社会与工程心理学研究室知识库

抑郁症状已成为威胁我国中老年群体的重要健康问题，严重影响了中老年群体的生活质量和我国积极老龄化目标的实现。社会参与对于包括抑郁症状在内的心理健康问题的积极作用已经被广泛证实。随着数字技术的迅猛发展，互联网在中老年群体中的普及率迅速提高。线上社会参与作为一种新兴的社会参与和互动形式，对于中老年人心理健康的影响和意义日益受到关注。在“新”技术与“老”龄化快速发展和相互交织的背景下，考察中老年群体线上社会参与对心理健康的影响及其机制，并据此提出相应的干预策略显得尤为重要。本研究以中老年群体为对象，通过使用数据库和自采数据的三项子研究，从自我决定视角考察线上社会参与和抑郁症状的关系及其中介机制，以及社会网络规模对上述中介效应的调节作用。

研究一采用中国健康与养老追踪调查(China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, CHARLS)数据库三轮追踪数据(2013, 2015和2018年)，通过交叉滞后分析考察线上社会参与和抑郁症状的相互影响。研究通过对三轮数据的工D匹配，获得45岁以上有效样本2324人。结果发现，在控制了一系列人口学变量后，线上社会参与对抑郁症状三轮交叉滞后效应显著。2013年的抑郁症状对2015年的线上社会参与没有显著的负向影响，但2015年的抑郁症状对2018年的线上社会参与负面影响显著。线上社会参与和抑郁症状呈现了相互影响的关系，且线上社会参与对抑郁症状的影响更强也更稳定。

研究二以社区816名45岁以上中老年人为对象，验证“老年人社交网络量表(SNS Older Adults Measure } SNS-OA”在中国的适用性。结果显示，量表具有较好的区分度;探索性因子分析发现修订后的量表符合五因素模型;且修订后量表具有良好的拟合效度、良好的内部一致性信度、效标关联效度和跨性别等值性。它为后续研究测量以社交为目的的线上社会参与提供了适宜的测量工具。

在前两项子研究的基础上，研究三以社区1091名45岁以上中老年群体为对象，基于自我决定理论中的基本心理需求满足考察线上社会参与和抑郁症状的中介机制，以及现有社会网络规模对上述中介机制的调节作用。首先，作为自我决定理论的核心观点，基本心理需求满足中介了线上社会参与和抑郁症状的关系，即线上社会参与通过增强中老年人的自主需求、胜任需求和关系需求的满足感而降低了抑郁症状。其次，社会网络规模调节了“线上社会参与一基本心理需求满足一抑郁症状”这一中介效应的前半段路径。无论社会网络规模高低，中老年人均可以通过增加线上社会参与频率，提升基本心理需求满足程度，进而降低抑郁水平。但相较于高社会网络规模的个体，低社会网络规模的中老年人效果更明显。同时，社会网络规模调节了线上社会参与和抑郁症状的直接关系。在控制了三个基本心理需求满足的基础上，对于低社会网络的中老年人，较高频率的线上社会参与行为可以缓解抑郁症状。然而，对于高社会网络的中老年人，较多的线上参与反而会加大抑郁风险。

本论文通过三项研究总体上证明了线上社会参与对中老年人心理健康的积极作用、关系机制和边界条件，拓展了自我决定理论的解释范围，相关发现对社会资本理论和活动理论提供了进一步的证据支持。研究发现还从互联网使用和社会关系角度为中老年人抑郁症状的预防和临床干预提供了启发。另外，修订后的中文版“老年人社交网络量表”也为未来线上参与的研究提供了标准化的测量工具。

Depressive symptoms have become an important health problem threatening the middle-aged and elderly population in China, which seriously affects their quality of life and the realization of the goal of active aging in China. The positive effects of social participation on mental health problems, including depressive symptoms, have been widely documented. With the rapid development of digital technology, the penetration rate of the Internet among middle-aged and elderly people has increased rapidly. As a new form of social participation and interaction, online social participation has attracted increasing attention for its impact and significance on the mental health of middle-aged and older adults. In the context of the rapid development and interwoven development of "new" technology and "old" aging, it is particularly important to investigate the impact and mechanism of online social participation on mental health of middle-aged and elderly people, and to propose corresponding intervention strategies accordingly. In this study, three substudies using database and self-collected data were conducted to examine the relationship between online social participation and depressive symptoms, and their mediating mechanism from self-determination perspective, as well as the moderating effect of social network size on the above mediating effect.

In Study 1，three waves of tracking data (2013, 2015 and 2018) from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) database were used. Cross-lagged analysis was used to investigate the interaction between online social participation and depressive symptoms. Through ID matching of three waves of data, 2324 valid samples over 45 years old were obtained. The results showed that after controlling for a range of demographic variables, online social participation had a significant three-round cross-lagged effect on depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms in 2013 had no significant negative effect on online social participation in 2015, but depressive symptoms in 2015 had a significant negative effect on online social participation in 2018. Online social participation and depressive symptoms showed an interactive relationship, and the effect of online social participation on depressive symptoms was stronger and more stable.

Study 2 tested the applicability of "SNS Older Adults Measure (SNS-OA)" in a community of 816 middle-aged and older adults over 45 years old in China. The results showed that each item of the scale had a good differentiation. Exploratory factor analysis found that the revised scale conformed to the five-factor model; The revised scale had a well goodness of fit, good internal consistency reliability, criterion-related validity and measurement invariance across gender. It provides a suitable measurement tool for the follow-up study to measure online social participation for social purposes.

On the basis of the first two sub-studies, Study 3 was conducted to investigate the mediating mechanism of online social participation and depressive symptoms based on the basic psychological needs satisfaction theory in 1091 middle-aged and elderly people aged over 45 years in the community, and the moderating effect of the existing social network size on the mediating mechanism. First of all, as the core idea of self-determination theory, basic psychological needs satisfaction mediated the relationship between online social participation and depressive symptoms, that was, online social participation reduced depressive symptoms by enhancing the autonomy, competence and relatedness needs satisfaction in middle-aged and elderly people. Secondly, social network size moderated the first half of the mediating effect of "online social participation一satisfaction of basic psychological needs一depressive symptoms". Regardless of social network size, middle-aged and elderly people can improve the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and then reduce depressive symptoms by increasing the frequency of online social participation. However, compared with individuals with high social network size, the effect was more obvious in middle-aged and elderly people with low social network size. The study also confirmed that social network size moderated the direct relationship between online social participation and depressive symptoms. On the basis of controlling the three basic psychological needs satisfaction, higher frequency of online social participation can alleviate depressive symptoms for middle-aged and elderly people with low social network size. However, for middle-aged and older adults with high social network size, greater online participation was associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms.

In this paper, three studies were conducted to demonstrate the positive effects, relationship mechanisms and boundary conditions of online social participation on the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people, which expanded the interpretation scope of self-determination theory, and provided further evidence support for social capital theory and activity theory. The findings also provided inspiration for the prevention and clinical intervention of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and elderly people from the perspective of Internet use and social relations. In addition, the revised Chinese version of the "SNS Older Adults Measure" also provided a standardized measurement tool for future research on online participation.