Social Development of Depression under Negative Peer Moderators (2013)

Undergraduate: Brendan Yorke

Faculty Advisor: Mitch Prinstein
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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A social developmental model that incorporates identity and social experience could provide useful insight for the prevention of adolescent depression. The protective outcomes of high ethnic identity may depend on one¿s social environment. African-American and Latino-American students were asked to self-report their depressive symptoms, ethnic identity, peer discrimination experiences, and bicultural stress. Latent curve analyses were used to examine predictors of the trajectory of depressive symptoms. For all participants, under conditions of high peer discrimination, results suggest that higher levels of ethnic identity were associated to steeper trajectories of depressive symptoms. Latino Americans experienced more Bicultural Stress indicating potential differences between groups. Interventions that address depression in multicultural settings should consider an individual¿s peer environment.