read article and do worksheet
Empirical Article Worksheet Rubric
Name:______________________________________ Date:_______________________
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Good |
Marginal |
Needs Improvement |
Unacceptable |
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Question # 1 Purpose and Importance of Study |
4 Strong response is present. All important points are included. |
3 Credible response is present, but one important point is missing. |
2 Credible response is present; but some important points are missing. |
1
A response is provided; however the responses are inadequate and missing many points. |
0 No response is provided. Contains direct quotes. |
/4 |
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Question #2 Research Method |
3 Strong response is present. All important points are included. |
2 Credible response is present, but one important point is missing. |
1 Credible response is present; but some important points are missing. |
0.5 A response is provided; however the responses are inadequate and missing many points. |
/3 |
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Question #3 Participants and Information |
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Question #4 Results |
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Question #5 Take-Home Message and Benefit of New Information |
4 Strong response is present. All important points are included. |
3 Credible response is present, but one important point is missing. |
2 Credible response is present; but some important points are missing. |
1 A response is provided; however the responses are inadequate and missing many points. |
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Mechanics |
2
No spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. |
1
1-2 spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. |
0.5
3-4 spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. |
0
5+ errors or difficult to read. |
/2 |
Total: /20
Tips for reading empirical articles
1. What is an empirical article? Empirical articles can be called by many names including peer reviewed, scholarly, refereed, scientific or academic. These articles are typically found in academic journals, which you will find on the USM library website. There are many different types of journals for different subjects, such as Child Development, Health, Aging, Psychology, and many, many more. It is important to understand the difference between an empirical article and some other source. Empirical articles are found in scholarly journals, are reviewed by experts in the field, and have strict publication requirements. Magazine, newspaper, or Internet website articles (wikipedia) are NOT empirical. Empirical articles can be intimidating, so here are some tips on how to read and understand empirical articles.
2. There are basically 2 types of articles that you might find in a scholarly journal:
Original (Primary) – This is where a person, or a group of people, have performed their own research, collected their own data and are reporting the unique results of their findings. This is an empirical article.
Review (Secondary) – This is where someone has looked at other people’s research and has compiled information about a certain topic from several different sources. Reviews can be helpful in determining trends or getting a general overview of what has already been researched about a topic. However, these are NOT considered empirical because they are not based on original research.
3. Read the abstract first. This is a summary of what the article is about, and will help to give you the main idea before you start.
4. Ask yourself a few questions:
Who is being studied? (teenagers, the elderly, women, a certain ethnic group, college students, etc)
What are they trying to figure out? (attitudes about something, links between two variables, effectiveness of a certain program, this list could go on and on…)
How did they figure this out? (a questionnaire, interviews, an observation, a long term study, an experiment, etc.)
What did they find? (was the hypothesis correct?, a correlation between two things, something is causing something else, how people really feel about a topic, etc.)
What does this mean for you? (does this information support your stance on an issue? refute it? did you learn something about a group of people, how can we use this information to help people? etc.)
5. Journal articles are divided into sections (these may vary a little bit from article to article, but this is a basic outline of what you will typically find):
· Abstract – This is a basic summary of the entire article.
· Introduction- This explains why this topic information is important, and gives a general explanation of the topic, etc.
· Literature Review – This explains what we already know about a topic based on previous research. The authors will typically use data from several other empirical articles that have been previously published to give a history of what has already been found out about this topic.
· Methodology – This gives the step by step explanation of how the authors conducted their research. This section will tell you who was studied, how many people, their ages, ethnicity, etc. It will also explain how the data was collected, such as an interview, a questionnaire, an experiment, etc. This section basically just explains the exact process that the authors went through to get to their findings.
· Results – This section gives the actual data that resulted from the research. There will typically be a lot of numerical data, graphs and charts, and a lot of technical terms in this section. For example, the authors will state how many participants answered a certain way, or give a breakdown of percentages of how subjects scored on an assessment, etc.
· Discussion – This is the section that actually explains what the results mean. The results section can be difficult to understand, but they usually give a more clear picture of the findings in the discussion section. Read this section carefully, as it will explain what the researchers found during their study.
· Conclusion – This tells the reader how the information can be applied to real life, and explains what these findings mean for the field of study. Some suggestions might be given on what further research needs to be done, or how professionals can use this information.
· References – This is the section where the authors give appropriate credit for the sources they used when writing their paper. If the author refers to previous research in the literature review or introduction, the details of that previous research will be found in the reference section.
Empirical Article Worksheet #1
Read the following Empirical Article, and then complete this worksheet. Look at the file called “Tips for reading empirical articles” if you need help.
Name and Author of Article: Control or involvement? Relationship between authoritative parenting style and adolescent depressive symptomatology by B. F. Piko & M. A. Balazs (2012)
Please answer the following questions with complete sentences, in your own words. Your answers will be graded on accuracy and thoughtfulness. Do not use direct quotes from the original article, or from any other sources. Check your Originality report to make sure you do not have any direct quotes (you may do this as often as you like before the due date). Make sure to proofread for grammatical, spelling, and punctuation. Download this document, type in your answers, save as a new file, and upload your completed file into the Turnitin link on Canvas.
1. What was the purpose and importance of the study?
2. What did the researchers do? What was their scientific research method?
3. Who were the participants in the study and what did they have to do? What kind of information did researchers collect?
4. What were the results of their study?
5. What was the take-home message from the study? What new information did they find and how will it benefit youth and families?
O R I G I N A L C O N T R I B U T I O N
Control or involvement? Relationship between authoritative
parenting style and adolescent depressive symptomatology
B. F. Piko • M. Á. Balázs
Received: 14 September 2011 / Accepted: 13 January 2012 / Published online: 24 January 2012
! Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Among factors predicting adolescent mood
problems, certain aspects of the parent–adolescent rela-
tionship play an important role. In previous studies, chil-
dren whose parents had an authoritative style of parenting
reported the best behavioral and psychological outcomes.
Therefore, the main goal of this paper was to investigate
the role of authoritative parenting style and other family
variables (negative family interactions and positive iden-
tification with parents) in adolescents’ depressive symp-
tomatology. The study was carried out in all primary and
secondary schools in Mako and the surrounding region in
Hungary in the spring of 2010, students of grades 7–12
(N = 2,072): 49.2% of the sample were males; 38.1%
primary school pupils; and 61.9% high school students.
Self-administered questionnaires contained items of mea-
suring depressive symptoms (CDI) and parental variables
beyond sociodemographics. Beyond descriptive statistics
and calculation of correlation coefficients, multiple linear
regression analyses were applied to detect relationships
between parental variables and depressive scores by gen-
der. Overall, our data support a negative association
between authoritative parenting style and adolescent mood
problems, particularly among girls. Among boys, only
mother’s responsiveness was a significant predictor.
Among girls, father’s parenting played a decisive role; not
only his responsiveness but also demandingness. Interest-
ingly, mother’s demandingness went together with an
elevated depressive score for girls. Prevention programs
cannot guarantee success without taking into account the
role of parents. Teaching positive parenting seems to be a
part of these prevention programs that may include facili-
tating intimate yet autonomous relationships.
Keywords Depressive symptoms ! Mood problems !
Authoritative parenting style ! Protective factors !
Parent–adolescent relationship
Introduction
Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disor-
ders during adolescence that may lead to less positive
adjustment in adulthood [10]. Besides biological modifi-
cations in this life period, changes in the functioning of
adolescents’ social network, particularly with parents and
peers may also contribute to mood problems [23]. During
adolescence, parental influence is decreasing while at the
same time the quest for personal autonomy is increasing
[31]. The role of parents, however, is more latent and
controversial as compared to the role of peers [35]. It is
evident that during adolescence, emotional closeness to
parents may diminish and conflicts with them tend to
increase [38]. The lack of emotional warmth and less
open communication may lead to developing problem
behaviors [22]. Despite these processes, however, the
parent–adolescent relationship continues to serve as a rel-
evant adaptive and protective mechanism by providing a
secure base for adolescent’s well-being [17]. Particularly
secure attachment to parents is an important correlate
for youth’s psychological adjustment [24, 42]. Besides
mother’s positive developmental role [1], studies also
support the adolescent’s relationship with the opposite-sex
parent in personality development [39].
Parenting is thought to exert a powerful influence on
psychosocial development, for better or for worse [15].
B. F. Piko (&) ! M. Á. Balázs
Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of Szeged,
Szentharomsag street 5, Szeged 6722, Hungary
e-mail: pikobettina@yahoo.com
123
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2012) 21:149–155
DOI 10.1007/s00787-012-0246-0
Among others, it has a long-term impact on learning
effective or inadequate coping strategies [45]. In addition,
parenting deeply influences children’s development of
personality and self-concept [28, 39]. Certain aspects of the
self-concept, such as low levels of self-acceptance or self-
esteem may lead to cognitive dysfunctions and mood
problems [40]. Previous studies found that neglecting,
rejecting and dominantly overcriticizing or disapproving
parenting practices are the most likely to contribute to the
development of depression; these parenting behaviors as
aversive reactions destroy their self-esteem and worsen
their problem-solving capacity [25]. Whereas parental
monitoring provides protection, too harsh parenting control
represents another type of depression-prone childrearing
that restricts adolescent autonomy. A cold manner of par-
ent–child relationship, together with an excessive regula-
tion of children’s activities, reduces perceived mastery and
induces helplessness [44]. Besides, the overprotective,
dysfunctional or inconsistent parental practices also affect
vulnerability to depression [12]. All in all, the inadequate
family climate, conflicts, low family cohesion, lack of
parental social support all contribute to adolescents’ mood
and behavioral problems; whereas parent–adolescent con-
nectedness, security of attachment and parental monitoring
may serve as a protection [1, 2, 4, 27, 35].
Not surprisingly, parenting as a type of family influence
recently has received increasing research attention in
relation to adolescent adjustment [41]. Parenting style
describes parent–child interactions across a wide range of
situations independently of parental behavior [8]. Parenting
style encompasses a wide range of parent–child relation-
ship including parental warmth, control, support and
communication and leads to significant developmental
outcomes in children. There are two basic dimensions of
parenting styles: responsiveness (parental warmth, accep-
tance, reflectiveness and involvement) and demandingness
(control, monitoring or strictness). In their widely applied
two-dimensional classification model, Maccoby and Martin
[26] distinguished four parenting styles: authoritarian (low
responsiveness and high demandingness), authoritative
(high responsiveness and high demandingness), neglectful/
indifferent (low responsiveness and low demandingness),
and indulgent/permissive (high responsiveness and low
demandingness). The authoritative parenting style has
a meaning of both parents’ reflectiveness in terms of their
children’s psychosocial needs (e.g., connectedness, trust,
emotional warmth) and adequate parental monitoring
(e.g., when parents set a curfew and they know where
the children are when they are away) [31]. More precisely,
it represents both rational and emotional aspects of
childrearing. This parenting style is closely connected to
adaptive mechanisms of the personality development,
such as resilience, internal locus of control or self-esteem
[13, 39, 41]. In previous studies, children whose parents
had an ‘‘authoritative’’ style had the best outcomes on a
number of behavioral and psychological measures. Among
others, its protective effects were justified in terms of
adolescent depression [37], anxiety [3], substance use [18,
19, 32], aggressive and violent behavior, carrying a weapon
and poor school adjustment [20, 43]. The authoritative
parenting style may be linked to adolescents’ mood prob-
lems both directly [37] and indirectly mediated by parent–
child attachment [29]. In a retrospective study, adults who
reported previous experiences with authoritative parenting
style during childhood were less likely to suffer from
depression later [41].
Although we know more and more about these issues,
further research is needed to focus on detecting possible
protective factors in understanding the context of adoles-
cent depressive symptomatology in population-based
studies. In Hungary, we know much less about the familial
protective factors and parenting style particularly in rela-
tion to adolescent mood problems. In addition, parenting
style may also vary depending on cultural issues; for
example, within an authoritarian culture, the parenting
styles may act in a different way as compared to a liberal
culture [12]. In Hungary, the radical change from socialism
to capitalism has brought about changes at a variety of
levels, and consumerist (and more liberal) lifestyle may
influence not only youths’ well-being but also parental
practices as well. Obviously, cultures in Eastern Europe
had more experiences with authoritarian than authoritative
manner in behaviors [34].
Therefore, we aimed to detect whether authoritative
parenting style might have an association with Hungarian
adolescents’ depressive symptomatology. More specifi-
cally, the main goal of this paper was to investigate the
role of authoritative parenting style (demandingness and
responsiveness) and other family variables (negative fam-
ily interactions and positive identification with parents) in
mood problems in a nonclinical (healthy) sample of ado-
lescents. Due to sociocultural, socioeconomic changes and
the impact of globalization particularly we anticipated that
authoritative parenting style might play a decisive role in
this sample similar to previous studies from other cultures.
In addition, we aimed to detect possible gender differences.
Previous studies reported gender differences not only in
occurrence of depression, but also in the structure of risk
and protective factors influencing it [9, 35]; particularly in
role of the social network [33]. Not surprisingly, social
norms still expect greater emotional attachment to parents
and behavioral obedience from girls and they also tend to
receive greater parental control [6]. Finally, we expected
greater role of the opposite-sex parent’s behavior in rela-
tion to adolescent mood problems that may be an important
issue during the gender role socialization [11].
150 Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2012) 21:149–155
123
Methods
Participants and procedure
Data were collected in Mako, southeastern region of
Hungary, and the villages in its suburban area in the spring
of 2010. All middle and high school students (grades 7 and
12) in this region were invited to participate in the survey.
Of the 2,394 questionnaires sent out, 2,072 (aged between
12 and 21; mean = 15.4 years, SD = 1.8 years; 49.2%
males and 50.8% females; 38.1% middle school students
and 61.9% high school students) were returned and ana-
lyzed giving a response rate of 86.5%. The remaining
students likely consisted of youth absent or those youth
whose parents did not want them participating in the
study.
Parents were informed about the study and their con-
sent was obtained. Using a standardized procedure of
administration-trained graduate students distributed the
questionnaires to youth in each class, after briefly
explaining the study objectives and giving the necessary
instructions. Students completed the questionnaires during
the class period. Student participation was voluntary and
confidential.
Measures
The questionnaire contained items on sociodemograph-
ics, adolescents’ depressive symptomatology and parental
variables.
Depressive symptomatology was measured by a short-
ened version of the original 27-item Children’s Depression
Inventory (CDI) that is a self-rated depressive symptom
scale for young children adapted from the Beck Depression
Inventory for adults [21]. Each item of the original and
shortened versions assesses a single symptom, such as
sadness, and was coded from 0 to 2. The shortened version
of the CDI, based on the current data, was reliable with a
Cronbach’s alpha of 0.74. We weighted the shortened CDI
by a factor of 3.375 (number of original CDI items
27/shortened version items 8 = 3.375) for purposes of
comparing this sample with other Hungarian, European and
US samples of adolescents. Thus, the mean score and
standard deviation for this sample was 8.3 (SD = 8.8),
whereas a previous sample of high school students from
Szeged (a similar Hungarian sample) in 2008 yielded a
mean CDI score of 8.1 (SD = 8.0) [36]. The cutoff CDI
score for the upper 10% of the distribution for the current
sample was 20 similar to the previous sample mentioned
above.
Among the parental variables, two scales of the
Authoritative Parenting Index were applied to measure
parenting style [20]. The scales were translated and
back-translated by bilingual translators and were previously
validated and applied in Hungarian-speaking adolescent
samples [5]. The first scale was referred to ‘‘responsive-
ness’’ that contained nine items (e.g., ‘‘Mother/Father tells
me when I do a good job on things’’). The second scale
measured ‘‘demandingness’’ and contained 7 items (e.g.,
‘‘Mother/Father makes sure I tell him/her where I am
going’’). Response categories were based on the level of
agreement with the statements that varied from 1 = not at
all to 4 = entirely agree. The final scales were coded from 9
to 36 (responsiveness) and 7–28 (demandingness) and were
reliable with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.75 (both
mother’s and father’s responsiveness) and 0.70 (mother’s
demandingness) and 0.77 (father’s demandingness).
Besides authoritative parenting style, negative family
interactions were measured by using four items from the
Family Management Study [14, 16]. Similar to the pre-
vious index, these scales were also translated and back-
translated by bilingual translators. We asked the students
the following: ‘‘During the past month, how often have
your parents yelled at you/criticized your ideas/put their
needs ahead of your needs/hit you?’’ Response categories
were the following: 1 = never; 2 = once or twice a
month; 3 = 3 or 4 times a month; 4 = a couple of times
a week; 5 = almost everyday. Reliability coefficient
(Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.78. Finally, positive identifica-
tion with parents contained four items from the same study
as [14, 16]. The students were asked: ‘‘How close do you
feel to your parents?’’; ‘‘How much do you respect your
parents?’’; ‘‘How much do you want to be the kind of
person your parent is when you are an adult?’’; ‘‘How
often do you and your parent do things that you enjoy
together?’’ Response categories were the following:
1 = not at all; 2 = just a little; 3 = quite a bit; 4 = a lot.
Cronbach’s reliability coefficient was 0.76 with the current
sample.
Statistical methods
SPSS for MS Windows Release 15.0 program was used in
the calculations with a significance level of 0.05. The
analysis begins with an examination of the descriptive
statistics for both the dependent and independent variables.
Student’s t tests were calculated to test significance for
differences by gender. Bivariate relationships between
variables were tested by calculating correlation coeffi-
cients. The primary focus of the analyses was detecting the
association between parental variables and depressive
symptomatology by using multiple regression analysis.
Due to expected gender differences in the role of parental
variables as discussed earlier, regression analyses were
conducted separately for boys and girls, and age was also
controlled for.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2012) 21:149–155 151
123
Results
Table 1 provides detailed descriptive statistics for the
sample by gender. The mean CDI score was 7.23 (SD =
8.49) for boys and 9.23 (SD = 8.79) for girls. Gender
difference in depressive symptoms was significant (p \
0.001) as it had been expected. In terms of parental vari-
ables, gender differences could be justified only in levels
of mother’s scales: girls received more responsiveness
(p \ 0.01) and demandingness (p = 0.05) from their
mother.
Table 2 presents zero-order correlations among the
variables by gender. According to the correlation coeffi-
cients depressive scores in both sexes were positively cor-
related with negative family interactions and negatively
with positive identification with parents as well as with
parents’ responsiveness. Parents’ demandingness, however,
did not show a significant relationship either among boys or
girls (p [ 0.05). However, there was a negative association
between negative family interactions and parents’ respon-
siveness (r values [ 0.30 in each case). The variable of
positive identification with parents, on the other hand, was
positively associated with all elements of the authoritative
parenting style. In addition, mother’s and father’s parenting
styles significantly covaried (i.e., father’s demanding-
ness with mother’s demandingness: r = 0.60*** for boys
and r = 0.55*** for girls, and father’s responsiveness
and mother’s demandingness: r = 0.54*** for boys and
r = 0.36*** for girls). In addition, age was negatively
correlated with the authoritative parenting style (except for
mother’s responsiveness) and positive identification with
parents, regardless gender.
Table 3 presents regression estimates for depressive
symptomatology scores where multiple regression analyses
were used to examine the relative role of parental variables
for girls and boys separately. Age was a controlling vari-
able in the analysis. The negative family interaction vari-
able was associated with an elevated depressive score in
both sexes (boys: b = 0.30, p \ 0.001; girls: b = 0.26,
p \ 0.001). Among boys, only mother’s responsiveness
was a significant predictor (b = -0.13, p \ 0.01). Among
girls, besides father’s responsiveness (b = -0.14, p \
0.01), father’s demandingness also predicted their depres-
sive scores (b = -0.07, p \ 0.05). Mother’s demanding-
ness, on the other hand, was positively associated with
girls’ depressive symptomatology (b = 0.12, p \ 0.01).
All these parental variables explained 19% of the total
variation in depressive symptomatology scores for both
boys and girls.
Discussion
Among the social influences of adolescent mood problems,
the social network variables occupy a special place in the
structure of risk and protective factors [23, 35, 41]. Despite
the prolifical research in this field, we need more investi-
gations into the role of parents during adolescence. As
previous studies revealed, parents still played an important
role in their children’s lives and behaviors even in this life
period; however, in an altered form as compared to
childhood [17, 24, 42]. Whereas we know that parental
monitoring is a key protective factor for children’s
behaviors and well-being, controlling behavior of the par-
ents may change during adolescence [44]. Emotional
connectedness may also decrease due to adolescents’
thriving for autonomy [31, 38]. As previous studies dem-
onstrated, authoritative parenting style provided both
Table 1 Descriptive statistics
for depressive symptomatology
and parental variables by gender
Student’s t test
Boys mean (SD) Girls mean (SD) t value significance
Depressive symptomatology (CDI) 7.23 (8.49) 9.23 (8.79) t = -5.043
p \ 0.001
Negative family interactions 6.53 (2.67) 6.40 (2.50) t = 1.904
p [ 0.05
Positive identification with parents 10.83 (2.01) 10.88 (1.94) t = -0.578
p [ 0.05
Mother’s responsiveness 27.70 (4.33) 28.36 (5.14) t = -2.974
p \ 0.01
Mother’s demandingness 15.10 (4.45) 15.48 (4.24) t = -1.928
p = 0.05
Father’s responsiveness 26.22 (5.12) 26.52 (5.63) t = -1.184
p [ 0.05
Father’s demandingness 13.86 (4.98) 13.64 (4.81) t = 0.952
p [ 0.05
152 Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2012) 21:149–155
123
control and connectedness for adolescents in an optimal
compound [3, 18–20, 32, 37, 43]. Therefore, we applied a
measurement of authoritative parenting style to detect its
protective role in a sample of Hungarian youth, together
with some other parental variables.
Previous studies reported gender differences not only in
occurrence of depressive symptoms [36], but also in the role
of its influencing factors [9, 35]. Our findings also show a
higher level of depressive score among girls. Gender dif-
ferences in parenting style, however, may be detected only
in terms of mother’s behavior; girls received more respon-
siveness and demandingness from their mothers, whereas
there were no differences in father’s parenting style. It is
obvious that girls usually tend to receive more control [6];
however, as it seems it is related to mother’s parenting only.
Thankfully, girls receive not only more control from their
mothers, but also more responsiveness.
Overall, our data support the protective role of authori-
tative parenting style in relation to adolescent mood prob-
lems, particularly among girls. Interpreting the predictor
structure of depressive symptomatology, our findings
suggest that parenting style maybe related to girls’ and
boys’ behaviors in a different way. Among boys, only
mother’s responsiveness was a significant predictor. Among
girls, father’s parenting played a decisive role; not only his
responsiveness but also demandingness. Interestingly,
mother’s demandingness went together with an elevated
depressive score for girls. This may be explained by girls’
striving for autonomy that may get into conflict with
maternal control; whereas paternal control may be more
accepted by them as a part of the traditional masculine role
[23, 35, 44].
All in all, these findings support previous research
results on the importance of the opposite-sex parent in the
gender role socialization and personality development [39].
Although there was a strong correlation between father’s
and mother’s parenting style, their responsiveness and
demandingness may have a different role. For boys, the
father, for girls, the mother seems to be determinative that
may have a longstanding impact on adolescents’ behaviors
and later mental health [11]. It is also a highlighted gender
difference that despite girls’ increased level of depressive
symptomatology, more protective factors are available for
them from their social network, such as parents [33].
Besides authoritative parenting style, positive identification
with parents also proved to be a predictor among girls in
our study.
Our findings also suggest a continued important role of
parents in this life period; however, whereas parental
control is a strong protective factor for adolescent sub-
stance use or externalizing problem behaviors, it does not
provide protection against adolescent mood problems on its
own [31, 35, 44]. Overt and particularly manipulative
control often leads to undermining adolescent self-esteem
[25]. Whereas adequate parental control as a part of
parental monitoring is a normal behavioral regulation
stemming from the parents’ active role in socializing their
children to behavioral norms [31], this does not mean that
Table 2 Correlation matrix for bivariate relationships between depressive symptomatology and parental variables by gender
1 2. 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Depressive symptomatology (CDI) – 0.37*** -0.24*** -0.31*** 0.05 -0.27*** 0.03 -0.01
2. Negative family interactions 0.40***a – -0.20*** -0.47*** 0.08* -0.37*** 0.04 0.02
3. Positive identification with parents -0.25*** -0.31*** – 0.34*** 0.17*** 0.34*** 0.20*** -0.08*
4. Mother’s responsiveness -0.31*** -0.57*** 0.34*** – 0.01 0.54*** 0.02 -0.01
5. Mother’s demandingness 0.06 0.04 0.17*** 0.01 – 0.01 0.60*** -0.24***
6. Father’s responsiveness -0.29*** -0.36*** 0.29*** 0.36*** 0.04 – 0.03 -0.08*
7. Father’s demandingness -0.05 -0.08* 0.22*** 0.11*** 0.55*** 0.04 – -0.17
8. Age 0.04 0.02 -0.12*** -0.06 -0.23*** -0.09** -0.23*** –
* p \ 0.05; ** p \ 0.01; *** p \ 0.001
a Correlation coefficient. Boys above diagonal and girls below
Table 3 The role of authoritative parenting style and family vari-
ables in adolescents’ depressive symptomatology: multiple linear
regression analysis
Boys Girls
Age -0.04a -0.01
Negative family interactions 0.31*** 0.26***
Positive identification with parents -0.05 -0.11**
Mother’s responsiveness -0.11** -0.04
Mother’s demandingness 0.01 0.12**
Father’s responsiveness -0.06 -0.14***
Father’s demandingness -0.03 -0.07*
Constant 12.445*** 12.471***
R2 0.19*** 0.19***
* p \ 0.05; ** p \ 0.01; *** p \ 0.001
a Standardized regression coefficient
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2012) 21:149–155 153
123
there is no need for demandingness and parental control
even in this age period. These items of parenting style do
play an important role when they are part of a strategic
parental orientation in a fairly explicit childrearing. In a
word, demandingness is beneficial if it is completed with
parental responsiveness. The authoritative parenting style
included both of them.
While these findings provide clear evidence for the role
of parenting in adolescents’ mood problems, there are some
important limitations to the present study that should be
noted. Because of the cross-sectional study design, our
results cannot provide a cause-and-effect relationship.
Furthermore, we use self-reported data on depressive
symptoms without a clinical diagnosis that does not enable
us to determine adolescents’ mental health status, e.g.,
levels of clinical depression. In addition, due to the specific
cultural context of the study the findings may not be gen-
eralizable since differences across cultures in parenting
practices may result in different patterns of interrelation-
ships. Despite any cultural differences, however, our data
support a universal protective role of the authoritative
parenting style. Future research should focus on its role in
clinical depression as well, particularly applying a longi-
tudinal study design. Further studies should also take into
account the socioeconomic background of parents as a
possible contributor for parenting style.
As to practical implications, prevention programs
cannot guarantee success without taking into account the
role of parents. Many researchers suggest that teaching
positive parenting seems to be a part of these prevention
programs that may include facilitating intimate yet
autonomous relationships [7]. This would help avoid
mishandling familial conflicts as well. Authoritative par-
enting style, providing an optimal compound of control
and connectedness, help with effective problem solving
in the families [26]. In addition, as data from an empir-
ical study suggest, authoritative style is important not
only in terms of parenting, but also related to school
life: authoritative schools (that are both demanding and
responsive) have the best results for youth behavior
(e.g., disengagement, behavioral and psychological mea-
sures) [30]. Therefore, future research should focus on the
complex interactions among authoritative parenting,
school life and adolescents’ personality in relation to their
depressive symptomatology. Such data may enhance
positive youth development and prevention of depression
on a long term.
Acknowledgments This study was supported by the ETT
012-08/2009 research grant of the Ministry of Health Care (Hungary)
and in the frame of the following personal research grant: TÁMOP
4.2.1.-B/09/0/KONV-2010-005.
Conflict of interest None.
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