Depression, Self-Concept Anxiety and Academic Performance Effecting Self-Continuity on Early Adolescents

Self-continuity reflects the ways in which people reconcile the physical and psychological changes they undergo into a cohesive self-concept. The strategies used by adolescents to explain the stability of perceptions of self-continuity over time have been associated indicators of mental health (Chandler et al., 2003). Studies have shown that depression and self-continuity are negatively related to each other. In the current study, it was hypothesized that self-discontinuity would be associated with increased depressed affect, higher self-concept anxiety and lower academic functioning. Data were collected from 180 (93 male) early adolescents (mean age =10.68, S.D. = .54) in grades five and six from eight classes in two schools from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The outcome was self-discontinuity (seven items; ex.: “I\u27m a completely different person all the time”; α = .69). We also measured self-reported depressed affect (ten items, α = .91), self-concept anxiety (seven items, α = .81) and teacher rated academic functioning. Multiple regression was used to test the associations between depressed affect, self-concept anxiety and academic functioning on self-discontinuity. Analyses revealed that depressed affect (β =.196) and self-concept anxiety (β =.146) were positively associated with self-discontinuity. Academic performance however had no effect (β =.081). The resulting model (R2 = 8.6%) was a good fit to the data (F(3, 170) = 6.40, p \u3c .05). Thus, the current study demonstrated that self-discontinuity was positively associated with depressed affect and self-concept anxiety. Future analyses should examine potential processes explaining theses associations. Sex differences will also be discussed