Longitudinal Relationship between Academic Stress and Bonding Social Capital: Risk and Protective Roles of ‘Bonding Social Capital and Academic Stress’ According to Specific Situations in South Korean Adolescents

Abstract

Academic stress and bonding social capital both could be a critical risk or protective factor that influence the adolescents’ psychosocial development, so it is important to examine the relationship between these two factors. Due to limitations in available data and analytic methods, previous studies could not reflect the perspective that psychosocial development of adolescents is the cumulative result of interaction between risk and protective factors, rather than a single impact. Moreover, the function of bonding social capital and academic stress may change according to the situation. Given the limitations, this study aims to examine the longitudinal relationship between two factors. For these purposes, we used autoregressive cross-lagged model involving 3449 students who participated in the Korean Youth Panel Survey (2003–2008). Major findings are as follows. First, the effects of earlier bonding social capital on later academic stress are more significant than the effects of earlier academic stress on later bonding social capital. Second, bonding social capital and academic stress could appear as a risk or protective factor according to specific situations. Third, for Korean adolescents, a vicious cycle of longitudinal interactions of bonding social capital and academic stress appeared during the period of critical pressure concerning academics and college entrance. Based on these results, we discussed implications and suggested directions for future research.