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Online Real-Self Presentation and Depression among Chinese Teens: Mediating Role of Social Support and Moderating Role of Dispositional Optimism

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Abstract

The present study aimed to test the relation between adolescents’ online real-self presentation and depression, as well as the mediating role of social support and moderating role of dispositional optimism. A sample of 1742 Chinese adolescents (girl = 961, mean age = 14.35 ± 1.52 years) completed questionnaires of depression, online real-self presentation, social support, and dispositional optimism. Results of correlation and regression analyses showed that adolescents’ online real-self presentation could predict decreased depression via increasing social support. What’s more, the mediation effect was moderated by dispositional optimism, in which the mediation effect was stronger among adolescents with low dispositional optimism than those with high dispositional optimism. This study explained how and when online real-self presentation affected adolescents’ depressive symptoms, and provided a deeper understanding of the relation between online self-presentation and adolescents’ mental health. The implications and limitations were discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The present research was supported by The Key Research Institute in Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education (Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University) (14JJD190005), and the Key Project of Social Science Fund of Beijing, China (15SHA005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China

    Xiaochun Xie

  2. Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Xiaochun Xie, Xingchao Wang, Fengqing Zhao, Li Lei & Pengcheng Wang

  3. The Center of Internet + Social Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Xingchao Wang, Li Lei & Pengcheng Wang

  4. Institute of Social Psychology, School of Humanity and Social Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Gengfeng Niu

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  1. Xiaochun Xie
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  4. Li Lei
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Correspondence to Li Lei.

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Xie, X., Wang, X., Zhao, F. et al. Online Real-Self Presentation and Depression among Chinese Teens: Mediating Role of Social Support and Moderating Role of Dispositional Optimism. Child Ind Res 11, 1531–1544 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-017-9484-5

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