Disentangling the Interaction Effects Between Bicultural Stress and Self-Esteem on Depression Among Mexican American Adolescents

Abstract

Using the diathesis stress model, this study examined the interactions effects between bicultural-specific stressors and self-esteem on depressive symptoms for 191 Mexican American high school students from south Texas. In addition, this study used a multi-group path analysis to evaluate the buffering role of self-esteem in the association between aspects of bicultural stress and depressive symptoms experienced by Mexican American adolescent boys and girls. Results of the analysis sought to reveal whether gender differences exist when examining the bicultural stress-depression relationship and the self-esteem buffering hypothesis.

The findings suggest that self-esteem did not significantly buffer the effect of bicultural stressors on depressive symptoms for these adolescents. Additionally, the buffering effect of self-esteem on bicultural stressors and depressive symptoms did not prove to be stronger for boys as hypothesized. However, this study did find that monolingual and peer stress was more significantly associated with depressive symptoms in boys, whereas family stress was more significantly related to depressive symptoms in girls. Discrimination stress was not found to be significantly related to depressive symptoms in Mexican American boys or girls. The results are discussed based on their application to future research studies and development of intervention and prevention programming adapted for Mexican American adolescents.