Parental Psychological Control and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems among Adolescents: The Role of Rumination on Sadness and Anger

Jia Qiannan; Huang Yuancheng; Ma Jing; Li Caina

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240109

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (1) : 70-79. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240109

Parental Psychological Control and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems among Adolescents: The Role of Rumination on Sadness and Anger

Jia Qiannan, Huang Yuancheng, Ma Jing, Li Caina

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Abstract

Previous research has revealed that both internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence were prominent risk factors for developmental disorders in adulthood. Thus, identifying risk or protective factors of adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems would be helpful to provide theoretical bases for prevention programs. Parenting style has been documented to play a crucial role in adolescents’ development. Parental psychological control, as a typical negative parenting style, refers to parents' attempt to control children’s emotions and behavior through psychological means. According to the Social-ecological Diathesis-stress model, parental psychological control as a stressful life event may activate adolescents’ cognitive vulnerability (e.g., rumination), thus leading to negative developmental outcomes, such as depression and relational aggression. Moreover, rumination has been differentiated into sadness rumination and anger rumination. Sadness rumination has been conceptualized as repetitive thinking that focuses on one’s sadness, which will continually exacerbate adolescents’ negative emotions and make them unable to take positive and effective coping actions and gain support from others, thus increasing adolescents’ depression. In contrast, anger rumination refers to thinking repeatedly about anger and contributes to the maintenance and intensification of angry feelings. Adolescents with high anger rumination are more likely to be over-sensitive to negative social situations and to have rapid activation of aggressive schemas, which ultimately trigger their relational aggression. Therefore, this three-wave longitudinal study aimed at exploring the unique roles of both sadness rumination and anger rumination in the relationships between parental psychological control and depression/relational aggression.
A sample of 861 adolescents (57% male, M_age =12.73 years old, SD_age= .43 years old) was recruited from junior middle school located in western China, Xi’an, and followed for three time points, one year apart. After gaining informed consent from students, their parents, and schools, all participants completed a set of questionnaires which included the Parental Psychological Control Scale, the Sadness and Anger Rumination Questionnaire, The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Social Experience Questionnaire in their classroom during a class session. SPSS22.0 was used to calculate descriptive statistics and the correlations between study variables. Mplus 7.0 was performed to examine the hypothetical mediation model.
The result indicated that: (1) Parental psychological control increased adolescents’ depression and relational aggression behavior two years later. (2) The mediating effect of sadness rumination and anger rumination on parental psychological control and depression/ relational aggression was only significant for boys. That is, for boys, sadness rumination exclusively accounted for the relation between parental psychological control and depression, while anger rumination exclusively explained the relationships between parental psychological control and relational aggression behavior.
Our findings have revealed several new insights into the roles of both sadness rumination and anger rumination in the effect of parental psychological control on depression and relational aggression behaviors in adolescents. We found that adolescents would increase their depression mainly because of sadness rumination, whereas they would increase their relational aggression because of anger rumination. The results not only verified the effects of sadness rumination and anger rumination as two unique structures on adolescent mental health development theoretically, but also provide suggestions for follow-up intervention.

Key words

parental psychological control / depression / relational aggression / sadness rumination / anger rumination

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Jia Qiannan, Huang Yuancheng, Ma Jing, Li Caina. Parental Psychological Control and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems among Adolescents: The Role of Rumination on Sadness and Anger[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(1): 70-79 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240109

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