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Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models

BACKGROUND: According to the theory of emotional contagion, emotions in one person can trigger similar emotions in groups within social networks. In schools, the class just like a small social network, that teachers' emotion, such as depression, might be contagious to their students. However, u...

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Autores principales: Wu, Wenfeng, Lu, Yongbiao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8977487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35387183
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.804546
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author Wu, Wenfeng
Lu, Yongbiao
author_facet Wu, Wenfeng
Lu, Yongbiao
author_sort Wu, Wenfeng
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: According to the theory of emotional contagion, emotions in one person can trigger similar emotions in groups within social networks. In schools, the class just like a small social network, that teachers' emotion, such as depression, might be contagious to their students. However, until now there is few studies reporting this issue. This study aims to explore whether teachers' depression be contagious to students and what mechanics behind the phenomenon. METHODS: Using Children's depression and cognitive scales to assess 2,579 students, meanwhile using teachers' depression and emotional labor scales assess 529 teachers. The nested data from 112 classes were analyzed. RESULTS: Teachers' depression was positively correlated with emotional labor surface and deep acting, and teachers' depression cross-level predicted students' depression inversely. For teachers with higher levels of depression, the teacher's deep acting affected their students' depression significantly, the more effortful the teachers' deep acting, the lower the degree of the students' depression, however, for teachers with lower levels of depression, the deep acting was not significant. CONCLUSION: The results maybe state that depression in teachers is not readily transmitted to students, one of reasons is that teachers' emotional labor may alleviate the influence of their depression on students. However, considered that teachers' emotional labor was positively correlated with their depression, the teachers' emotional labor may be like a double-edged sword, while alleviating the influence of teachers' depression on students, it also deteriorated their own depression, making it impossible sustainable. For students' depression interventions based in school, including teachers maybe a better selection.
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spelling pubmed-89774872022-04-05 Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models Wu, Wenfeng Lu, Yongbiao Front Public Health Public Health BACKGROUND: According to the theory of emotional contagion, emotions in one person can trigger similar emotions in groups within social networks. In schools, the class just like a small social network, that teachers' emotion, such as depression, might be contagious to their students. However, until now there is few studies reporting this issue. This study aims to explore whether teachers' depression be contagious to students and what mechanics behind the phenomenon. METHODS: Using Children's depression and cognitive scales to assess 2,579 students, meanwhile using teachers' depression and emotional labor scales assess 529 teachers. The nested data from 112 classes were analyzed. RESULTS: Teachers' depression was positively correlated with emotional labor surface and deep acting, and teachers' depression cross-level predicted students' depression inversely. For teachers with higher levels of depression, the teacher's deep acting affected their students' depression significantly, the more effortful the teachers' deep acting, the lower the degree of the students' depression, however, for teachers with lower levels of depression, the deep acting was not significant. CONCLUSION: The results maybe state that depression in teachers is not readily transmitted to students, one of reasons is that teachers' emotional labor may alleviate the influence of their depression on students. However, considered that teachers' emotional labor was positively correlated with their depression, the teachers' emotional labor may be like a double-edged sword, while alleviating the influence of teachers' depression on students, it also deteriorated their own depression, making it impossible sustainable. For students' depression interventions based in school, including teachers maybe a better selection. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8977487/ /pubmed/35387183 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.804546 Text en Copyright © 2022 Wu and Lu. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Wu, Wenfeng
Lu, Yongbiao
Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title_full Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title_fullStr Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title_full_unstemmed Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title_short Is Teachers' Depression Contagious to Students? A Study Based on Classes' Hierarchical Models
title_sort is teachers' depression contagious to students? a study based on classes' hierarchical models
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8977487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35387183
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.804546
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