Adolescents experience various problems in their adjustment as they suffer heavy stress while going through radical changes in their social life during the transitional period. Various types of stress experienced by adolescents affect their subsequent...
Adolescents experience various problems in their adjustment as they suffer heavy stress while going through radical changes in their social life during the transitional period. Various types of stress experienced by adolescents affect their subsequent psychological and social adjustment and growth, and bring about various forms of social maladjustment. Once a juvenile problem has deepened and become a social problem, it is hardly solvable. Therefore, research from a preventive and developmental viewpoint is necessary on the mechanism of juvenile problems given to adolescents by their environment in addition to daily stress causing juvenile problems as well as related emotional and psychological mechanism. For this, we need to pay attention to the importance of ego&·resilience, hope, and social support as protection and buffering factors emphasized recently in the area of psychology.
Thus, this study was conducted out of awareness of two limitations in previous studies as follows. First, many studies reported about adolescents’ daily stress and they have explained the relation between daily stress and problem behavior, but few of them approached internalized and externalized problem behaviors according to the type of daily stress in an integrated way. Second, it is expected that variables such as ego-resilience, hope and social support are correlated with problem behavior, but according to the results of reviewing previous studies, not many studies have analyzed relations among these variables. What is more, further systematic understanding is required on paths through which variables related to problem behavior affect problem behavior. Moreover, the effect of each variable has been expounded, but considering that adolescents are easily influenced by interaction between individual and environment due to their developmental characteristics, it was hard to find studies dealing with both individual inner variables and social/environmental factors together. Recognizing these limitations in previous studies, this study purposed to explore relations among problem behavior, and psychological problems, ego&·resilience, hope, and social support according to adolescents’ daily stress, and to determine the mediating effect of ego&·resilience and hope and the moderating effect of social support.
For these purposes, we collected data through a questionnaire survey, and analyzed collected data. The questionnaire, which consists of daily stress scale, problem behavior scale, ego&·resilience scale, hope scale, and social support scale. It was revised through a preliminary survey, and the main survey was performed, in which the questionnaires were distributed and recovered in October, 2011. The subjects of this study were 1030 students including 5th and 6th graders from 5 elementary schools and 7th and 8th graders from 4 middle schools in Seoul. Of the students, 1027 replied to the survey and 1000 questionnaires were used in analysis. Data collected from this study were analyzed using SPSS WIN 18.0. Analysis methods used in this study were as follows. First, t&·test, one&·way ANOVA, and Scheffe post hoc test were performed in order to compare students’ daily stress according to gender and grade. Second, Pearson’s correlation analysis was used to determine relations among daily stress, ego&·resilience, hope, social support, and problem behavior. Third, hierarchical regression analysis, which is a type of multiple regression analysis, was used in order to identify factors affecting problem behavior. Fourth, mediation analysis was performed using hierarchical regression analysis based on the procedure of Baron & Kenny (1986) in order to test the mediating effect of ego&·resilience and hope on the relation between daily stress and problem behavior. Fifth, moderated regression analysis was performed in order to test the moderating effect of social support on the relation between daily stress and problem behavior.
The results of this study were as follows. First, in the results of analyzing difference in daily stress and problem behavior type according to adolescents’ gender and grade, every type of stress was experienced more in higher grades, and commonly experienced types of stress were stress from study, stress from appearance, and stress from personal situation. In addition, this difference was determined by female students. What is more, problem behaviors were observed more frequently in female students than in male ones. Among problem behaviors, internalized problem behaviors such as anxiety, depression and physical symptoms were experienced more commonly. Second, in the results of analyzing factors affecting problem behavior, daily stress, ego&·resilience, hope and social support and all of their sub&·factors were found to affect both internalized and externalized problem behaviors. Third, ego&·resilience and hope had a partial mediating effect on the relation between daily stress and internalized and externalized problem behaviors. Fourth, social support had a moderating effect on the relation between daily stress and internalized problem behaviors. Based on these results, this study suggested implications for the understanding of adolescents’ daily stress and problem behaviors and for educational counseling, and proposed tasks for future research.