Social Support, Agency and Depression in Filipino and American College Students
Abstract
The transition into college poses an emotional burden on young adults, and researchers havesuggested the existence of vulnerabilities to major depression during the first year of college(Eberhart & Hammen, 2006). The current study is guided by Hobfoll's (1989) Conservation ofResources Theory, which suggests that resource loss predicts negative emotional outcomes. Thecurrent study examined objective social support indicators (i.e., social network size), subjectivesocial support indicators (i.e., social relations and social support resources) and agency (i.e.,agency resources and control beliefs) as predictors of depressive symptoms in college students.There is little knowledge of emotional outcomes during emerging adulthood in other countries;this study compared samples of Filipino freshmen (n = 69) and American freshmen (n = 113).Results indicated high levels of depressive symptoms in both samples. Overall resource loss wasthe strongest predictor of depressive symptoms. Cultural differences in the domain-specific andcombined models emerged. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Subject Area
Sociology
Recommended Citation
Jeswani, Sheena, "Social Support, Agency and Depression in Filipino and American College Students" (2013). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI13853111.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI13853111
