Investigating the Moderating and Mediating Effects of Dysfunctional Attitudes and Self-Esteem on the Relationship between Social Support and Depression among Late Adolescents in Klang Valley Malaysia: A Moderated Mediation Model

Seeing that the interdependence between adolescent depression and impairments in psychosocial functioning is conspicuous and evident, scrutiny on social support and cognition is a sine qua non of stimulating the psychological well-being amongst adolescents, expressly those in the stage of late adolescence who are discerned at higher risk of getting depressed. Hence, the moderated mediation model in the present investigation has been instigated to appraise the moderating and mediating effects of dysfunctional attitudes and self-esteem on the one-way relationship between social support and depression in late adolescence. Prior to this inspection, a pilot test has already been orchestrated to examine and ensure satisfactory psychometric properties of the assessment tool employed. A set of questionnaire encompassing self-report Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were manoeuvred in a sample of 522 late adolescents taken from two local secondary schools and a university in Klang Valley, Malaysia. By way of implementing a series of multivariate analyses, the study divulged that self-esteem has noteworthily played its role of moderating the predictive relationship between social support and depression which mediated by dysfunctional attitudes in the samples, whereas the moderating effect of dysfunctional attitudes on the relationship among social support, self-esteem and depression has been insignificant, showing that dysfunctional attitudes is a remarkably consistent mediator in the one-way relationship between social support and depression moderated by self-esteem. Following the research findings, discussion has been carried out to elucidate the phenomenon.