Longitudinal relationship between basic psychological need frustration and adolescent depressive symptoms: From a within-person perspective

Although previous studies have shown that overall psychological need frustration predicts depressive symptoms in adolescents, it is still uncertain whether this applies to the specific components—autonomy, relatedness, and competence frustration—and whether depressive symptoms, in turn, predict these components. Therefore, this study conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey and employed random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) to examine the bidirectional within-person associations between autonomy, relatedness, and competence frustration and adolescent depressive symptoms. Additionally, potential sex and developmental stage differences were explored. A total of 3,188 adolescents from Sichuan, China, participated in the study ( M age = 13.81, SD = 1.51, 51.44% girls), including 1,513 seventh graders ( M age = 12.30, SD = 0.49, 51.42% girls) and 1,675 10th graders ( M age = 15.17, SD = 0.48, 50.57% girls). The results showed that from Time 1 to Time 2, autonomy, relatedness, and competence frustration did not significantly predict adolescent depressive symptoms, but their predictive effects became significant from Time 2 to Time 3. Conversely, depressive symptoms consistently predicted all three forms of frustration across both time intervals. Further subgroup analyses revealed that these dynamic relationship patterns were consistent across sex and developmental stage. These findings underscore the importance of closely monitoring the dynamic interplay between psychological need frustration and depressive symptoms in adolescents, enabling timely interventions to prevent escalation into a vicious cycle.