Affective Representation of Early Relationships with Parents and Current Anxiety and Depression

Tony Xing Tan, Yanhong Liu, Qiumei Zhang, Gen Li, Xiongying Chen, Jun Li

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Research on the role of early relationships with parents on youth’s anxiety and depression, especially in collectivist societies such as China, is limited. To fill this gap, we investigated the unique role of early relationship with mothers and fathers, respectively, in Chinese youth’s anxiety and depression outcomes. The participants were 347 Chinese college students from 20 provinces. They first separately rated the frequency of experiencing 13 emotions (e.g., anger) from recalling early relationships with their mothers and fathers, then completed the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. Logistic regression was performed to determine the unique contribution of early relationships with mothers and fathers, respectively, to the participants’ clinical-level anxiety and depression. Based on the final model of our logistical regression, we found that an increase in negative affective representation of early relationship with the mother was associated with a higher likelihood of clinical level anxiety (OR = 3.58; 95% CI = 1.32–9.70), while an increase in positive affective representation of early relationship with the mother was associated with a lower likelihood of clinical-level depression (OR = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.25–0.87). Furthermore, an increase in negative affective representation of early relationship with the father was associated with a higher likelihood of clinical-level anxiety (OR = 3.36; 95% CI = 1.37-8.26) and depression (OR = 3.68; 95% CI = 1.59-8.52), above and beyond their affective representation of early relationship with the mother.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)235-249
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Genetic Psychology
Volume183
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Keywords

  • Affective representation
  • Chinese youth
  • anxiety
  • attachment
  • depression

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Life-span and Life-course Studies

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