A Research On The Interpersonal Context Of Depression In Youth

Adolescence is a period of transition from naive to mature, and a period of transition from family to social. More importance, Adolescence is a period of physical and mental changes greatly, and is a period of faced varieties of growth crisis. Any changes of mental state and hormones will affect the evolution of their emotions and behavior tendency, when Teenagers in a hit from the outside world. Due to the great changes in physical and mental development, almost all teenagers experience symptoms of depression. Depression symptoms in adolescent can predict the occurrence of mental disorders in adult. Therefore, it is importance to explore the characteristics and influence factors of depression in adolescence.The primary goals of the present study were to explore the interpersonal context factors of depression, and the study aims:First of all, a stratified cluster sampling method was used to draw study subjects from six universities and explore the characters of the college student’s depression. And a follow-up study was designed to investigate the developing features of depression. In addition, from the perspective of social cognition, to explore the impact effects of meta-perception, perceived bias and accuracy of friendship quality on depression by three behavior studies and an ERP experiment (Feedback-Related Negativity, FRN). Finally, to investigated predictive power of peer network variables (individual variables:friends number, difference steps of friends depression, proximity prestige, closeness, and betweenness; network variables:degree centralization, network density) on depression.This study reached the following results:1The characteristics and the development features of depression on adolescenceThere is a significant gender difference of depression on adolescence, and female is significantly higher than male; the depression scores of senior students were significantly lower than that of lower grades students; college students who from county-level city and remote countryside had the highest depression, and the depression of the other students had no significant difference; there was no significant change of depression after19months later, however, the development trend of depression showed significant gender difference, that female increased and male decreased.2Predictive effects of meta-perception, perceived bias and accuracy of friendship quality on depressionThree behavior studies and an ERP experimental results indicated that students who had higher depression tend to believe their friends’evaluate of friendship quality were low, and appear negative bias of perceived friendship quality. However, these students who had higher depression could accurate predict the evaluation of themselves were low and appear accurate meta-perception. Moreover, like the other students, these students who had higher depression could adjust their evaluations according to the feedback from the external environment.3Relationship between characters of friend network in class and depressionInput-proximity prestige and output-proximity prestige had significant negative predictive power on depression, but the predictive power of betweenness on depression was no significantly. Input-degree centralization weakens the predictive power of input-proximity prestige on depression and output-degree centralization weakens the predictive power of output-proximity prestige on depression. In addition, network density weakens the predictive power of output-proximity prestige on depression.Number of mutual friends had negative predictive power on depression; there was no difference between the students who’s had at least one depression friend and the students whose friends are all no depression. Depression occurs in cluster, extends up to two degrees of separation, is disproportionately represented at the periphery of social networks, and spreads through a contagious process. Number of depression friends had significant positive predictive power on depression. Number of Same-gender depression friends had significant positive predictive power on depression, and there was no significant predictive power of opposite-gender depression friends on depression.