A longitudinal network analysis of the dynamic interactions between academic stress, rumination and resilience in high school students.
Academic stress is prevalent among Chinese high school students and linked to adverse mental health outcomes, yet its interplay with rumination and resilience at the component level remains poorly understood from a cognitive transactional stress perspective.
This study investigated the interrelationships among academic stress, rumination and resilience at the subdimension level, examining both concurrent network structures and their temporal dynamics across three time points.
Three-wave longitudinal data were collected from 311 Chinese high school students (55.6% male; Mage = 16.21 years) in September 2024, January 2025 and April 2025.
Participants completed measures of rumination (symptom rumination, brooding, reflective pondering), resilience (goal focus, emotion regulation, positive cognition, family support, interpersonal assistance) and academic pressure (parental, self, teacher, social). Cross-sectional network analysis, network comparison tests, and cross-lagged panel network (CLPN) models examined network structure, temporal stability and prospective associations.
Cross-sectional networks revealed persistent negative associations between academic pressures and resilience resources. Symptom rumination consistently exhibited the highest strength centrality. Network structure remained globally invariant, though connectivity increased from T1 to T2. CLPN analyses revealed longitudinal associations between multiple academic pressure dimensions and both rumination and resilience dimensions across time, with rumination subdimensions (symptom rumination, brooding and reflective pondering) emerging as key bridge nodes connecting the two communities.
Academic stress, rumination and resilience operate as a dynamically interconnected network, highlighting theoretically informed pathways that could guide the development of future school-based interventions targeting academic pressure, cognitive regulation and resilience enhancement.
This study investigated the interrelationships among academic stress, rumination and resilience at the subdimension level, examining both concurrent network structures and their temporal dynamics across three time points.
Three-wave longitudinal data were collected from 311 Chinese high school students (55.6% male; Mage = 16.21 years) in September 2024, January 2025 and April 2025.
Participants completed measures of rumination (symptom rumination, brooding, reflective pondering), resilience (goal focus, emotion regulation, positive cognition, family support, interpersonal assistance) and academic pressure (parental, self, teacher, social). Cross-sectional network analysis, network comparison tests, and cross-lagged panel network (CLPN) models examined network structure, temporal stability and prospective associations.
Cross-sectional networks revealed persistent negative associations between academic pressures and resilience resources. Symptom rumination consistently exhibited the highest strength centrality. Network structure remained globally invariant, though connectivity increased from T1 to T2. CLPN analyses revealed longitudinal associations between multiple academic pressure dimensions and both rumination and resilience dimensions across time, with rumination subdimensions (symptom rumination, brooding and reflective pondering) emerging as key bridge nodes connecting the two communities.
Academic stress, rumination and resilience operate as a dynamically interconnected network, highlighting theoretically informed pathways that could guide the development of future school-based interventions targeting academic pressure, cognitive regulation and resilience enhancement.