The role of stressors and academic competence in adolescent depression by race

This study used a sample of 260 African American and European American adolescents to investigate whether adolescents' academic self-competence serves as a mediator of the relationship between different interpersonal stressors and depression symptoms, and whether the utility of this model changes with race. The association between exposure to violence and depression symptoms was mediated by academic self-competence. Race moderated the indirect paths from both discrimination experiences and violence exposure to depression. In addition to the significant differences by race, there was a significant indirect effect for African Americans exposed to violence. These findings suggest that African American adolescents may be more vulnerable to the effects of exposure to certain stressors, particularly discrimination and violence. 1 Deo and Prelow: FACTORS IN ADOLESCENT DEPRESSION BY RACE Published by UTC Scholar, 2018 For more than a century, the developmental stage of adolescence has been considered a time of “storm and stress” (Hall, 1904). More recent research supports the assertion that although not every adolescent will go through this experience, stress and conflict are still more likely to occur during adolescence than at other ages (Arnett, 1999). Adolescents thus encounter more stressors, defined by Grant et al. (2003) as environmental events or conditions that pose an objective threat to an individual’s physical or psychological well-being. Yet not all adolescents are equally exposed to stress. African American youth have a greater likelihood of facing stressors than their European American peers (Anderson & Mayes, 2010), but research has yet to explore how this increased stress exposure affects cognitive factors like self-competence, and through them, mental health outcomes. Overview of Adolescent Depression As adolescence is a time of high risk for the onset of major depressive disorder (MDD), depressive symptoms are a frequent part of the adolescent experience in the United States. Across several studies, children under the age of 13 averaged a 2.8% rate of MDD, while adolescents 13 to 18 years old had an average MDD prevalence of 5.7% (Costello, Erkanli, & Angold, 2006). Moreover, adolescent depression has lasting consequences: it is associated with several negative outcomes, including increased suicidal behavior, delinquency, and substance use (Birmaher et al., 1996; Merry, McDowell, Hetrick, Bir, & Muller, 2004). Thus when investigating factors that lead to increased number and frequency of depressive symptoms, the high school adolescent population should be of particular interest. Interpersonal Stress One of the factors that have consistently been linked to and predictive of developing depression is exposure to stressors. One meta-analysis has suggested that as much as 63% of the 2 Journal of Adolescent and Family Health, Vol. 9 [2018], Iss. 1, Art. 5 https://scholar.utc. edu/jafh/vol9/iss1/5 variance in risk for major depression is the result of individual environmental factors (Sullivan, Neale, & Kendler, 2000). Although there are many kinds of external stressors that have been related to depression outcomes in adolescents, interpersonal stressors have long been considered to be especially salient with regards to predicting depressive symptoms (Petersen et al., 1993). Not only do increases in the number of interpersonal stressors predict elevated depression, but some research even suggests that for adolescents, interpersonal stressors contribute more to major depressive episodes than non-interpersonal stressors (Shapero, Hankin, & Barrocas, 2013; Vrshek-Schallhorn et al., 2015). Three specific types of interpersonal stressors were highlighted as being of interest in the present research: peer stress, violence/victimization, and discrimination.