(PS12-44) Psychological Control, Aggression, and Depressed Mood in Middle and High School Students: A Longitudinal Examination

Background: Psychological control (PC) is a parental practice that has been shown to contribute to increased internalizing and externalizing behaviors for adolescents, potentially due to the parent’s intrusion on the adolescent’s sense of self. Directionality of these relationships is not well understood.

Objectives: This longitudinal study sought to increase understanding of the relationship between aggression, depressed mood, and parental PC in preadolescents and adolescents.

Methods: Youth in 6^th through 11^th grade at a rural middle and high school in the Midwest United States (N=226, 54% female and 45.6% male, one participant identified as another gender; ages 11-17, M=12.86 years) completed self-report measures across three timepoints from Fall 2018-Spring 2019 (T1, T2, T3). Limited demographic information was available for the sample. Consistent with the area, participants primarily identified as White and non-Hispanic. Bivariate correlations were run between variables and they were correlated in the expected directions. Preliminary linear regressions were conducted between T1 and T3 PC, depressed mood, and aggression.

Results: Results indicated that PC (R² = .06, F(1, 224) = 13.46, p < .001) and depressed mood (R² = .02, F(1, 224) = 4.19, p = .042) were significant predictors of aggression at T3. PC (R² = .17, F(1, 224) = 47.33, p < .001) and aggression (R² = .33, F(1, 224) = 7.71, p = .006) at T1 significantly predicted depressed mood at T3. T1 depressed mood significantly predicted T3 PC (R² = .14, F(1, 224) = 37.78, p < .001), but T1 aggression did not predict PC at T3 (R² = .01, F(1, 224) = 2.96, p = .087).

Conclusions: Findings reiterate the detrimental impact of parental PC on both internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors in youth over time, but do not support that youth aggression leads to increased PC. Interventions should focus on enhancing supportive and non-intrusive parental responses youth to avoid exacerbating adolescent psychopathology. Future work should include more diverse samples of youth to improve generalizability of results.