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Developing Depressive Symptoms over the Adolescent Years: The Influence of Affiliated Cultural Values among Taiwanese Youth

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was (a) to identify latent subgroups of Taiwanese adolescents who vary in their cultural value affiliations and (b) to examine how latent-subgroup membership in early adolescence predicted depressive symptoms for 6 years throughout adolescence into young adulthood. Participants consisted of 2458 youth from the longitudinal Taiwan Youth Project (TYP). Latent profile analysis indicated five classes (patterns) of cultural value affiliation. A zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) analysis followed, which identified the estimated (a) probability of experiencing depressive symptoms and (b) number of depressive symptoms experienced by individuals who reported depressive symptoms across the five observational time points. Results showed that among the five classes of value affiliation, two classes had a greater likelihood of experiencing depressive symptoms at the beginning of the assessment (age 15). Youth who were least likely to embrace societally prescribed culture values were at the greatest risk for manifesting subsequent depressive symptoms. These findings support the idea that the way adolescents identify with their cultural values predicts subsequent depressive symptoms.

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Author Contributions

C.L.: designed the study, performed the data analyses, and wrote the paper. T.B.: collaborated with the design and writing of the study, served as a co-first author of this study. L.N.: collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript. C.H.: collaborated in the writing. R.M.: collaborated in the writing. C.W.: provided the data and provided consultation regarding to the data nature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brigham Young University, JFSB 2086, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Chien-Ti Lee, Larry J. Nelson, Chih Han Hsieh & Richard B. Miller

  2. Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    Troy E. Beckert

  3. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chyi-In Wu

Authors
  1. Chien-Ti Lee
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  2. Troy E. Beckert
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  3. Larry J. Nelson
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  4. Chih Han Hsieh
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  5. Richard B. Miller
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  6. Chyi-In Wu
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Correspondence to Chien-Ti Lee.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lee, CT., Beckert, T.E., Nelson, L.J. et al. Developing Depressive Symptoms over the Adolescent Years: The Influence of Affiliated Cultural Values among Taiwanese Youth. J Child Fam Stud 26, 3102–3111 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0807-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0807-4

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