Family Material Hardship and Chinese Adolescents’ Problem Behaviors: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

PLOS ONE, Dec 2019

In the current study, we examined a moderated mediation model using the risk and resilience framework. Specifically, the impact of family material hardship on adolescent problem behaviors was examined in a Chinese sample; we used the family stress model framework to investigate parental depression and negative parenting as potential mediators of the relation between family material hardship and adolescents’ problem behaviors. In addition, based on resilience theory, we investigated adolescents’ resilience as a potential protective factor in the development of their internalizing and externalizing problems. Participants included 1,419 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 15.38 years, SD = 1.79) and their primary caregivers. After controlling for covariates (age, gender, location of family residence, and primary caregiver), we found that parental depression and negative parenting mediated the association between family material hardship and adolescents’ problem behaviors. Furthermore, the adolescent resilience moderated the relationship between negative parenting and internalizing problems in a protective-stabilizing pattern; in addition, a protective-reactive pattern also emerged when adolescent resilience was examined as a moderator of the relationship between negative parenting and externalizing problems. These findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of risk and resilience in youth development. Moreover, the findings have important implications for the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors.

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Family Material Hardship and Chinese Adolescents’ Problem Behaviors: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

May Family Material Hardship and Chinese Adolescents' Problem Behaviors: A Moderated Mediation Analysis Wenqiang Sun 0 1 Dongping Li 0 1 Wei Zhang 0 1 Zhenzhou Bao 0 1 Yanhui Wang 0 1 0 1 School of Psychology & Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University , Guangzhou , China , 2 School of Psychology, Central China Normal University , Wuhan , China , 3 School of Educational Science, Jiaying University , Meizhou , China 1 Academic Editor: Xinguang Chen, University of Florida, UNITED STATES In the current study, we examined a moderated mediation model using the risk and resilience framework. Specifically, the impact of family material hardship on adolescent problem behaviors was examined in a Chinese sample; we used the family stress model framework to investigate parental depression and negative parenting as potential mediators of the relation between family material hardship and adolescents' problem behaviors. In addition, based on resilience theory, we investigated adolescents' resilience as a potential protective factor in the development of their internalizing and externalizing problems. Participants included 1,419 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 15.38 years, SD = 1.79) and their primary caregivers. After controlling for covariates (age, gender, location of family residence, and primary caregiver), we found that parental depression and negative parenting mediated the association between family material hardship and adolescents' problem behaviors. Furthermore, the adolescent resilience moderated the relationship between negative parenting and internalizing problems in a protective-stabilizing pattern; in addition, a protective-reactive pattern also emerged when adolescent resilience was examined as a moderator of the relationship between negative parenting and externalizing problems. These findings contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of risk and resilience in youth development. Moreover, the findings have important implications for the prevention of adolescent problem behaviors. - Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Problem behaviors among adolescents residing in impoverished conditions continue to be of concern to developmentalists and policy makers. There is a substantial amount of literature indicating that poverty and co-factors are risk factors for the development of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents [16]. However, not all adolescents living in poverty develop problem behaviors [7, 8]. Therefore, it is important to understand how and when poverty and co-factors operate as in the risk and protective processes. The current study was conceptualized from the risk and resilience frameworks [9, 10]; specifically, we integrated the family stress model (FSM) [2, 11, 12] and resilience theory [1316] to examine two research questions. First, based on the FSM, we examined proximal family risk factors (parental depression and negative parenting) as potential mediators of the relation between distal family risk factors (material hardship) and adolescent problem behaviors (internalizing and externalizing problems). Second, based on resilience theory, we examined adolescents resilience as a moderator of the relation between parental depression and negative parenting and adolescents internalizing and externalizing problems. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the risk and protective factors that influence the adjustment of Chinese adolescents residing in impoverished conditions, thereby offering valuable information about effective prevention and intervention methods [7, 9]. Material hardship and adolescent problem behaviors The majority of studies examining the relation between poverty and child development define poverty in terms of income; studies examining the influence of other dimensions of poverty, such as material hardship, are lacking [6]. Material hardship is a consumption-based indicator of economic well-being; it is based on the magnitude of financial hardship that families face, and includes indicators of the ability to pay monthly bills, buy food, and pay for shelter [1719]. Empirical evidence has shown that the distributions of material hardship and income are not parallel; indeed, they are only moderately correlated [1921]. Moreover, research has shown that families living in near poor households (with income ranging from 100% to 200% of the poverty threshold) also experienced one or more forms of material hardship, including not having enough food because of the inability to pay bills; thus, hardship is not limited to those living below the poverty line [18, 19, 20, 22]. Indeed, it is clear that measuring poverty via income has limitations. Therefore, a growing number of researchers have begun to use measures of material hardship to study the association between consumption patterns or basic standards of living and childrens developmental outco (...truncated)


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Wenqiang Sun, Dongping Li, Wei Zhang, Zhenzhou Bao, Yanhui Wang. Family Material Hardship and Chinese Adolescents’ Problem Behaviors: A Moderated Mediation Analysis, PLOS ONE, 2015, Volume 10, Issue 5, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128024