Parental Bonding and Depressive Symptoms among Chinese College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Roles of Neuroticism and Social Support

Abstract

This study aims to examine the influence of parental care/control on depressive symptoms and the mediating roles of neuroticism and social support in their association among Chinese college students during the COVID-19. A sample of 2561 college students with an age range of 16 -26 (M age = 18.37, SD = 1.13, 29.05% boys) completed the care and control subscales of the Parental Bonding Instrument, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the neuroticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Social Support Rating Scale. Structural equation models indicated that parental care/control negatively/ positively predicted depressive symptoms. Furthermore, neuroticism and social support mediated the relationship between parental care/control and depressive symptoms, separately and sequentially. These findings may advance our understanding of the influences of multiple factors on Chinese college students' depressive symptoms under the background of COVID-19.

Effect of the emotional valence of autobiographical memory and parental bonding on depressive symptoms in a community sample

“…The mediation model tested whether the PBI subscales had indirect effects on depressive symptomatology through positive and negative autobiographical memories. This model was chosen drawing on previous studies analysing the impact of the perception of parental bonding on depressive symptomatology, studying the role of possible moderating variables 21 , 91 , 92 . The bootstrapping sampling procedure was performed with software AMOS.…”