Parental support as mediator between optimism and depression in early adolescents

A number of studies showed a relation between parental support and depression and between optimism and depression. However there is a lack of studies that considered together the influence of parental support and dispositional optimism on depression in early adolescence. In the current study we examined the mediating role of parental support on the relation between optimism and depression in a community sample consisting of 149 middle school students (68 boys and 81 girls) aged from 12 to 13 (mean age = 12.60, SD = 0.60) and living in an urban area in Northern Italy. In order to assess the level of optimism, we used the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R; Scheier et al., 1994). The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1985) and the Network of Relationship Inventory (NRI; Furman, Laursen and Mooney, 1985) were used to investigate respectively depression and parental support. Using the approach proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986), we found a partially mediating effect of parental support between optimism and depression. That is, adolescents who perceived higher dispositional optimism were also less depressed. However, the negative effect of lack of optimism was mediated by parental support, which in turn negatively affected depression. Implications for practice as the possibility to work with parents in order to improve the psychological condition of pessimistic early adolescents were discussed.