Parental psychological control, adolescent self-criticism, and adolescent depressive symptoms: A latent change modeling approach in Belgian adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: At the level of both between-person differences and within-person changes across time, parental achievement-oriented psychological control may influence the development of adolescent self-criticism, which in turn may increase vulnerability for adolescent depression.

METHOD: In a two-wave prospective study of 368 adolescents (age 13-17 years), Latent Change Modeling was used with Belgian adolescents' self-report measures.

RESULTS: For mothers and fathers separately, adolescent self-criticism intervened in associations between achievement-oriented psychological control and adolescent depressive symptoms, at the level of both between-person differences and within-person changes. When investigating parents simultaneously, only maternal parenting was related directly and indirectly to adolescent depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results underscore the importance of personality-related vulnerability in associations between the parenting environment and symptoms of psychopathology during adolescent development.