Citation

van Rijn R, Lee NC, Hollarek M, Sijtsma H, Walsh RJ, van Buuren M, Braams BR, Krabbendam L. J. Youth Adolesc. 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10964-023-01836-0

PMID

37592196

Abstract

Research has shown that adolescents - particularly girls - who mature relatively early often experience more internalizing problems. This effect is thought to be partially driven by psychosocial mechanisms, but previous research based relative pubertal maturation on complete samples or population standards, instead of considering the adolescents' direct peer environment. In the current study the level of adolescents' pubertal development was assessed relative to their classmates in order to examine relative pubertal maturation. The effects of adolescents' relative pubertal status, and their perceived popularity, on symptoms of social anxiety and depression in adolescents were studied. All analyses were also performed for absolute pubertal maturation. Participants were 397 young adolescents (M(age) = 13.06, SD = 0.36, 49.9% girls) at timepoint 1, and 307 (M(age) = 14.08, SD = 0.36, 50.5% girls) at timepoint 2. A significant positive relationship was found between relative pubertal timing and symptoms of depression for girls but not boys. Social anxiety symptoms were not significantly related to relative pubertal timing in either sex. Relative pubertal maturation had no effect on change in or persistence of depressive and social anxiety symptoms one year later. The effects of the comparison with the immediate peer environment, did not seem to explain more variance in internalizing symptoms than the effects of early maturation.

Language: en

Keywords

Depression; Adolescence; Perceived popularity; Social anxiety; Early maturation; Pubertal timing