g., Coplan et al., 2018) and in non-Western cultures such as China (Ding et al., 2019). However, there has been little research on the development of social avoidance, especially in terms of family factors. In the present study, we focused on the role of maternal depression, a well-established risk factor for children’s socio-emotional difficulties in the West (Keyser et al., 2017) and China (Ma et al., 2020). Specifically, the present study examined the potential exacerbating role of maternal depression in the links between social avoidance and adjustment outcomes among young children in mainland China. We hypothesised that after controlling for shyness and unsociability, social avoidance would be uniquely associated with indices of socio-emotional difficulties (i.e., withdrawn behaviours, poorer interpersonal skills, peer exclusion, internalising problems). Furthermore, maternal depressive symptoms were expected to exacerbate associations between social avoidance and outcome variables. Participants were N=211 kindergarteners (112 boys, Mage = 58.84 months, SD = 5.32) in Shanghai, P.R. of China. Multi-source assessments included maternal reports of their own depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory) and their child’s social withdrawal (Child Social Preference Scale-3), as well as teacher reports of child socio-emotional functioning at school (i.e., asocial behaviours, interpersonal skills, peer exclusion, internalizing problems; Social Skills Teacher Rating System, Child Behavior Scale). Among the results, social avoidance was significantly associated with asocial behaviour (r=.32, p<.001), peer exclusion (r=.18, p<.01), internalizing problems (r=.19, p<.01,) and interpersonal skills (r=-.19, p<.01). Primary analyses examined main effects of social avoidance and maternal depression using Hayes’ (2018) PROCESS macro (with non-parametric bootstrapping with 5000 resamples) while controlling for parental education, child gender, unsociability, and shyness. Results indicated significant interaction effects between social avoidance and maternal depression in the prediction of asocial behaviour, peer exclusion, interpersonal skills, and internalizing problems (see Table 1). For all interactions, results from follow-up simple slopes analyses indicated a pattern wherein maternal depression acted as an exacerbating factor in the relations between social avoidance and outcome variables (see Figure 1). Overall, at higher levels of maternal depression, social avoidance was even more strongly associated with maladaptive social behaviours, negative peer experiences, and internalizing problems. These results add to the growing body of research indicating that in contemporary Chinese society, social withdrawal (regardless of underlying motives) violates societal norms and appears to evoke negative social responses (Chen, 2019). For the first time, there is also evidence indicating that family factors can serve to exacerbate this risk. Thus, there is reason to be particularly concerned about socially avoidant young children in China.

Authors

• Tiffany Cheng, Carleton University
  Presenting Author

• Robert J. Coplan, Carleton University

• Jingjing Zhu, Shanghai Normal University

• Yaoqin Jiang

• Yan Li, Shanghai Normal University