Emerging gender differences in adolescent internalizing problems:
Interactions between individual characteristics and peer experiences
Internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression are among the most frequently diagnosed disorders in adolescents, with 7-17% of youth experiencing clinically significant symptomatology (Costello et al., 2003) and many more experiencing subclinical (moderate-high) symptomatology (Twenge & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2002). Importantly, research examining clinical and subclinical symptoms documents that rates of internalizing problems increase markedly around ages 12-13, particularly for girls (Brendgen et al., 2005; Kessler et al., 2005). The cognitive diathesis × stress model (Alloy & Abramson, 2007) postulates that this increase may be explained by the interaction of individual-level risk factors (e.g., maladaptive cognitive styles such as characterological self-blame) that existpre-adolescence being exacerbated due to context-level challenges associated with adolescence (e.g., changes in peer relationships). The differential susceptibility model (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) expands this argument and posits that some youth may be more susceptible to positive and negative contextual influences. Given the importance of peer relations in adolescence (Graber & Brooks-Gunn, 1996), this study examines how adolescents’ pre-existing individual characteristics and ongoing peer interactions contribute to change over time in their internalizing problems.Given the gender differences in internalizing problems that emerge in early adolescence (Vasey & Ollendick, 2000), this study will further assess how gender moderates these associations. We ask: 1) What is the shape of change in adolescent internalizing problems and how does this change covary over time with adolescents’ peer experiences? 2) Do the within-time associations between adolescents’ internalizing problems and their peer experiences vary as a result of their individualcharacteristics? and 3) Does gender moderate the contributions of adolescents’ individual characteristics and their peer experiences to changes in their internalizing problems?
Participants were 180 grade 7 students (60% girls; mean age = 12.7 years, SD = .44) recruited from 2 junior high schools in a large Canadian city. Adolescents were ethnically diverse: 70% ethnic minority (e.g., South Asian, Aboriginal, Black) and 30% Caucasian. Five waves of data were collected biweekly across 8 weeks during the spring of one school year.Adolescents’ internalizing problems (Bevans et al., 2012) and peer experiences (friendship quality, Bukowski et al., 1994; peer victimization, Crick & Grotpeter, 1996) were assessed biweekly whereas individual risks (maladaptive attributional style, Graham & Juvonen, 1998) and competencies (social competence, Harter, 2012) were assessed only at baseline. All constructs were assessed using adolescent self-reports. Our primary bivariate correlations of the criterion constructs by gender are in the expected direction and indicate moderate-high stability in the constructs.Importantly,31% of correlations differ significantly by gender. Peer experiences andattribution style in particular may have different implications for the internalizing problems of adolescent boys and girls. Our primary analyses willuse multiple-group latent growth models (Mplus 7.3 Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2014) to examine whether gender moderates the associations between change in adolescents’ internalizing problems, their peer experiences, andtheir individual characteristics. Findings from this study will extend current understanding of risk and protective factors of adolescent internalizing problems and how these may differ by gender, particularly for ethnic minority adolescents.