Social Ties and Mental Health in Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Insights from Ecological Momentary Assessment and Social Network Analysis
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: My dissertation addresses the relationship between social ties and mental health in adolescence and young adulthood. The introduction presents an overview and synthesis of different theoretical frameworks that concretise the underlying mechanisms between social connectedness, social support and mental health. Specifically, I address the importance of dyadic and structural processes. Within the empirical chapters I investigate how the mode of contact and attributes of the interaction partners moderate the impact of social support and companionship on mood (empirical study 1 and 2). For this purpose, this thesis will leverage on data of two different ecological momentary assessment studies and apply rigorous longitudinal analysis methods like fixed effects regression models and hybrid mixed-effects regression models. Mood ratings are important indicators of mental disorders. Low levels of positive mood and high levels of negative mood, alongside greater instability in mood ratings, have commonly been linked with depressive disorders. I further try to disentangle the complex co-dependency between social networks and mental health in the school context by separating peer influence effects pertaining to mental health from selection effects due to mental health differences (empirical study 3). For this purpose, I use RSiena co-evolution models to examine the association between social cognitive maps and mental health as well as loneliness. These stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM) enable the differentiation between social selection and social influence processes utilizing longitudinal network data. The limitations and implications for future research arising from the approach taken throughout this dissertation are discussed in the last chapter of my dissertation.
Author: Krüger, Heike
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6987172415