Longitudinal bidirectional relations between psychological maltreatment by teachers and psychosocial adjustment during early adolescence

Abstract

This study examined three models (relationship-driven model, symptom-driven model and transactional model) testing the across-time bidirectional relations between psychological maltreatment by teachers and early adolescents' psychosocial adjustment (i.e., internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and academic achievement) during early adolescence. A total of 4169 Chinese early adolescents (M_age = 9.93 years, SD = 0.73, 54% males) completed assessments across five waves, every six months. Employing autoregressive latent trajectory models with structured residuals (ALT-SR), the results revealed that adolescents’ internalizing problems and academic achievement were predicted by psychological maltreatment by teachers (supporting the relationship-driven model), whereas externalizing problems and psychological maltreatment by teachers were bidirectionally related (supporting the transactional model). Moreover, sex moderated the relations between psychological maltreatment by teachers and psychosocial adjustment. The finding of differential relations between psychological maltreatment by teachers and three components of psychosocial adjustment (i.e., internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and academic achievement) indicated that prevention and interventions should be tailored to different psychosocial adjustment difficulties.