Joint developmental trajectories of anxious/depressive symptoms and aggressive behavior in Chinese adolescents: The roles of contextual, personality, and cognitive factors

Why the Teen Years Can Turn Stormy

High school can be a pressure cooker, especially in places where a single exam can shape a young person’s future and mental health support is scarce. This study followed more than 1,500 Chinese adolescents in a relatively poor city to see how two common problems—feeling anxious or depressed and acting aggressively—develop together over time. The researchers also asked what in teens’ past and present lives makes it more likely that they will struggle or, in some cases, actually improve. Their findings help explain why some teens seem to spiral, others stay mostly well, and a few manage to pull out of a difficult period.

Different Paths, Not One-Size-Fits-All

The team surveyed students three times over one year, asking about their anxious and depressive feelings—such as constant worry or sadness—as well as aggressive behaviors like arguing or lashing out. Instead of assuming all teens follow the same pattern, the researchers used statistical tools to uncover hidden subgroups with similar changes over time. They found that anxiety and depression alone followed four typical paths, from stable low levels to high symptoms that either stayed high or declined. Aggression showed three paths, ranging from low and stable to high but improving. When these were combined, four clear “joint” paths emerged: a large healthy group with low and slightly decreasing problems; a moderate group whose emotional distress and aggression slowly grew; a smaller group whose already high difficulties kept rising; and another small group that started out struggling but showed real improvement.

Growing Up Under Pressure

These patterns unfolded within a distinctive cultural and social backdrop. In this part of China, many families have limited income, and schooling is strongly focused on performance in the highly competitive college entrance exam. At the same time, mental health services and public understanding of psychological problems lag behind. In such a setting, teens may feel intense pressure to succeed but have few trusted outlets for their distress. The study suggests that, even under these strains, most adolescents manage to maintain relatively low levels of serious emotional or behavioral problems, though a sizeable minority do not. Cultural norms that prize emotional restraint and harmony may also influence how teens report their feelings and how openly they express anger.

Early Hurts That Leave a Long Shadow

To understand why some teens followed riskier paths, the researchers looked at experiences earlier in life. Those who reported more emotional abuse—such as insults, humiliation, or cruel criticism from caregivers—were much more likely to land in any of the problematic groups, whether their symptoms were moderate or severe, rising or falling. Emotional neglect, in which caregivers fail to respond to a child’s emotional needs, showed a more targeted effect: it was especially tied to the group that started high in both anxiety and aggression but then improved. A personality trait called rejection sensitivity—the tendency to expect and strongly react to being left out or criticized—also tilted teens toward non-healthy paths. These early hurts and sensitivities seem to create a general vulnerability that can surface as both inner turmoil and outward conflict.

How Teens Cope—and Find Meaning—Matters

Not all influences were harmful. Teens who said they often used positive coping strategies—such as problem-solving, seeking support, or channeling stress into schoolwork or hobbies—were more likely to stay in the healthy group. Those who relied more on negative coping, like trying to avoid or numb problems, were less likely to remain healthy and more likely to end up in the highest-risk path where both anxiety and aggression grew together. A strong sense that life has purpose and meaning offered an extra layer of protection, particularly against drifting into the most severe group. Together, these findings show that while early adversity and sensitive personalities can raise the odds of trouble, everyday thinking habits and coping choices can either fuel or dampen that risk.

What This Means for Teens, Families, and Schools

For families, teachers, and policymakers, the study sends a hopeful but urgent message. Anxious, depressed feelings and aggressive behavior in adolescence do not follow a single, doomed route; some teens worsen, some remain fairly stable, and some who start off struggling do get better. Yet these paths are not random. Emotional abuse, neglect, and intense fear of rejection push young people toward more troubled patterns, while supportive caregiving, healthier coping skills, and a sense of meaning can pull them back toward healthier development. Investing in parent education, trauma-informed school practices, and programs that teach coping and help teens explore values and purpose could shift more adolescents from risky paths into the large, healthy group—and perhaps even transform some high-risk trajectories into stories of recovery.

Citation: Zhao, Q., Zhou, X., Jiang, N. et al. Joint developmental trajectories of anxious/depressive symptoms and aggressive behavior in Chinese adolescents: The roles of contextual, personality, and cognitive factors. Sci Rep 16, 12081 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-40217-y

Keywords: adolescent mental health, anxiety and depression, aggressive behavior, childhood emotional abuse, coping and resilience