Contribution to Family, Friends, School, and Community Is Associated With Fewer Depression Symptoms in Adolescents - Mediated by Self-Regulation and Academic Performance.

Ana Kurtovic,Gabrijela Vrdoljak,Marina Hirnstein

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615249

Ana Kurtovic, Gabrijela Vrdoljak + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615249

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Abstract

The tendency to get involved in helping one’s family, friends, school, and community has many potential benefits such as greater compassion, concern for others, and social responsibility. Research interest in the benefits of contribution in adolescents has increased recently, but there are not many studies examining the effect of contribution on adolescents’ mental health. The present study focused on whether the contribution is associated with fewer self-rated depression symptoms in adolescents. We further tested whether self-regulation and academic performance can have a mediating role in this association. A total of 423 secondary school students (233 female) from eastern Croatia participated in the study. Mean age was 16.78 (SD = 1.21). Students completed measures of self-regulation, depression symptoms, and contribution (helping one’s family, friends, or neighbors, mentoring peers, volunteering in one’s community, and participating in school organizations or boards), and gave information about age, gender, and academic performance. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that contribution, self-regulation, and academic performance were related with lower levels of self-rated depression symptoms. Furthermore, mediation analysis indicated a significant indirect effect through two mediators, self-regulation and academic performance, which was stronger than a path containing only self-regulation. Academic performance alone was not a significant mediator. Our findings suggest that contribution could protect against depression by promoting self-regulation, leading to higher academic performance, and consequently fewer depression symptoms.

Highlights

Research interest in the effects of adolescents’ involvement in their community and society has increased in recent years
In order to do that, we focused on self-regulation and academic performance for two reasons: (1) their effects on adolescent depression are well documented (Herman et al, 2008; Kring and Sloan, 2009; Berking et al, 2013; Aldao and Dixon-Gordon, 2014; Huang, 2015; Sloan et al, 2017) and (2) there is a sound theoretical framework for the assumption that selfregulation could be the mechanisms through which contribution affects depression in adolescents
Contribution has mainly been investigated with regard to youth political engagement (Rosenthal et al, 1998) and only recently with regard to positive youth development (Larson, 2000; Lerner et al, 2005, 2006; Jelicic et al, 2007; Lewin-Bizan et al, 2010; Agans et al, 2014; Conway et al, 2015; Wiium, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Research interest in the effects of adolescents’ involvement in their community and society has increased in recent years. The engagement of adolescents in contributing to their family, friends, school, and community, whether it is through structured activities such as volunteering or unstructured. There has been an increase in studies about contribution to family, friends, school, and community (in further text shortened to: contribution) among adolescents and its effects on wellbeing, partly due to evolvement of positive psychology and positive youth development models, and partly as a response to concerns regarding adolescents being too self-centered and disengaged from their communities (Benson et al, 2006; Smetana et al, 2006; Bowers et al, 2010). Contribution refers to acts of engaging in civil society and helping one’s family, friends, school, and community, and is an established term in the field of positive youth development (Lerner, 2004, 2009). The terms contribution, youth contribution, contribution to community, community contribution, youth community contributions, contribution to others, contributions to context, contribution to family, community, and civil society, and contribution to society are sometimes used interchangeably in the literature (e.g., Lerner et al, 2005, 2006; Jelicic et al, 2007; Lewin-Bizan et al, 2010; Conway et al, 2015; Wiium, 2017)

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