Abstract
Purpose
Self-evaluation and interpersonal factors are theoretically and empirically linked to depression in young people. An improved understanding of the multifactorial developmental pathways that explain how these factors predict depression could inform intervention strategies.
Methods
Using structural equation modeling, this study explored whether self-evaluation and interpersonal factors were associated with adolescent depressive symptoms in a population-based sample (n = 11,921; Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, ALSPAC), across four development stages: early and late childhood plus early and middle adolescence from 3 to 17 years old.
Results
Early good parenting practices predicted self-esteem, fewer peer difficulties, good friendships and fewer depressive symptoms in late childhood development outcomes. Higher self-esteem and less negative self-concept mediated the effect of early good parenting practice on reduced depressive symptoms in middle adolescence. The hypothesized erosion pathway from depressive symptoms in late childhood via higher levels of negative self-concept in early adolescence to depressive symptoms in middle adolescence was also confirmed. Additionally, peer difficulties played a mediation role in developing depressive symptoms. Contrary to the hypothesis, poor friendships predicted fewer depressive symptoms. The analysis supported a developmental pathway in which good parenting practices in early childhood led to fewer peer difficulties in late childhood and to less negative self-concept in early adolescence, which in turn predicted fewer depressive symptoms in middle adolescence.
Conclusion
The social-developmental origin of youth depressive symptoms was supported via the effect of peer relationships in late childhood on self-evaluation in early adolescence.
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Introduction
Depression in adolescence affects employment, relational function and mental health in adulthood [14, 45]. Thus, it is critical to understand the developmental pathways of adolescent depressive symptoms. Self-evaluation as indicated by self-esteem [61] and interpersonal factors such as the style of parenting in childhood [13] and friendships [58] have been linked to depressive symptoms, but there is limited research examining the potential developmental pathways of adolescent depressive symptoms involving all these factors. Understanding such developmental pathways could identify targets for intervention and prevention of depression. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the developmental pathways across different developmental periods.
Negative self-evaluation is a major risk factor for depressive symptoms [3, 37, 50]. Self-evaluation is defined as the way individuals appraise themselves, including worth and attributes [6]. It comprises self-esteem, referring to one’s evaluation of worth [53] and self-concept, referring to how young people see themselves [43]. The association between self-evaluation and depressive symptoms has been explained by two opposite theoretical perspectives, the vulnerability model and the scar model (see [61]). Whereas the vulnerability model states that negative self-evaluation is the cause of depression, the scar model postulates that depression leads to negative self-evaluation. Although empirical studies have supported both models, the evidence for the vulnerability model is currently stronger [52]. Given the importance of self-evaluation for depression, it is critical to understand the developmental pathways of depressive symptoms in relation to self-evaluation.
The development of self-evaluation cannot be understood independent of interpersonal factors, such as parenting and peer relationships, which are closely intertwined [1, 26,26,28, 33]. However, there is limited research exploring the longitudinal association between self-evaluation and depressive symptoms from an interpersonal perspective. Good parenting practices in early life is considered the origin of self-evaluation via the development of Internal Working Models (IWMs) about the self and others as postulated in attachment theory [1]. Children whose parents were warm and sensitive to their needs in early life are more likely to develop a positive self-evaluation, for example, that they are loveable. Parental warmth predicted self-esteem in Mexican-origin youth from age 10 to 16 [33]. A recent systematic review [13] highlighted that the evidence for the association between positive childhood parenting and adolescent depression relies heavily on cross-sectional research or longitudinal studies that covered only a limited developmental period. Only two longitudinal studies supported a significant association between positive parenting in childhood and depression in adolescence [19, 66].
Parenting practices are also hypothesized as a predictor of positive peer relationships via the same IWMs of self and others [1], as posited by the Interpersonal Model of Youth Depression [55]. The latter is a developmental pathway from early family disruption via relationship disruption to depression [55]. Although the association between parenting and peer relationships was supported by several studies [17, 38, 40], most investigated parenting in late childhood or adolescence rather than focusing on early life parenting. Thus, the evidence supporting the assumptions of attachment theory is scarce.
Peer relationships may also play a role in forming self-esteem [26] and depressive symptoms [55]. Peer relationships include on one hand peer difficulties (defined as having problems getting along with peers) and on the other hand friendships (defined as feeling support from friends, comfortable talking problems with friends and happy with friendships). For peer relationships and youth depression, three different longitudinal associations have been hypothesized with empirical support for each. The interpersonal risk model posits that poor interpersonal relationships cause youth depression [32], and indeed conflicts with friends were found to predict depressive symptoms [68]. The symptoms-driven model states that youth depression erodes interpersonal relationships [32], and depressive symptoms predict peer rejections [34, 68]. The transactional model suggests that depression and interpersonal relationships influence each other [32] as was supported by bidirectional links between depressive symptoms and peer victimization, peer acceptance and support by friends [20, 54, 68].
There was also no consistent evidence supporting the nature of the associations between self-evaluation, interpersonal relationships and depressive symptoms. This is due to reciprocal associations between self-evaluation and interpersonal relationships [26, 64] but also inconsistencies in the mediation of depressive symptoms. On one hand, self-esteem mediated the association between peer victimization and depression in a one-year longitudinal study [49]. In contrast, an indirect pathway from self-evaluation to depressive symptoms via peer relationships was also found [51], which suggested that negative self-evaluation may cause maladaptive social interactions and poor interpersonal relationships, which subsequently lead to depression. Yet another study found an indirect pathway from self-esteem to peer victimization via depressive symptoms in adolescents from 12 to 17 years old [56].
Taken together, theory and empirical evidence suggests cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between self-evaluation, interpersonal factors and depressive symptoms. However, because self-evaluation and peer relationships are reciprocally associated with each other, it is as yet unclear whether there is a developmental pathway from childhood experience of parenting to adolescent depression involving self-evaluation and peer relationships. Partial support comes from a 6-year longitudinal study in which self-esteem was a mediator from dysfunctional parenting to peer attachment with three-time points [38]. However, Lim [38] did not assess depression. There is also evidence for a different developmental trajectory between self-evaluation and peer relationships, in which poor peer relationships are the origin of negative self-evaluation [15], and is concordant with the social-developmental origin of negative self-evaluation of depressive symptoms in adolescence [7]
Given the uncertain developmental pathway between self-evaluation, peer relationships, and depressive symptoms, it is important to assess self-evaluation, peer relationships and depressive symptoms at several different time points through childhood and adolescence to investigate the IWMs and address the current gaps (e.g., [13]. We therefore aimed to explore the developmental pathways of depressive symptoms across four developmental stages using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) database (Fig. 1). ALSPAC is a population-based database involving children born between 1991 and 1992 in Avon, England. Specifically, we included parenting practices in early childhood, self-evaluation in late childhood and early adolescence, peer relationships and depressive symptoms in late childhood and early and middle adolescence.
Figure 1 illustrates our hypothesized pathways; in addition to two pathways, (H1) via self-evaluation based on the vulnerability model and (H2) via peer relationships based on interpersonal risk model, the current study proposed several additional pathways from parenting. Specifically, potential risk factors contribute to depressive symptoms: (H3) via negative self-evaluation (i.e., self-esteem) in late childhood to poor peer relationships in early adolescence and (H4) via poor peer relationships in late childhood and then negative self-evaluation (i.e., self-concept) to test social-developmental origin of self-evaluation assumption [7]. Two further pathways were hypothesized suggesting that depression erodes functions in other domains: (H5) via depressive symptoms in late childhood leading to negative self-evaluation to investigate the scar model, (H6) via depressive symptoms in late childhood and subsequent poor peer relationships to investigate symptoms-driven model.
Methods
Participants
Data were from ALSPAC (http://www.alspac.bris.ac.uk). All pregnant women whose estimated delivery date fell between 1 April 1991 and 31 December 1992 and living in one of the three health administration districts Southmead NHS District Health Authorities (DHA), Frenchay DHA and Bristol and Weston DHA [5] were invited. In total, 15,247 eligible pregnant women enrolled in ALSPAC (detailed recruitment flow diagram please see [5], and 15,645 children were in the database (children’s sex at birth: 49.2% boys, 37% girls, and 3.9% children having missing information regarding sex, cohort profile please see Fraser et al. [21]. In this study, 11,921 children were included because there were 3724 cases missing required variables. Ethical approval was obtained from the ALSPAC Law and Ethics Committee and the CLES Ethics Committees of the University (eCLESPsy001234 v2.1). We lacked access to demographic variables (e.g., ethnicity, SES), so we cannot present sample characteristics and compare participants included in the model with those not included due to missingness, however, the ALSPAC sample has been widely characterised elsewhere as broadly representative from the sample from which it was recruited.
Measures
A detailed justification of the measures and procedures to establish its psychometric properties using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) can be found in the supplementary material. Roughly, there were four-time waves across four developmental stages (see Table 1): T1 indicated early childhood (i.e., 3 years 2 months); T2 indicated late childhood (i.e., 9.5–10.5 years); T3 indicated early adolescence (i.e., 13 years to 13 years 10 months); T4 indicated middle adolescence (i.e., 16.5–17.5 years).
Mother-reported parenting practice
Self-reported maternal parenting score at T1 was provided by the ALSPAC team, which was calculated based on the sum of the frequency of ten parenting activities with children, including, bathing, feeding, singing, playing with toys etc., on a 4-point Likert scale (from “often” 3 to “never” 0); the total score ranged from 0 to 30, and higher score means good parenting practice.
Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation was assessed by self-esteem at T2 and self-concept at T3. For self-esteem, seven items were selected from the Self-Description Questionnaire [41]. Children responded to a five-point Likert scale from 1 “not true” to 5 “true” to rate items (e.g., “In general, I like the way I am”). Scores ranged from 5 to 35, and higher scores indicated higher levels of self-esteem. For self-concept, nine items were selected for this study from Self-Image Profile [8] based on words previously used in a self-referential task for the study of self-compassion developed by Kirschner [31]. Children responded to a 5-point Likert scale from 5 (always) to 1 (never) to rate a list of words to describe themselves (e.g., “kind”) at T3. Scores ranged from 8 to 40, and higher scores indicated negative self-concept. The internal consistency for self-esteem and self-concept were 0.77 and 0.66, respectively.
Peer relationships
There are two variables assessing peer relationships at T2, T3 and T4; child-reported friendships and mother-reported peer difficulties. For friendships, three items (e.g., “talk about problems”) from the Cambridge Hormones and Moods project Friendship questionnaire [24] were rated on a 4-point scale from 1 (most of the time) to 4 (not at all). Higher scores indicated poor friendships. Peer difficulties were assessed by a 5-item peer difficulties subscale (e.g., “picked on or bullied by other children”) from the parent-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire [22] on a 3-point scale from 0 (not true) to 2 (true). Scores ranged from 0 to 10 and higher scores indicated more peer difficulties. Internal consistency was α = 0.63/0.65/0.58 for peer difficulties, and α = 0.48/0.44/0.71 for friendships T2/T3/T4.
Depressive symptoms
Child-reported depressive symptoms were assessed by the 13-item short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) [2] at T2, T3 and T4. SMFQ assessed the frequency of depressive symptoms (e.g., “I felt lonely”) in the past 2 weeks on a 3-point scale from 0 (“not true”) to 2 (“true”). The score of SMFQ ranged from 0 to 26, and higher scores indicated high levels of depressive symptoms. Internal consistency was α = 0.80/0.87/0.91, T2/T3/T4.
Statistical analyses
SPSS 25.0 was used for internal consistency. MPlus 8.4 was used for structural equation modeling (SEM). There was substantial attrition in ALSPAC for children from 3 to 17 years. Therefore, the full completed case analysis (FCC, n = 1292) is more likely to suffer from selection bias because the pattern of missing data is not missing completely at random (Table S12). Although data reported via Likert-type scales should be treated as ordinal data for which the weighted least squares mean and variance adjusted estimation (WLSMV) in Mplus was recommended [48], robust maximum likelihood (MLR) estimation and full information maximum likelihood (FIML) were used for data analysis to allow missing data management for the primary analyses [12] whilst accounting for the non-normal distribution [39].
The following data analyses were conducted. First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the measurement constructs (see supplementary materials). We established one-factor structures for self-esteem, peer difficulties, friendships and depressive symptoms and a bifactor model for self-concept.
Second, a series of nested models were computed using longitudinal CFA to establish the measurement invariance (MI) across measurement waves [65]. We established partial scalar MI of peer difficulties and depressive symptoms, and we did not establish measurement invariance of friendships (see supplementary materials). To understand the potential impact of partial MI, we compared the main findings with the analysis in which we robustly constrained the factor loading and intercepts as recommended by Chen [11]. These comparisons revealed that our findings are stable.
Next, SEM with latent factors was used to explore the longitudinal associations between parenting, self, interpersonal relationships and depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis explored the indirect effects of self-evaluation and peer relationships on depressive symptoms in mid-adolescence.
We evaluated the model fit for CFA and SEM based on a joint consideration of the value of chi-square/degree of freedom (χ2/df, ≤ 5), the values of root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA, ≤ 0.08), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR, ≤ 0.06), comparative fit index (CFI, ≥ 0.90) and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI, ≥ 0.90) following standard recommendations [29, 42].
Results
Results of structural equation modeling
Descriptive statistics of variables see Table 1. The model fit of the pathway model (Fig. 2) was acceptable: χ2 (3013) = 13,160.32, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.909, TLI = 0.905, RMSEA = 0.017, SRMR = 0.035.
For the cross-sectional associations, as illustrated in Fig. 2, we found that low self-esteem was associated with poor friendships, peer difficulties and depressive symptoms at T2. Similarly, at T3, negative self-concept was positively associated with poor friendships, peer difficulties and depressive symptoms. As for interpersonal relationships, peer difficulties were positively correlated with depressive symptoms, and poor friendships were positively correlated with depressive symptoms at T2, T3 and T4. Also, peer difficulties were positively linked with poor friendships at T2, T3 and T4.
As for the stability of variables, mother-reported peer difficulties showed moderate stability across time points [β = 0.65/0.64, 95% CI (0.61 0.69)/95% CI (0.59, 0.69), T2 to T3/T3 to T4], and child-reported friendships showed moderate stability across time points [β = 0.33/0.25, 95% CI (0.26, 40)/95% CI (0.17, 0.33), T2 to T3/T3 to T4]. Similarly, depressive symptoms were moderately stable across time points [β = 0.27/0.32, 95% CI (0.23, 0.31)/95% CI (0.26, 37), T2 to T3/T3 to T4].
Higher parenting scores at T1 predicting higher self-esteem, fewer peer difficulties, better friendships and fewer depressive symptoms at T2, but oddly, poor friendships at T4 (|β|s < = 0.10). T2 self-esteem predicted fewer depressive symptoms at T3 and T3 self-concept predicted T4 depressive symptoms. Also, self-esteem predicted T4 depressive symptoms. However, contrary to the hypothesis, poor friendships at T2 and T3 predicted fewer depressive symptoms T3 and T4, respectively. Peer difficulties predicted depressive symptoms at T3 and T4, but the longitudinal association between interpersonal factors and depressive symptoms were very small (|β|s < 0.10). Notably, T2 depressive symptoms predicted negative self-concept and poor friendships and more peer difficulties at T3, while T3 depressive symptoms did not significantly predict any variables at T4.
As for the longitudinal association between self and interpersonal relationships, self-esteem and self-concept positively predicted friendships at T3 and T4 respectively, but the effect on peer difficulties was only demonstrated for self-concept. Also, self-esteem directly influenced T4 friendships. T2 peer difficulties predicted negative self-concept but friendships did not predict self-concept.
Mediation analysis of indirect pathways
Possible indirect pathways to T4 depressive symptoms were identified and statistically assessed. Several pathways were statistically significant (Table 2). The direct effect from T1 parenting to T4 depressive symptoms was not significant, but seven indirect pathways were supported. We also explored the pathways from T2 variables to T4 depressive symptoms. Two indirect pathways from T2 self-esteem were supported. Three indirect pathways from T2 friendships and three indirect pathways from T2 peer difficulties were supported. In contrast, only two indirect pathways from T2 depressive symptoms were supported.
Discussion
We explored the potential psychosocial developmental pathways to depressive symptoms, including early parenting, self-evaluation and peer relationships across childhood to middle adolescence. Our findings supported several pathways from parenting to depressive symptoms (H1, H2 and H4) and partially supported the scar model (H5). There was no evidence for H3 and H6. Contrary to our hypothesis, poor friendships predicted fewer depressive symptoms. Additionally, we found that negative developmental outcomes (e.g., low self-esteem, and peer difficulties) in late childhood increased depressive symptoms in middle adolescence via depressive symptoms in early adolescence.
Our findings support IWMs based on attachment theory [1, 63],suggesting that good parenting practices in early childhood predicted higher self-esteem, more positive peer relationships and lower depressive symptoms in late childhood. Our findings suggest that early responsive and warm parenting practices may have an important role in facilitating children’s positive and healthy self-evaluation, promoting good quality of peer relationships, and preventing depressive symptoms. Our results are also consistent with previous findings of significant effects of parenting on self-esteem [38], peer attachment [40] and childhood depression [44].
There could be different explanations for the relatively small variance of parenting practices in explaining child development and the absence of direct effects of depressive symptoms in adolescence. Secure attachment in early life alone may exert only a small protective effect, in particular, if the child experiences adversity later in life [4]. Also, the experience of good parenting practices has less impact than the experience of negative parenting [13, 44], thus as individuals age, there may be no direct impact of positive parenting on depressive symptoms. Alternatively, the small effect size and the absence of a direct effect on depressive symptoms in adolescence may be due to methodological issues. We only had one measure of parenting from one parent; children may experience alternative parenting styles with different parents [60], and parenting practice may vary as the demands of child development may pose different challenges at different periods of development [62]. Given the benefits of facilitating positive parenting on child development [57], parenting practices in adolescence may also be important. Thus, future studies should use repeated measures of parenting (both negative and positive) in childhood and adolescence with a shorter time interval to explore the effect of parenting on child development.
Our finding that the developmental pathway of depressive symptoms in middle adolescence via self-esteem in late childhood and self-concept in early adolescence supports the vulnerability model (H1; [61]. Self-esteem also had a direct impact on depressive symptoms in middle adolescence. Our finding of the indirect effect of depressive symptoms in late childhood on depressive symptoms in middle adolescence via self-concept in early adolescence supports the scar model. Unfortunately, we were not able to further explore whether the vulnerability or scar effect is stronger due to the different assessments of self at different developmental stages: self-esteem in late childhood and self-concept in early adolescence. In brief, our findings suggested that across childhood and adolescence, when controlling the influence of interpersonal relationships, the association between self-evaluation and depressive symptoms may be reciprocal and should be explored further in other datasets.
Our findings of the pathway to depressive symptoms via peer difficulties alone and the pathway via friendships in late childhood and peer difficulties in early adolescence (H2) overall support the interpersonal risk model [32]. In contrast, our findings did not support the symptoms-driven model as depressive symptoms did not consistently predict peer difficulties or friendships across childhood to adolescence (H6). Surprisingly, the effect of friendships on depressive symptoms was contrary to theories and some literature [55, 58, 68] as poor friendships predicted fewer depressive symptoms. However, others have reported similar findings in longitudinal studies; for instance, two studies of adolescents with suicidal thoughts found a similar longitudinal association as in the current study [30, 47]. These studies suggest that friendships may not always play a protective role in relation to depressive symptoms. With a high level of intimacy, young people’s depressive symptoms might influence their friends’ affect [59],for instance, if adolescents talk about problems excessively. Besides, friendship networks and friend selection may be helpful to understand the associations detected in our study. Firstly, children with depressive symptoms are more likely to be socially excluded [10] while environmental changes such as the transition to secondary school may lead to new friendships. Then based on empirical studies from friend selection, children tend to make friends with similar characteristics [23]. Altogether, children with higher levels of depressive symptoms may move into a friendship network where individuals share a higher level of depressive symptoms.
We found some evidence to support a bi-directional association between self-evaluation and peer relationships, as previously reported [26,26,28, 38]. Specifically, self-evaluation predicted friendships and peer difficulties from late childhood to middle adolescence, and peer difficulties in late childhood were negatively associated with self-concept in adolescence. Our analysis was limited because ALSPAC used different self-evaluation measures in late childhood and early adolescence. More detailed exploration requires longitudinal research with repeated measures of both concepts and depressive symptoms.
We found an additional pathway from parenting to depressive symptoms in middle adolescence via peer difficulties in late childhood and self-concept in early adolescence (supporting H4). This pathway could be considered as the social-developmental origin of negative self-evaluation of depressive symptoms in adolescence [7], which is consistent with previous research [15]. This may suggest that childhood interpersonal environments play a critical role in self-evaluation because children are more likely to evaluate themselves via others’ feedback, such as peers [28].
Our analysis benefits from a robust population-based cohort study, including data from four key developmental stages, and SEM, but inevitably there are limitations. First, the assessment of child-reported friendships suffered from low internal consistency, and the evidence of the measurement invariance was weak. Although we followed previous suggestions to include mother-reported peer difficulties to assess peer relationships and applied SEM to address measurement problems for friendships [16], future studies should seek more reliable measurements to explore the role of peer relationships in depressive symptoms and our findings should be considered exploratory. Multiple informants for the same construct of peer relationships could be used to increase the accuracy of estimates for these and other variables in future studies [36]. Also, the assessment of parenting was based only on a total score, and we lacked access to individual items to assess its psychometric properties [46].
Second, the assessment of depressive symptoms in ALSPAC uses the short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ), which is a validated scale but not a clinical diagnostic tool. Thus, our findings cannot be generalised in clinical groups. Additionally, like many longitudinal studies, ALSPAC suffered considerable attrition which could influence the estimates of associations between variables. However, analysis of teacher-rated behaviour scores among children in or who had dropped out revealed that while the incidence was unreliable, the association between baseline predictors and teacher reported behavioural difficulties was similar in both groups [67]. This confirmed the validity of the regression model in ALSPAC samples. Despite the use of FIML as a robust and recommended approach to manage missing data [18], others have highlighted the high attrition in follow up responses to the SMFQ in ALSPAC, and multiple imputation using sociodemographic information was suggested as mitigation [35], however, this was not possible in the current study as we lacked access to such data.
Third, the current analysis could not separate between- and within- person differences and ignored trait-like individual differences in the development [25], which means that the current analysis assumed that all adolescents experience the same changes of depressive symptoms and peer relationships across time. New data analysis methods, random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM [25]), were proposed to address the limitation. However, we could not get RI-CLPM converged and the effect of non-invariance within RI-CLPM has not been studied yet as we failed in establishing the measurement invariance of friendships. Thus, we did not use RI-CLPM.
Due to the complexity of the proposed pathways and without specific hypotheses related to covariates, we followed Carlson and Wu [9] and have not controlled for covariates. Future studies could examine potential individual differences in the developmental pathways in different groups of children and young people. For example, family socioeconomic status influences parenting practice; Thus, it is important to include such covariates in the future pathway model. Besides, although the study provides evidence for developmental pathways of depressive symptoms, we cannot be certain that these developmental pathways are generalisable for children with neurodiversity and those with developmental disorders.
Conclusion
Our findings highlight the importance of self-evaluation and social relationships in the relation to young people’s depressive symptoms and support the social-origin developmental pathway [7, 15]. The findings also suggest that promoting good parenting practices and healthy peer relationships in childhood may prevent the development of depressive symptoms but also promote a positive and healthy self-evaluation in adolescence. Future prevention programmes for depression in young people could be designed based on different developmental needs. While parenting programmes for parents and peer support programmes for children might benefit children, a focus on healthy self-evaluation (e.g., enhancing self-esteem, cultivating self-compassion) could be critical in adolescence.
Data Availability
The data is from ALSPAC team and it is not open access. For data availability statement we can put a sentence like this: Access to ALSPAC data is through the link: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/access/.
References
Ainsworth MDS, Blehar MC, Waters E, Wall SN (2015) Patterns of attachment: a psychological study of the strange situation, 1st edn. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203758045
Angold A, Costello EJ, Messer SC, Pickles A (1995) Development of a short questionnaire for use in epidemiological studies of depression in children and adolescents. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res 5(4):237–249
AP Association (2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn. American Psychiatric Association Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
Baumeister RF, Bratslavsky E, Finkenauer C, Vohs KD (2001) Bad is stronger than good. Rev Gen Psychol 5(4):323–370. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323
Boyd A, Golding J, Macleod J, Lawlor DA, Fraser A, Henderson J, Molloy L, Ness A, Ring S, Davey Smith G (2013) Cohort Profile: the ’children of the 90s’–the index offspring of the avon longitudinal study of parents and children. Int J Epidemiol 42(1):111–127. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys064
Brown JD, Dutton KA, Cook KE (2001) From the top down: self-esteem and self-evaluation. Cogn Emot 15(5):615–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930143000004
Brummelman E, Thomaes S (2017) How children construct views of themselves: a social-developmental perspective. Child Dev 88(6):1763–1773. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12961
Butler RJ (2001) The self-image profile for children (Sip-C) (or for adolescents SIP-A). The Psychological Corporation Ltd, London, UK
Carlson KD, Wu J (2012) The illusion of statistical control: control variable practice in management research. Organ Res Methods 15(3):413-435
Cheadle JE, Goosby BJ (2012) The small school friendship dynamics of adolescent depressive symptoms. Soc Mental Health 2(2):99–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156869312445211
Chen FF (2008) What happens if we compare chopsticks with forks? The impact of making inappropriate comparisons in cross-cultural research. J Pers Soc Psychol 95(5):1005–1018. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013193
Chen P-Y, Wu W, Garnier-Villarreal M, Kite BA, Jia F (2020) Testing measurement invariance with ordinal missing data: a comparison of estimators and missing data techniques. Multivar Behav Res 55(1):87–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273171.2019.1608799
Clayborne ZM, Kingsbury M, Sampasa-Kinyaga H, Sikora L, Lalande KM, Colman I (2021) Parenting practices in childhood and depression, anxiety, and internalizing symptoms in adolescence: a systematic review. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 56(4):619–638. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-020-01956-z
Clayborne ZM, Varin M, Colman I (2019) Systematic review and meta-analysis: adolescent depression and long-term psychosocial outcomes. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 58(1):72–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.07.896
Cole DA, Dukewich TL, Roeder K, Sinclair KR, McMillan J, Will E, Bilsky SA, Martin NC, Felton JW (2014) Linking peer victimization to the development of depressive self-schemas in children and adolescents. J Abnorm Child Psychol 42(1):149–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9769-1
Cole DA, Preacher KJ (2014) Manifest variable path analysis: potentially serious and misleading consequences due to uncorrected measurement error. Psychol Methods 19(2):300–315. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033805
Cook EC, Fletcher AC (2012) A process model of parenting and adolescents’ friendship competence. Soc Dev (Oxford, England) 21(3):461–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00642.x
Enders CK, Bandalos DL (2001) The relative performance of full information maximum likelihood estimation for missing data in structural equation models. Struct Equ Model 8(3):430–457. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0803_5
Feng X, Keenan K, Hipwell AE, Henneberger AK, Rischall MS, Butch J, Coyne C, Boeldt D, Hinze AK, Babinski DE (2009) Longitudinal associations between emotion regulation and depression in preadolescent girls: moderation by the caregiving environment. Dev Psychol 45(3):798–808. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014617
Forbes MK, Fitzpatrick S, Magson NR, Rapee RM (2019) Depression, anxiety, and peer victimization: bidirectional relationships and associated outcomes transitioning from childhood to adolescence. J Youth Adolesc 48(4):692–702. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0922-6
Fraser A, Macdonald-Wallis C, Tilling K, Boyd A, Golding J, Davey Smith G, Henderson J, Macleod J, Molloy L, Ness A, Ring S, Nelson SM, Lawlor DA (2012) Cohort profile: the avon longitudinal study of parents and children: ALSPAC mothers cohort. Int J Epidemiol 42(1):97–110. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys066
Goodman R (1997) The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: a research note. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 38(5):581–586. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01545.x
Goodreau SM, Kitts JA, Morris M (2009) Birds of a feather, or friend of a friend? Using exponential random graph models to investigate adolescent social networks. Demography 46(1):103–125. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0045
Goodyer IM, Wright C, Altham PM (1989) Recent friendships in anxious and depressed school age children. Psychol Med 19(1):165–174. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291700011119
Hamaker EL, Kuiper RM, Grasman RP (2015) A critique of the cross-lagged panel model. Psychol Methods 20(1):102–116. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038889
Harris MA, Orth U (2020) The link between self-esteem and social relationships: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. J Pers Soc Psychol 119(6):1459–1477. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000265
Harter S (2008) The developing self. In: Lerner WDRM (ed) Child and adolescent development: an advanced course. Hoboken, N.J, pp 216–262
Harter S (2012) The construction of the self: developmental and sociocultural foundations, 2nd edn. The Guilford Press
Hu L-T, Bentler PM (1999) Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Struct Equ Model 6(1):1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Kerr DC, Preuss LJ, King CA (2006) Suicidal adolescents’ social support from family and peers: gender-specific associations with psychopathology. J Abnorm Child Psychol 34(1):103–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-005-9005-8
Kirschner H (2016) Compassion for the self and well-being: psychological and biological correlates of a new concept [Doctoral Thesis, University of Exeter]
Kochel KP, Ladd GW, Rudolph KD (2012) Longitudinal associations among youth depressive symptoms, peer victimization, and low peer acceptance: an interpersonal process perspective. Child Dev 83(2):637–650. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01722.x
Krauss S, Orth U, Robins RW (2020) Family environment and self-esteem development: a longitudinal study from age 10 to 16. J Pers Soc Psychol 119(2):457–478. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000263
Krygsman A, Vaillancourt T (2017) Longitudinal associations between depression symptoms and peer experiences: Evidence of symptoms-driven pathways. J Appl Dev Psychol 51:20–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.05.003
Kwong ASF (2019) Examining the longitudinal nature of depressive symptoms in the avon longitudinal study of parents and children (ALSPAC). Wellcome Open Res 4:126. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15395.2
La Greca AM, Harrison HM (2005) Adolescent peer relations, friendships, and romantic relationships: do they predict social anxiety and depression? J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 34(1):49–61. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15374424jccp3401_5
LeMoult J, Kircanski K, Prasad G, Gotlib IH (2017) Negative self-referential processing predicts the recurrence of major depressive episodes. Clin Psychol Sci 5(1):174–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702616654898
Lim Y (2020) Self-esteem as a mediator in the longitudinal relationship between dysfunctional parenting and peer attachment in early adolescence. Child Youth Serv Rev 116:105224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105224
Little TD (2013) Longitudinal structural equation modeling. Guilford Press
Llorca A, Cristina Richaud M, Malonda E (2017) Parenting, peer relationships, academic self-efficacy, and academic achievement: direct and mediating effects. Front Psychol. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02120
Marsh HW (1990) Self description questionnaire-I. Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol 11:321–338
Marsh HW, Hau K-T, Grayson D (2005) Goodness of Fit in Structural Equation Models. Contemporary psychometrics: a festschrift for Roderick P McDonald. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, pp 275–340
Marsh HW, Shavelson R (1985) Self-concept: its multifaceted, hierarchical structure. Educ Psychol 20(3):107–123. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2003_1
McLeod BD, Weisz JR, Wood JJ (2007) Examining the association between parenting and childhood depression: a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 27(8):986–1003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2007.03.001
McLeod GF, Horwood LJ, Fergusson DM (2016) Adolescent depression, adult mental health and psychosocial outcomes at 30 and 35 years. Psychol Med 46(7):1401–1412. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291715002950
McNeish D, Wolf MG (2020) Thinking twice about sum scores. Behav Res Methods 52(6):2287–2305. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01398-0
Miller AB, Adams LM, Esposito-Smythers C, Thompson R, Proctor LJ (2014) Parents and friendships: a longitudinal examination of interpersonal mediators of the relationship between child maltreatment and suicidal ideation. Psychiatry Res 220(3):998–1006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.10.009
Muthén B (1984) A general structural equation model with dichotomous, ordered categorical, and continuous latent variable indicators. Psychometrika 49(1):115–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02294210
Nepon T, Pepler DJ, Craig WM, Connolly J, Flett GL (2021) A longitudinal analysis of peer victimization, self-esteem, and rejection sensitivity in mental health and substance use among adolescents. Int J Ment Heal Addict 19(4):1135–1148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-019-00215-w
Orchard F, Reynolds S (2018) The combined influence of cognitions in adolescent depression: biases of interpretation, self-evaluation, and memory. Br J Clin Psychol 57(4):420–435. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjc.12184
Orth U, Erol RY, Luciano EC (2018) Development of self-esteem from age 4 to 94 years: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol Bull 144(10):1045–1080. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000161
Orth U, Robins RW (2013) Understanding the link between low self-esteem and depression. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 22(6):455–460. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413492763
Orth U, Robins RW (2014) The development of self-esteem. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 23(5):381–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414547414
Reijntjes A, Kamphuis JH, Prinzie P, Telch MJ (2010) Peer victimization and internalizing problems in children: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Child Abuse Negl 34(4):244–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.07.009
Rudolph KD, Flynn M, Abaied JL (2008) A developmental perspective on interpersonal theories of youth depression. Handbook of depression in children and adolescents. The Guilford Press, pp 79–102
Saint-Georges Z, Vaillancourt T (2020) The temporal sequence of depressive symptoms, peer victimization, and self-esteem across adolescence: evidence for an integrated self-perception driven model. Dev Psychopathol 32(3):975–984. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579419000865
Sanders MR, Kirby JN, Tellegen CL, Day JJ (2014) The triple P-positive parenting program: a systematic review and meta-analysis of a multi-level system of parenting support. Clin Psychol Rev 34(4):337–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.04.003
Schwartz-Mette RA, Shankman J, Dueweke AR, Borowski S, Rose AJ (2020) Relations of friendship experiences with depressive symptoms and loneliness in childhood and adolescence: a meta-analytic review. Psychol Bull 146(8):664–700. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000239
Schwartz-Mette RA, Smith RL (2018) When does co-rumination facilitate depression contagion in adolescent friendships? Investigating intrapersonal and interpersonal factors. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 47(6):912–924. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2016.1197837
Simons LG, Conger RD (2007) Linking mother-father differences in parenting to a typology of family parenting styles and adolescent outcomes. J Fam Issues 28(2):212–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X06294593
Sowislo JF, Orth U (2013) Does low self-esteem predict depression and anxiety? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol Bull 139(1):213–240. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028931
Steinberg L, Silk JS (2002) Parenting adolescents. Handbook of parenting: children and parenting, vol 1, 2nd edn. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, pp 103–133
Thompson RA (2008) Early attachment and later development: familiar questions, new answers. Handbook of attachment: theory, research, and clinical applications, 2nd edn. The Guilford Press, pp 348–365
van Geel M, Goemans A, Zwaanswijk W, Gini G, Vedder P (2018) Does peer victimization predict low self-esteem, or does low self-esteem predict peer victimization? Meta-analyses on longitudinal studies. Dev Rev 49:31–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.07.001
Widaman KF, Ferrer E, Conger RD (2010) Factorial invariance within longitudinal structural equation models: measuring the same construct across time. Child Dev Perspect 4(1):10–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00110.x
Williams CJ, Kessler D, Fernyhough C, Lewis G, Pearson RM (2016) The association between maternal-reported responses to infant crying at 4 weeks and 6 months and offspring depression at 18: a longitudinal study. Arch Womens Ment Health 19(2):401–408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-015-0592-2
Wolke D, Waylen A, Samara M, Steer C, Goodman R, Ford T, Lamberts K (2009) Selective drop-out in longitudinal studies and non-biased prediction of behaviour disorders. Br J Psychiatry J Mental Sci 195(3):249–256. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.108.053751
Yang Y, Chen L, Zhang L, Ji L, Zhang W (2020) Developmental changes in associations between depressive symptoms and peer relationships: a four-year follow-up of Chinese adolescents. J Youth Adolesc 49(9):1913–1927. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01236-8
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, M., Ford, T., Panayiotou, M. et al. Developmental pathways of depressive symptoms via parenting, self-evaluation and peer relationships in young people from 3 to 17 years old: evidence from ALSPAC. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 58, 907–917 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02416-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02416-6