Open Access

ARTICLE

Association between Negative Life Events and Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Adolescents in Secondary Vocational Schools: The Role of Automatic Thoughts and Social Connectedness

Ziqin Huang^1,2, Xinfeng Tang^1,2, Yuchen Zhu¹, Yina Wang³, Liqi Hou^4,*
1 Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
2 Research Center for Social Psychological Science and Engineering, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
3 Department of Social Work, China Youth University of Political Studies, Beijing, China
4 College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
* Corresponding Author: Liqi Hou. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Risk Generation and Support Systems in the Mental Health of Special Populations)

International Journal of Mental Health Promotion https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2026.084973

Received 02 May 2026; Accepted 07 August 2026; Published online 02 September 2026

Abstract

Background: Negative life events (NLEs) are closely related to adolescent depression, yet less is known about how cognitive and interpersonal processes jointly account for this link among students in secondary vocational schools. This study tested whether automatic thoughts explained the association between NLEs and depressive symptoms and whether social connectedness altered this pathway. Methods: A questionnaire survey was administered to 664 adolescents from a vocational school in China. The participants were 15 to 19 years old (48.3% female, mean age = 16.39; SD = 0.96). Analyses were performed in SPSS 26.0 with the PROCESS macro. Model 4 estimated the indirect pathway from NLEs to depressive symptoms through automatic thoughts, whereas Model 59 examined whether social connectedness moderated the direct and indirect paths. Results: NLEs were positively associated with depressive symptoms and automatic thoughts, while social connectedness showed negative correlations with these variables. NLEs positively predicted depressive symptoms (B = 0.495, p < 0.001) and automatic thoughts (B = 0.646, p < 0.001). Automatic thoughts also predicted depressive symptoms (B = 0.766, p < 0.001), and the indirect effect through automatic thoughts was significant (effect = 0.495, 95% CI [0.409, 0.589]). Social connectedness moderated the NLEs–automatic thoughts path (B = −0.092, p < 0.001), with weaker effects at high social connectedness (B = 0.370, p < 0.001) than at low social connectedness (B = 0.553, p < 0.001). Conditional indirect effects were smaller at high social connectedness (effect = 0.223, 95% CI [0.130, 0.335]) than at low social connectedness (effect = 0.382, 95% CI [0.298, 0.476]). Conclusions: These findings suggest that automatic thoughts and social connectedness are important cognitive and interpersonal targets for understanding depressive symptoms in adolescents exposed to NLEs. Interventions for vocational school students may benefit from reducing maladaptive automatic thoughts while strengthening perceived social connection.

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Keywords

Negative life events; depressive symptoms; automatic thoughts; social connectedness; adolescents

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