PERCEPTIONS OF PARENTING AND DEPRESSION-PRONENESS IN THE OFFSPRING - DYSFUNCTIONAL ATTITUDES AS A MEDIATING MECHANISM

This research attempted to clarify the mechanism through which dysfunc tional parenting leads to depression in the offspring. Consistent with theorizing by Beck (1967), we rested a three-stage casual pathway whe rein dysfunctional parenting should give rise to dysfunctional attitud es in the offspring which, in turn, should give? rise to depression-pr oneness in the offspring Another objective of this study was to furthe r delineate the types of parenting behaviors that give rise to dysfunc tional attitudes in the offspring To this end, a large sample of colle ge students (N = 246) completed measures assessing four parenting dime nsions (i.e., low care, overprotection, perfectionistic expectations, and criticalness) as well as measures assessing dysfunctional attitude s, general depression-proneness, and current depression. Support for t he depressogenic effects of all four parenting dimensions was obtained in that each parenting dimension correlated significantly with dysfun ctional attitudes and depression tendencies in the offspring Moreover; path analyses supported Beck's three-stage casual model with perfecti onistic and critical parenting playing a particularly prominent role. Last, after controlling for current depression, the partial correlatio ns among the variables In the three-stage model remained significant, suggesting that the present findings were not simply the result of a m ood congruency effect. These findings illuminate additional parenting behaviors that can have depressogenic effects and indicate that these parenting behaviors exert their effects, at least in part, by way of i nstilling dysfunctional attitudes in the offspring.