Drift Theory Of Mental Health

Youth Theories: A Look at Existing Theories on the Mental Health of Youth

Abstract: This paper examines four main theories that could help identify and explain the determining factors of the mental health condition of youth, especially youth with a low socioeconomic status. The Social Causation Theory, Drift Hypothesis, Stress Theory, and the Hopelessness Theory of Depression have been examined in the context of youth. Based on an examination of existing literature, the Social Causation Theory, Stress Theory, and the Hopelessness Theory of Depression were found to be capable of identifying and explaining the determining factors of the mental health of youth, especially youth with a low socioeconomic status.

Introduction

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Lapouse et al. (1956) hypothesised based on previous studies that under the impact of schizophrenia, an individual’s social and economic status deteriorates. However, in their own study Lapouse et al. (1956) found that the prevalence of schizophrenia in low income areas was not the cause of a downward drift in their socioeconomic status. Hence, there is little evidence to suggest that the drift hypothesis is as valid as the social causation theory. In fact, Faris and Dunham in their study of mental disorders in urban areas (as cited in Lapose et al., 1956) found that young people with schizophrenia who never even had the chance to have a high socioeconomic status were just as likely to be living in a poorer locality as the older patients. Therefore, the drift hypothesis which accuses mental illness as the cause of the low economic status of individuals is not very suitable for explaining the determining factors of the mental health of

Hence, youth having a low socioeconomic background who are bound to face stressful life events due to poverty (Leonard, 2009) are also vulnerable to depression. In other words, youth face stressful life events as a consequence of poverty which leads them to believe that their situation is hopeless. This feeling of hopelessness makes them vulnerable to depression. Some of the tests done to examine the practical applicability of the theory have shown that the theory is partly valid in the real world. Alloy and Clements (1998) for example wanted to test the symptom component of the hopelessness theory of depression. The study found that hopelessness was concurrently and prospectively associated with symptoms of depression but as opposed to theory, hopelessness failed to predict two symptoms that were hypothesised to be part of hopelessness depression, namely, sadness and low energy. Hankin, Abramson, and Siler (2001) tested the hopelessness theory of depression on adolescents and found that the cognitive vulnerability-stress part of the hopelessness theory of could be applied to middle to late adolescence. Hence, from theoretical and practical point of view, it can be said that this theory can be used to explain depression in youth with a poor socioeconomic