The Relationship Between Parenting And Individual Depression-social Withdrawal As A Mediator

Sufficient studies have found that compared to parents in western cultures, Chinese parents are normally applying an authoritarian parenting style. This style has long been studied in the western cultures and have been considered to have negative influences on the children's development outcome such as substance use, low self-esteem, as well as depression. This study is based on the existing paradigms on parenting and children's depression, as well as their interpersonal communication tendency, targeting on the indigenous sample of Chinese young adults. The measuring scales are adapted from well established ones widely used and have been proven to possess a high consistency and validity. Among the received 128 questionnaires, 111 were valid to obtain data, with a fair distribution of 49 females and 62 males.The data were analyzed using SPSS 11.5. The generated descriptive results shows that as agreeing with the previous studies indication, Chinese parents tend to practice firm control on their children, however, unlike the prevailing existing conclusions, Chinese parents also tend to show their affection towards their children.The correlation analysis was then taken to test the relationship between children perceived parenting, their depression tendency, and also their interpersonal situation. Results indicate that psychological control of parenting on children does not have a significantly negative correlation with the individuals'depression tendency, neither with their interpersonal communication conditions. Also interesting to find is that individuals'depression tendency and their willingness to communicate were more correlated with parents'acceptance than other two parenting behaviors– psychological control and behavioral control.Another purpose of this study is to find out the possible mediation influence that individuals'interpersonal communication status has between their parents'parenting behaviors and their depressive outcomes. Mediator analysis was applied and proved that individuals'willingness to communicate did act as a mediator between the parenting they received and their depressive tendency, indicating that individuals who have a characteristic to be shy and anxious, are more vulnerable to negative parenting practices, and thus results to a higher possibility of exposure to depressive mood.