Prospective within-family bidirectional effects between parental emotion socialization practices and Chinese adolescents' psychosocial adjustment

Previous research indicates that parental emotion socialization (ES) practices play important roles in adolescents' social and emotional development. However, longitudinal studies testing bidirectional effects are relatively scarce. Additionally, most studies have focused on people from Western societies. In the current 3-year, multi-informant, longitudinal study of Chinese adolescents and their parents, we investigated prospective bidirectional effects between parental positive ES practices and adolescents' psychosocial adjustment (i.e., self-esteem and depressive symptoms). Adolescents (N = 710 at T1, 50% boys, Mage = 12.41, SD = 0.59) reported on parental positive ES practices and their own depressive symptoms and self-esteem when they were in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. Mothers and fathers reported on their own use of positive ES practices at all three time points. We utilized a random intercept cross-lagged panel model to examine between- and within-family effects. Overall results showed robust effects of adolescent depressive symptoms on parental positive ES practices and bidirectional effects between parental ES and adolescent self-esteem. Effects differed by informants whether using adolescent-perceived data, or mother- or father-reported data. However, these child effects and bidirectional effects did not differ by adolescent sex. Our findings add to the understanding of parental ES and adolescent psychosocial adjustment.