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How School Contexts Shape the Relations Among Adolescents’ Beliefs, Peer Victimization, and Depressive Symptoms
Author(s) -
Kaufman Tessa M. L.,
Lee Hae Yeon,
Benner Aprile D.,
Yeager David S.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of research on adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.342
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1532-7795
pISSN - 1050-8392
DOI - 10.1111/jora.12558
Subject(s) - psychology , peer victimization , depressive symptoms , multilevel model , ninth , developmental psychology , context (archaeology) , peer relations , mental health , personality , big five personality traits , clinical psychology , peer group , social psychology , suicide prevention , poison control , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , paleontology , physics , environmental health , machine learning , computer science , acoustics , biology
The present research examined how school contexts shape the extent to which beliefs about the potential for change (implicit theories) interact with social adversity to predict depressive symptoms. A preregistered multilevel regression analysis using data from 6,237 ninth‐grade adolescents in 25 U.S. high schools showed a three‐way interaction: Implicit theories moderated the associations between victimization and depressive symptoms only in schools with high levels of school‐level victimization, but not in schools with low victimization levels. In high‐victimization schools, adolescents who believed that people cannot change (an entity theory of personality) were more depressed when they were victimized more frequently. Thus, the mental health correlates of adolescents’ implicit theories depend on both personal experiences and the norms in the context.