Exploring Relations Between Family Stress, Incremental Theory, and Dual Factors of Mental Health Among Adolescents

Abstract

Implicit theories—beliefs about the malleability of one’s ability—generally predict higher academic achievement and better mental health among youth. Yet, it remains unclear how these beliefs function under specific stressful conditions. Adopting a dual-factor approach to mental health, where both positive and negative indicators of mental health were considered, the present study explored if and how incremental theory of thoughts-emotion-behavior (I-TEB) moderates the relation between family stress and life satisfaction, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems, and if such moderating effects differ between male and female adolescents. The sample consisted of Black 5th- through 8th-grade students (n = 143) in an urban public middle school, and data were collected through self-reports during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three one-moderator moderation models and two moderated moderation models were tested, and several significant moderation effects emerged. The most important finding was that across all models, adolescents with higher I-TEB consistently had better outcomes (i.e., higher life satisfaction, and lower internalizing and externalizing problems) than those with lower I-TEB across all stress levels. Further, conditional effects showed that I-TEB emerged to function as a buffer to weaken the association between family stress and both psychopathological outcomes in males only. Taken together, I-TEB is a positive factor for adolescent mental health, and it appears to have a stronger buffering effect for male adolescents in the context of coping with family stress. I-TEB can be an important target in interventions that promote youth mental health.