Age-Varying Associations between Psychologically Controlling Parenting, Chinese Children’s Cognitive Appraisal, and their Depressive Symptoms

• In Event: Parental Psychological Control or Autonomy Granting and Child Outcomes Across Age and Gender in China

Abstract

Psychologically controlling parenting (PCP) includes intrusive parenting practices such as shaming, love withdrawal, and guilt induction (Barber, 1996). Although detrimental effects of PCP on adolescents’ social-emotional development are found in both Western and Asian cultures (Wang et al., 2007), certain dimensions of PCP may positively affect young children’s social development in Chinese families (Yu et al., 2019). Further, negative associations between parents’ PCP and child outcomes may be buffered by children’s positive interpretations in the Chinese context (Cheah et al., 2019). However, the developmental changes of PCP and its age-varying associations with child development across childhood and adolescence have not been examined. The present study aimed to examine: (1) Developmental trends in parent-reported and child-perceived psychologically controlling parenting and children’s positive appraisals of such parenting from childhood to adolescence; (2) Age-varying associations between parents’ psychologically controlling parenting, children’s cognitive appraisals of such parenting, and children’s depressive symptoms in Chinese families; and (3) The roles of parent and child gender in these age-varying associations.

Parents and their 8 to 15-year-old children (N = 1349) from Shanghai, China, rated parents’ PCP at 3 time points. Children also reported on their positive interpretations of parents’ use of PCP and depressive symptoms. Parent psychological control was a composite score generated from both mother- and father-reported psychological control. Parent age and education were controlled in the analyses. Time-varying effect modeling was used to examine the developmental changes of parent-report and child-perceived PCP, children’s positive interpretation of these practices, and their associations with children’s depressive symptoms.

Parents reported a constant level of PCP across child age, whereas children perceived increasing parental use of psychological control and made less positive interpretations of PCP from childhood to adolescence (Figure 1). Both parent-report and child-perceived PCP were associated with more depressive symptoms in children, with the association between parent-report PCP and child depressive symptoms peaking at around age 11 (Figure 2). Children’s positive interpretations of PCP were associated with fewer depressive symptoms, and this association increased in strength with age (Figure 2). The developmental changes and associations were similar for maternal and paternal psychological control but different for boys and girls.

Findings highlighted early adolescence as a risk period during which psychologically controlling parenting may be particularly detrimental to child development. Children start seeking more autonomy and independence after entering early adolescence (Wilson & Deane, 2012), leading PCP to have increasingly detrimental effects on their social-emotional development. The benefits of children’s positive interpretation of their parents’ PCP indicated by its association with fewer depressive symptoms also increased with age along with their autonomy demands. Children’s perception of increasing PCP and decreasing positive interpretations of these practices could help reconcile previous findings of the varying effects of Chinese parents’ PCP on child development at different ages. The implications of these findings within the Chinese context and how they inform developmental theories will be discussed.

Authors

• Huiguang Ren, University of Maryland - Baltimore County
  Non-Presenting Author

• Junsheng Liu, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Charissa S. L. Cheah, University of Maryland - Baltimore County
  Non-Presenting Author