Abstract Stress is viewed as the leading cause of mental health issues. Positive events, however, could act as a buffer against stress. Since the stress-buffering effects of positive events in previous studies were mainly examined by subjective self-reporting, continuous tracking research at individual behavioral levels still remains to be explored. In this study, we collected microblogs ( n = 27,346) from a group of high school students ( n = 500 ) to examine the relationship between positive events and stress-buffering patterns at both the content and behavioral levels. Through a pilot study of scheduled exams, we found that students taking exams with neighboring positive events appeared to exhibit less intense stress and more stable stress fluctuations. Most students talked less about exams when positive events occurred nearby. Hypothetical tests for stress-buffering effects of positive events and monotonic changes in the stress intensity under the impact of positive events were further conducted based on automatically extracted positive events ( n = 1,914) from the microblogs. The results showed that the stress-buffering effects of positive events were closely correlated with adolescents’ stress-change modes, microblog linguistic expressions, and posting behaviors. The study also showed that positive events buffered monotonic changes in stress intensity caused by stressor events. Based on these theoretical findings, the stress-buffering patterns around positive events were further incorporated for stress prediction in adolescents. This study could inform the use of social networks to estimate and track mental health transition in adolescents under stress. The theoretical and practical implications, limitations of this study and future work are discussed.

中文翻译：

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青少年积极事件的压力缓冲模式：基于社交网络的探索性研究

摘要 压力被视为心理健康问题的主要原因。然而，积极的事件可以作为压力的缓冲。由于以往研究中积极事件的压力缓冲效应主要通过主观自我报告来检验，因此个体行为水平的持续跟踪研究仍有待探索。在这项研究中，我们收集了一组高中生 (n = 500) 的微博 (n = 27,346)，以在内容和行为层面检查积极事件与压力缓冲模式之间的关系。通过对预定考试的试点研究，我们发现参加考试的学生似乎表现出较轻的压力和更稳定的压力波动。大多数学生在附近发生积极事件时很少谈论考试。基于从微博中自动提取的积极事件（n = 1,914），进一步对积极事件的压力缓冲效应和积极事件影响下压力强度的单调变化进行了假设检验。结果表明，积极事件的压力缓冲效应与青少年的压力变化模式、微博语言表达和发帖行为密切相关。该研究还表明，积极事件缓冲了压力源事件引起的压力强度的单调变化。基于这些理论发现，围绕积极事件的压力缓冲模式被进一步纳入青少年压力预测。这项研究可以为使用社交网络来估计和跟踪处于压力下的青少年的心理健康转变提供信息。