Profiles of Adversity Across Family, Peer, and School: Predicting Depressive and Externalizing Symptoms Through Belief in a Just World Among Chinese Adolescents.

This study examined how childhood maltreatment, bullying victimization, and weakness in social competition co-occur and are associated with adolescent adjustment through belief in a just world (BJW). Data were collected from 1,302 Chinese adolescents over six months. Latent profile analysis identified three adversity profiles: low-adversity profile (84.2%), moderate-adversity, predominantly family maltreatment profile (11.2%), and high-adversity, predominantly peer-related profile (4.6%). Adolescents in the moderate- and high-adversity profiles reported more depressive and externalizing symptoms than those in the low-adversity profile, with the high-adversity profile showing the highest symptom levels. Multicategorical mediation analyses indicated that both general and personal BJW indirectly linked adversity profiles to depressive symptoms, whereas only general BJW indirectly linked adversity profiles to externalizing symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of co-occurring adversity patterns and suggest that BJW may serve as a partial psychological mechanism linking adversity profiles to adolescent adjustment.