College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, 110866, Liaoning, China.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2024 Jun;33(6):1707-1720. doi: 10.1007/s00787-023-02271-z. Epub 2023 Aug 9.
With the increasing prevalence of depression among children and adolescents, understanding the role of peer contagion in the spread of emotional distress is a critical area of research. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of classmates' depression on a rural child's own depression in China (aged 9-17, N = 1777). The study controls for possible endogeneity of peer effects through the instrumental variable method (the Wald F statistic is significant at the 1% level) and random class assignment data (all students and teachers are randomly assigned to classes).The results indicate that when the average depression score of a rural child's classmates increases by 1 point, that child's own depression score is likely to increase by 0.345 points (p value < .01).This study further finds that the contagion of depression among classmates is more severe for girls and children who play online games, and less severe for children who are cheerful and good-humored. Online games may be an important mechanism through which peer effects operate. Children's classmates' negative emotions are found to increase the occurrence of the children's internalizing behavior in online games, in turn increasing the occurrence of negative emotions in these children themselves.
随着儿童和青少年抑郁的患病率不断上升，了解同伴传染在情绪困扰传播中的作用是一个关键的研究领域。本研究旨在考察中国农村儿童（9-17 岁，N=1777）中同学的抑郁对自身抑郁的影响。该研究通过工具变量法（ Wald F 统计量在 1%的水平上显著）和随机班级分配数据（所有学生和教师都被随机分配到班级）控制了同伴效应的可能内生性。结果表明，当农村儿童同学的平均抑郁得分增加 1 分时，该儿童自身的抑郁得分可能增加 0.345 分（p 值<.01）。本研究进一步发现，同学之间的抑郁传染对女孩和玩网络游戏的儿童更为严重，而对性格开朗和幽默的儿童则较轻。网络游戏可能是同伴效应发挥作用的一个重要机制。研究发现，儿童同学的负面情绪会增加儿童在网络游戏中内化行为的发生，进而增加这些儿童自身负面情绪的发生。
