Parental psychological control and depression from late childhood to early adolescence: a four-wave longitudinal study of emotional resilience and gender differences

Parental psychological control has been found to be associated with children’s depression; however, the longitudinal mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. Grounded in the bioecological model, this study adopted a four-wave longitudinal design to examine the bidirectional associations between parental psychological control and depression, with emotional resilience as a mediator and gender as a moderator. Participants were 555 primary school students (Mage at T1 = 9.51 years, 49.0% girls) from eastern China. Cross-lagged panel models showed that parental psychological control was associated with later depression indirectly through emotional resilience, with a significant indirect effect (β = 0.096, 95% CI [0.037,0.155]). This indirect pathway differed by gender: it was significant among boys (β = 0.105, 95% CI [0.022,0.234]) but not among girls. These findings provide empirical evidence for understanding the development of depression during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and highlight the importance of considering gender differences when examining the developmental processes underlying children’s emotional problems.