Children's cognitive appraisal moderates associations between psychologically controlling parenting and children's depressive symptoms

Abstract

Introduction: This study examined three different types of Chinese children and adolescents' perceptions of psychologically controlling parenting (love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming), their cognitive appraisals of such parenting, and their depressive symptoms. Specifically, the moderating role of children's cognitive appraisal on the association between each type of psychologically controlling parenting and children's depressive symptoms was assessed. Child age and gender effects were also explored. Methods: Children (n = 992, M age = 10.23 years) and adolescents (n = 427, M age = 13.56 years) in Shanghai, China, reported on their parents' engagement in love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming practices, their appraisals of how much they thought their parents engaged in each of these parenting practices for their (the children's) own good, and depressive symptoms. Results: Moderated multiple regressions revealed that parental love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming were associated with more depressive symptoms, which were buffered by children's positive interpretations. Moreover, the moderating effects of positive parenting interpretations were stronger for adolescents than for younger children, but no gender differences in the moderation effects were found. Conclusions: Overall, our findings revealed the critical role of child cognitive appraisals in the effects of parenting practices on child outcomes and highlighted the importance of examining the meaning and function of different dimensions of psychological control within a specific cultural context. Important developmental differences in the role of these cognitive appraisals and the effects of specific parenting practices were also identified.Psychologically controlling parenting refers to parental use of guilt induction, love withdrawal, invalidating feelings, erratic emotional behavior, personal attack, and constraining verbal expressions (Barber, 1996). Such practices involve intrusive parenting that draws upon guilt, shame, or fear of love and attention withdrawal to control the child's psychological world. Based on Selfdetermination Theory, it has been argued that this pattern of parenting practices undermines children's development of basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000; and contributes to the development of internalizing problems (Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994;Barber & Harmon, 2002).

Taking adolescents’ agency in socialization seriously: The role of appraisals and cognitive‐behavioral responses in autonomy‐relevant parenting

“…However, this moderating effect was limited in terms of effect size and was not consistent across all parenting practices and across all outcomes. Cheah, Yu, Liu, and Coplan (2019) similarly showed that benign appraisals of several controlling parental behaviors (love withdrawal, guilt‐induction, and shaming) dampened effects of these behaviors on adolescents’ depressive symptoms, without however totally cancelling out these effects.…”

“…In the moral domain adolescents are more inclined (than in other domains) to perceive guilt‐induction as a well‐meant practice to help them understand misbehavior. Adolescents’ attributions of controlling parenting practices were also found to become more negative with increasing age (Cheah et al., 2019; Rote & Smetana, 2017). This finding is consistent with the more general observation that adolescents, as they grow older, become increasingly sensitive to and critical toward parental attempts to pressure them in a certain direction (Helwig, To, Wang, Liu, & Yang, 2014; Pomerantz & Eaton, 2000).…”

Children's interpretation moderates relations of maternal autonomy support with sociability and assertiveness in China

“…A parenting-related belief that is viewed as particularly important in Chinese children and thus received attention from researchers is child-beneficial interpretation of parenting, which refers to appraising parental behaviors as motivated by concern for the child rather than for the parents or family (Camras et al, 2012;Cheah et al, 2019). Previous studies indicate that child-beneficial interpretation of parenting may have an impact on the effects of parental behaviors (Camras et al, 2012(Camras et al, , 2017Cheah et al, 2019;Soenens et al, 2015). For example, Cheah and colleagues (2019) found that Chinese children who interpreted their parents' use of guilt induction and shaming as "for children's own good" were less likely to experience depressive symptoms.…”

“…As such, it might be better to assess child-beneficial interpretations at each time point. In this study, considering that children's interpretations of parenting behaviors are often related to the effects of parenting on child outcomes in a proximal manner (Camras et al, 2017;Cheah et al, 2019), we assessed child-beneficial interpretation of maternal autonomy support at Time 2. Future studies should examine whether the results are similar when parenting behaviors and child interpretations are assessed at the same time point.…”

The Relationship between Cognitive Appraisals and Social Problem Solving with Coping Styles with Stressful Factors in University Students

“…One of the factors related to coping styles is cognitive assessment (Kang & et al, 2018). Cognitive assessment of people's successes and failures increases or decreases effective behaviors in their development, and these assessments play a mediating role between stressors and the consequences of stress, and individuals choose and use the appropriate coping style according to interaction with the environment and others (Cheah & et al, 2019). This structure consists of two parts: primary and secondary assessment.…”