Abstract
The present study examined the mediating and moderating roles of self-control and peer relationships in the correlation between negative life events and adolescents’ externalizing problems. The adolescent self-rating life events checklist, self-control questionnaire, peer relationships questionnaire, and youth self-report were administered to 360 adolescents. It was found that externalizing problems were significantly associated with negative life events, self-control, and peer relationships. Negative life events had a significant direct effect on adolescents’ externalizing problems, and self-control had a significant mediating effect on the correlation between negative life events and adolescents’ externalizing problems. Moreover, peer relationships had a significant moderating effect on the direct effect of negative life events on externalizing problems, as well as a significant moderating effect on the path of negative life events to self-control and on the path of self-control to externalizing problems in the mediating model. Our findings suggest that negative life events not only affect adolescents’ externalizing problems directly, but also indirectly through self-control. Meanwhile, peer relationships could play a moderating role in the correlation between negative life events, self-control, and externalizing problems. This study thus supported a stress-vulnerability hypothesis and the reverse stress-buffering model, using peer relationships as a stress vulnerability factor.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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The first author conceptualized the study, performed data analyses, and wrote the manuscript. The second and corresponding author contributed to the conceptualization of the study and manuscript writing and editing.
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This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 31,671,152).
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Zhang, W., Wang, Z. Negative life events and adolescents’ externalizing problems: A moderated mediation model. Curr Psychol 42, 19596–19606 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03109-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03109-8