The reciprocal relationships between Chinese children’s perception of interparental conflict, negative thinking, and depression symptoms: A cross-lagged study

Abstract

The present longitudinal study used the traditional cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) and autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals (ALT-SR) to examine the relationships between perceived interparental conflict (IPC), negative thinking (NT), and depression symptoms in Chinese children. Changes in these three variables over time were also examined, as well as the trait and state aspects of the relationships between them. A sample of 516 third-grade primary students completed questionnaires about IPC, NT, and depression three times over a period of 1 year, at 6-month intervals. The CLPM findings indicated that, assuming that stability of each variable across time was controlled, Chinese children’s perception of IPC significantly affected their level of depression through the mediating path of NT. After taking trait factors into account, among all the significant autoregressive and cross-lagged paths originally found in the CLPM, only one third remained significant in the ALT-SR model. More specifically, the ALT-SR model, revealed a driving effect of children’s NT on perceived IPC and depression symptoms. The CLPM model although elucidated the interplay among three variables, the ALT-SR model showed little evidence of their interrelated growth across time. Taken together, these results indicate that children’s perceived IPC in the long term are a stable trait, with few state-level fluctuations, and is not a significant within-person predictor of subsequent children’s internalization problems. These perceptions appear to contribute more to children’s general psychological tendency than do changes over time. The research is the first to test the reciprocal relationships between Chinese children’s perceived IPC, NT, and depression symptoms. The findings demonstrate that previously proposed theories about the bidirectional relation between IPC and children’s social adjustment, to some extent, may reflect a correlation at a trait level. Put another way, it is IPC’s central tendency to be sensitive in the long term as a stable trait that is associated with their children’s general tendency to show well adjustment. The study contributes to our understanding of that extend previous results and have implications for complementary theoretical and practical interventions. The complementary techniques of CLPM and ALT-SR models offer different insights into children’s internalization problems, and hold promise for supporting the building of more comprehensive children’s developmental theories that acknowledge the interconnectedness of different domains of mental health.

Effects of interparental conflict on children's depression in the context of COVID-19: Does parent–child conflict play a role?

“…This result was in line with previous studies ( Bai et al, 2022 ; Jekielek, 1998 ; Zhen et al, 2022 ). For instance, a study of 516 primary school students found that interparental conflict was significantly positively associated with the level of children's depressive symptoms ( Yang et al, 2022 ). In fact, some researchers have pointed out that conflicts between parents exert an adverse impact on children's development and might result in externalizing or internalizing behavior problems ( Rhoades, 2008 ).…”

“…Hence, future studies can adopt multi-dimensional scales ( Grych et al, 2010 ; Straus et al, 1998 ) to comprehensively evaluate interparental conflict and parent–child conflict. Second, although most studies acknowledged that verbal antagonism was the most important dimension of conflict within a family ( Grych et al, 1992 ; Yang et al, 2022 ), some relevant studies operationalized interparental conflict and parent–child conflict as negative verbal interactions such as nagging and quarreling ( Leung, 2020 ; Sherrill et al, 2017 ), while others assessed family conflict using multi-dimensional scales ( Gunlicks-Stoessel et al, 2010 ; Zhen et al, 2022 ). It is noteworthy that the difference in conceptual operationalization limited the comparisons between this study and those relevant studies.…”

How Coparenting Is Linked to Depression among Chinese Young Girls and Boys: Evidence from a Network Analysis

“…A higher total score indicates a higher severity of depressive symptoms. Previous research has demonstrated the Chinese version of the CES-D scale's robust internal consistency and construct validity in a sizable sample of Chinese adolescents [88][89][90][91][92][93], and it has been used to assess depression in Chinese children and young adolescents [88,89,92,93]. This three-factor structure showed good model fit in various studies conducted with Chinese early adolescents [90,92].…”

“…The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale was originally developed by Radloff in 1977 and has been widely used for depression measurement [87,88]. In the current study, the Chinese version of the CES-D was employed to assess depression among the participants [89][90][91].…”

Parent-child attachment mediates the association between parental conflict perceptions and suicide intention: a cross-sectional survey among middle school students in China

“…Example items were as followed: (1) “I can't make myself feel better when my mom and dad fight”; (2) “My mom and dad usually still make up after every argument”. The CPIC has been validated in a Chinese context, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.92, indicating excellent reliability ( 49 ).…”