Longitudinal Relationship Between Self-esteem And Depression In Junior High School Students: The Role Of Emotion Regulation And Self-control

Adolescents aged 14-16 are the peak period of depression,and this is a critical period of drastic changes in the physiology and psychology of adolescents.The detection rate of depression among middle school students in our country is between 6.4% and 60.7%.Due to the hidden nature of adolescent depression,it is easily overlooked by parents and teachers without timely diagnosis and treatment.Adolescents are prone to go through negative life events such as academic failure and interpersonal frustration,which leads to depression.How to prevent and interfere with the depression of teenagers and make them pass through the adolescence successfully is one of the key issues in education.Previous studies have found that self-esteem,emotion regulation strategies,and self-control are important influencing factors for depression.Therefore,based on cognitive vulnerability of depressive,self-control strength model,and emotion regulation depletion model,this study explored the relationship among self-esteem,emotion regulation,self-control and depression.This study adopts longitudinal and cross-sectional research design,using the Self-Esteem Scale,Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Child and Adolescence,Brief Self-Control Scale and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 to conduct follow-up surveys of school students in seventh and eighth grades with an interval of half a year.There were 1488 valid subjects in Study 1,including 747 males and 741 females.Regression analysis was used to test the predictive effects of self-esteem,emotion regulation and self-control on depression,and to verify the mediating effect of emotion regulation and the moderating effect of self-control.The number of valid subjects tracked in Study 2 was 668,including 300 males and 368 females.The relationship between self-esteem and emotion regulation was tested by constructing a cross-lagged model,and the delayed predictive effect of self-esteem on depression,and the delayed mediating effect of emotion regulation and delayed moderating effect of self-control were tested by regression analysis,and further examine gender differences.The results show that:(1)In self-esteem scores,males are significantly higher than females,and urban students are significantly higher than rural students;In cognitive reappraisal scores,males are significantly higher than females;In self-control scores,seventh-grade students are significantly higher than eighth-grade students,and urban students are significantly higher than rural students.(2)The cross-sectional results of study 1 showed that self-esteem significantly predicted the depression through the mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression,respectively,and the moderating effect of self-control was only significant between self-esteem and depression,but not in other paths.(3)The longitudinal results of study 2 showed that T1 self-esteem had a stronger predictive effect on T2 cognitive reappraisal,and there was no significant predictive effect between self-esteem and expression suppression.In the relationship of T1 self-esteem and T2 depression,the mediating effect of T2 cognitive reappraisal and the moderating effect of T2self-control only existed in girls,but not in boys,and the mediating effect of T2 expression suppression wasn't significant.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)In the cross-sectional study,cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression can play mediating roles in the relationship between self-esteem and depression,while self-control can play a moderating role.(2)In the longitudinal study,the delayed mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal and the delayed moderating effect of self-control only exist in girls,but not in boys,and the delayed mediating effect of expression suppression between self-esteem and depression is not significant.In conclusion,this study combined cross-sectional and longitudinal studies to reveal the influencing factors of depression,and its mechanism is the key to alleviate depression,which provides empirical support for the prevention and intervention of depression in adolescents.