The Impact Of Parental Psychological Aggression In Middle And Late Childhood On Children’s Depressive Symptoms And Its Mechanisms

Psychological aggression is a commonly used harsh parenting strategy around the world.It is harmful to children’s development and wellbeing,and may be particularly salient in influencing children’s depression and other negative emotional problems.To date,studies that have considered the children’s negative outcomes of harsh parenting strategies have typically focused on physical aggression,while psychological aggression has received less attention.It remains unclear how does parental psychological aggression affect children’s development,and via what mechanisms.Recently,some researchers have examined the associations between parental psychological aggression and individual depressive symptoms,and they mainly focused on adolescents and adults,however it is of great significance to explore the influence of parental psychological aggression on children’s depressive symptoms for the early prevention of depressive disorder.Because the incidence of depressive disorder is getting younger,depressive symptoms are quite common in childhood.In addition,children have increased autonomy and independence during middle and late childhood,which is a crucial transition stage from child to adolescent.In this transition stage,parents may adjust their discipline behaviors to children’s characteristics,while high controlling parenting behaviors,such as psychological aggression,would be more harmful for child development.Moreover,parental psychological aggression experiences may have cumulative effects on children’s depressive symptoms.Yet,most of the relevant studies were cross-sectional or retrospective,and focused on the influence of the "level" of parental psychological aggression on depressive symptoms.There is a dearth of literature investigating the cumulative effects of parental psychological aggression on children’s depressive symptoms from a perspective of development.Furthermore,few research explored the mechanisms underlying the relations between parental psychological aggression and children’s depressive symptoms.Based on the above consideration,three empirical studies were conducted to examine the cumulative effect of parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood on children’s depressive symptoms,and explore the interpersonal and cognitive neural mechanisms underlying the associations.Specifically,in Study 1,four hundred and fifteen primary school students and their parents completed a series of measures at three time points with 1-year intervals in between,and the main goals of the present study were to examine the effects of trajectories of parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood on children’s depressive symptoms.The cumulative effects of parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood on children’s depressive symptoms was revealed from the perspectives of "variable center" and "individual center".Based on Study 1,Study 2 further examined the multiple mediating effects of multi-field(parent-child,teacher-student,and peer)interpersonal adjustment on the relations between parental psychological aggression trajectories in middle and late childhood and children’s depressive symptoms.The key interpersonal mediating paths were observed.In Study 3,the mediating mechanism of attention bias was examined by using a task-based fMRI method.FMRI activation data were acquired with the dot-probe task in 36 healthy primary children at the third time point in a longitudinal study.The influence of parental psychological aggression on children’s cognitive neural development and its relations with children’s depressive symptoms were revealed.The thesis indicated that:(1)In terms of the developmental characteristics of parental psychological aggression,parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood was relatively stable overall;three distinct psychological aggression trajectories(a low-stable trajectory,a moderate-increasing trajectory,and a high-decreasing trajectory)were identified separately for fathers and mothers;and four joint developmental trajectories of fathers and mothers psychological aggression(a low-decreasing trajectory,a moderate-stable trajectory,a moderate-increasing trajectory,and a high-decreasing trajectory)were identified,which suggested a synchronous model of paternal and maternal psychological aggression development in middle and late childhood.Compared to girls,boys experienced more frequent parental psychological aggression at each time points.However,there was no significant child gender difference in changes of parental psychological aggression.(2)In terms of the impact of parental psychological aggression on children’s depressive symptoms,there were long-term and cumulative negative effects of parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood on children’s depressive symptoms.The dynamic cumulative effects pattern of parental psychological aggression on children’s depressive symptoms was consistent with the chronic risk hypothesis.The depressive impacts of parental psychological aggression were more harmful for boys than for girls.(3)In terms of the interpersonal mechanism,parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood leads to higher levels of children’s depressive symptoms by damaging children’s interpersonal adjustment,among which poor relationships with adults(parent-child attachment and teacher-student relationship)were more powerful mediators than relationship with peers.There was no significant gender difference in the interpersonal mechanism.(4)In terms of cognitive neural mechanism,higher levels of parental psychological aggression were associated with children’s attention bias away from anger faces,as well as increases in attention to happy faces.However,such cognitive neural function change related to parental psychological aggression did not trigger children’s depression symptoms.The mediating effects of children’s attention bias on the associations between parental psychological aggression and children’s depressive symptoms were not significant.To summary,to the best of our knowledge,the present study is the first study to explore the effects of parental psychological aggression in middle and late childhood on children’s depressive symptoms,as well as the underlying mechanisms,in Chinese culture context systematically by using multiple methods from a perspective of development.Our results revealed the cumulative risk of parental psychological aggression on children depression,and found the mediating paths through damaging children’s interpersonal adjustment.We also found children’s cognitive neural function changes related to parental psychological aggression,however the changes reflected children’s current effortful adjustment and were not associated with depressive risk in the short term.Future studies could examine the long-term effects of such cognitive changes on adolescents’ and adults’ depressive symptoms by using a longer follow-up design.The present findings had great importance for furthering understanding the cumulative impact of parental psychological aggression on child development,provide an important empirical basis for promoting the scientific family education,as well as,improving precision of prevention and intervention efforts for children depression.