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.