Socioeconomic status impact Chinese youth’s internalizing problems: The risk role of psychological insecurity and cognitive fusion

Background: Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to be associated with more internalizing problems in youth, but the mechanism of this relationship, has not been investigated in Chinese families. We tested the hypotheses that this association would be mediated by the youth’s psychological insecurity, and that there would be a moderating effect of cognitive fusion. Method Senior middle school students ( N  = 780, ages 16–19, 54.45% girls) were recruited to complete a self-report a measure of SES, the anxious/depression subscales of the Youth Self-Report, the Security Questionnaire and the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire. A moderated mediation model was tested in regression-based analyses. Results Results indicated that (1) psychological insecurity fully mediated the relationship between SES and adolescent internalizing problems; (2) high cognitive fusion adolescents show stronger positive association of psychological insecurity and internalizing problems; (3) cognitive fusion also moderated the mediated pathway. Conclusions Present results emphasize the important effect of a psychological security and resourced environment on adolescent development and adolescents’ excessive fusion with thoughts of overestimating interpersonal and environmental insecurity may strengthen the indirect pathway from SES to internalizing problems via psychological insecurity. The findings are discussed in terms of their possible practical application in acceptance and commitment therapy.