Longitudinal causal relationship between social withdrawal, perceived career barriers, and depression in multicultural adolescents

Abstract

Objectives: This study was intended to explore longitudinal reciprocal effects between social withdrawal, perceived career barriers, and depression, and to discuss the implications for the social welfare of multicultural adolescents.Methods: We used data from the 6th, 7th, and 8th waves of the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study 1 (MAPS 1). The Auto Regressive Cross-Lagged (ARCL) model was used to test reciprocal effects, and 1,251 adolescents (614 males and 637 females) responded to the three above-mentioned waves of MAPS. ARCL is an analysis method that verifies the continuity of time and the mutual causal relationship between two variables.Results: First, social withdrawal, perceived career barriers, and depression in the 6th wave had significant effects on social withdrawal, perceived career barriers, and depression, respectively, in the 7th and 8th waves. Second, there was a significant longitudinal reciprocal relationship between social withdrawal and depression. In addition, perceived career barriers had a significant longitudinal reciprocal relationship with depression. However, perceived career barriers had a statistically significant longitudinal effect on social withdrawal, but not vice versa.Conclusion: These results underscore the need to provide education and programs to reduce career barriers for multicultural youth and suggest that society should encourage multicultural youth to show their abilities. With the continued impact of depression on the population, the implications of screening multicultural adolescents for depression at an early age, early intervention, and follow-up for later adolescents are needed as depression continues to affect them. Finally, the limitations of this study and suggestions for future research were discussed.