The Transactional Relationship between Parental and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Mediating Effect of Nurturant–Involved Parenting

Jinqin Hou, Zhiyan Chen and Fei Guo
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Jinqin Hou: National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing 100088, China
Zhiyan Chen: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China
Fei Guo: CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: Sameroff’s transactional theory emphasizes a bidirectional process between parents and offspring. The present study explored the reciprocal relationships between parental and adolescent depressive symptoms using a cross-lagged model and examined the mediating effect of nurturant–involved parenting on the relationship between them. Data for the present study were collected from a longitudinal study, and a total of 1644 adolescents and their mothers and fathers participated in the present study. The results revealed a reciprocal relationship between maternal and adolescent depressive symptoms, and the child-driven effect was more robust than the mother-driven effect. Adolescent depressive symptoms significantly predicted paternal depressive symptoms, but not vice versa. In addition, adolescent depressive symptoms indirectly predicted maternal and paternal depressive symptoms by deteriorating nurturant-involved parenting. These findings highlight a child-driven effect on parents’ psychopathology, which may shed light on the mechanism underlying depression transmission between parents and adolescents.

Keywords: depressive symptoms; transactional relationship; child-driven effect; parenting; adolescents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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