The main purpose of this study was to examine pathways from parental psychological control, adolescents' dysfunctional perfectionism, and self-conscious emotions to adolescents' depression of adolescent boys and girls. The subjects were 471 10th and 1...
The main purpose of this study was to examine pathways from parental psychological control, adolescents' dysfunctional perfectionism, and self-conscious emotions to adolescents' depression of adolescent boys and girls. The subjects were 471 10th and 11th grade adolescents (212 boys and 259 girls) who were attending high schools in Seoul and Gyoung-gi Do. Data were collected via questionnaires rated by adolescents themselves and were analyzed by Structural Equation Model(SEM) using AMOS 16.0.
The main results of this study were as follows:
First, for girls, maternal psychological control showed a direct effect on depression, while, for boys, paternal and maternal psychological control didn't affect depression directly.
Second, only for girls, maternal psychological control showed indirect effect on depression through dysfunctional perfectionism and self-conscious emotions. For boys, paternal psychological control had an effect on dysfunctional perfectionism, and dysfunctional perfectionism affected self-conscious emotions. Adolescents' self-conscious emotions, however, didn't affect depression.
Third, for boys, paternal psychological control influenced depression indirectly through dysfunctional perfectionism, and for girls, maternal psychological control had an indirect effect on depression through dysfunctional perfectionism.
Finally, paternal or maternal psychological control didn't affect depression through self-conscious emotions for both boys and girls.
In conclusion, parental psychological control affected adolescents' depression both directly and indirectly through adolescents' dysfunctional perfectionism and self-conscious emotions, and there were significant differences in pathways between boys and girls. Considering this gender differences, intervention programs of adolescents' depression need to focus on differential aspects based on gender of adolescents. Especially, the findings that boys were significantly affected by paternal psychological control and girls were influenced by maternal psychological control supported the same-sex linkage hypothesis. In addition, adolescents' dysfunctional perfectionism was a major effect on adolescents' depression. This result confirmed that adolescents' intrapersonal characteristic, especially dysfunctional perfectionism, was an important variable leading to adolescents' depression.