Family support, shyness, and depression: Longitudinal associations in Chinese early adolescents

Adolescent depression is a significant mental health concern worldwide. Largely due to methodological problems and focus on Western samples in existing studies, issues concerning longitudinal directions remain to be clarified in the relations between social and personal factors and depression in the Chinese cultural background. This three-wave longitudinal study examined relations among family support, shyness, and depression based on the random intercept cross-lagged panel model, which disaggregates the between- and within-person variances. Six hundred forty-three Chinese adolescents (M_age = 12.39, SD_age = 0.53 at Time 1; 53.7% girls) participated in this study from Grade 7 to Grade 9. Family support and depression were measured using self-reports, and shyness was assessed using classroom-based peer nominations. The data were collected once a year for 3 years. The results revealed that, at the between-person level, depression was positively associated with shyness and negatively related to perceived family support. Moreover, at the within-person level, perceived family support and shyness were negatively predicted by each other, shyness positively predicted later depression, and perceived family support negatively predicted later depression through shyness. The study suggests that family support and shyness unidirectionally predicted adolescent depression. The study partially supported the model that the relations between family support and adolescents' depression may be formed through the dynamic cascading process involving individual vulnerability among Chinese adolescents. The implications for providing effective family support to Chinese early adolescents were discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).