The Relationship Between Parenting Style And Adolescent Depression:The Moderating Effect And Intervention Of Parental Empathy

Adolescent depression is closely related to parenting styles,but we have limited understanding of the mechanisms behind the relationship.Parental empathy is a potential factor affecting parenting style.In the family system,parents’ empathy for their children can be expressed as the perception,understanding,acceptance and sharing of their children’s thoughts and emotions.Previous studies have shown that there may be a relationship between parental empathy and family rearing styles,and that parents’ empathy in parent-child interaction is also related to their children’s internal and external problems such as depression.However,the mechanism by which parental empathy affects depression in children remains unclear.Therefore,this paper explores the regulatory mechanism of parental empathy on the relationship between parenting styles and depressive emotions in adolescents,and examines the improvement effect of parental empathy intervention on depressive symptoms in adolescents.Study 1 was conducted among 111 pairs of adolescents and their parents in grade one of a high school in Anhui Province.The questionnaire investigated the regulating mechanism of parental cognitive empathy and affective empathy on the relationship between parenting style and children’s depressive emotion.The results showed that:(1)Parents’ cognitive empathy negatively moderated the predictive effect of children’s perceived warmth on children’s depression level(β=0.19,p<0.05),that is,the lower the parents’ cognitive empathy,the stronger the negative predictive effect of children’s perceived warmth on children’s depression level;(2)Parental cognitive empathy positively moderates the predictive effect of perceived overprotection on children’s depression level(β=0.17,p<0.1),that is,the higher the cognitive empathy of parents,the higher the positive predictive effect of perceived overprotection on children’s depression level;(3)Parents’ affective empathy has no significant effect on children’s depressive mood.To further examine the effect of depressive symptoms on parental empathy and the moderating effect of parental empathy on the relationship between parenting and depressive symptoms in clinical samples,Study 2 recruited 26 pairs of clinically depressed adolescents and their parents and 31 pairs of healthy adolescents and their parents.The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy(QCAE)and the pain empathy paradigm were used to measure the degree of parental cognitive empathy,affective empathy,and pain empathy.The results showed that:(1)QCAE cognitive empathy of parents in clinical depression group was lower than that in healthy control group(t=-1.87,df=55,p<0.1,Cohen’s d =-0.50),but there was no significant difference in QCAE affective empathy between the two groups.(2)There were no significant differences in the dimensions of pain empathy between the clinical depression group and the healthy control group;(3)In the pain empathy paradigm task,parents’ discomfort dimension(β=-0.24,p<0.05)and arousal dimension(β=-0.26,p<0.05)positively moderated the predictive effect of parents’ perceived warmth on their children’s depression level.The higher the parents’ discomfort and emotional arousal in the face of pain pictures,the stronger the negative predictive effect of parents’ perceived emotional warmth on their children’s depression level.In order to examine the influence of improving parental empathy on adolescent depression,Study 3 firstly reviewed the research status and effects of empathic intervention on family members through a meta-analysis,and then conducted a case study on this basis.The relevant literatures from January 1972 to November 2022 were systematically searched,and 7 target literatures were obtained after screening.The results of the meta-analysis showed that empathic intervention for non-professional family caregivers had a moderate effect on improving their empathic ability(SMD=0.51,p<0.1).Then,two groups of clinically depressed adolescent families were recruited,and the parents were respectively given empathic intervention.Five semi-structured parent interviews were conducted to deeply understand the characteristics of parent-child interaction,and the interview cycle was used as the time clue to code the emotional changes of children reported by parents.Combined with changes in pretest and posttest data of children’s self-rated depression,the short-term effects of parental empathy on children’s depressive emotions were tested.The results showed that: During the parents’ interview cycle,the children’s mood changes from negative to positive.Parents’ appropriate empathy plays a positive role in relieving children’s depression.This paper shows that parental empathy is the moderating factor of the relationship between parenting style and depressive emotion in adolescents,and the moderating effect of different types of empathy is different.High level of cognitive empathy of parents is a protective factor for the development of depressive emotions in their children,but parents’ high level of pain empathy reflects their strong emotional response to negative stimuli,which is a risk factor for the development of depressive emotions in their children.The evaluation and intervention of parents’ empathy have positive significance to improve the mood of clinically depressed adolescents.