Developing Depressive Symptoms over the Adolescent Years: The Influence of Affiliated Cultural Values among Taiwanese Youth

Keywords

Taiwanese youth, Cultural values, Collectivistic culture, Depressive symptoms

Abstract

The purpose of this study was (a) to identify latent subgroups of Taiwanese adolescents who vary in their cultural value affiliations and (b) to examine how latent-subgroup membership in early adolescence predicted depressive symptoms for 6 years throughout adolescence into young adulthood. Participants consisted of 2458 youth from the longitudinal Taiwan Youth Project (TYP). Latent profile analysis indicated five classes (patterns) of cultural value affiliation. A zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) analysis followed, which identified the estimated (a) probability of experiencing depressive symptoms and (b) number of depressive symptoms experienced by individuals who reported depressive symptoms across the five observational time points. Results showed that among the five classes of value affiliation, two classes had a greater likelihood of experiencing depressive symptoms at the beginning of the assessment (age 15). Youth who were least likely to embrace societally prescribed culture values were at the greatest risk for manifesting subsequent depressive symptoms. These findings support the idea that the way adolescents identify with their cultural values predicts subsequent depressive symptoms.

Original Publication Citation

Lee, C-T, Beckert, T. E., Nelson, L. J., *Hsieh, C-H, Miller, R. B., Wu, C-I. (2017). Developing depressive symptoms over the adolescent years: The influence of affiliated cultural values among Taiwanese youth. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 3102-3111.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2017-11

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/5401

Publisher

Journal of Child and Family Studies

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Sociology

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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