Parent-Child Relationships and Adult Depression

Abstract

Reports of early parental behavior provided by 714 hospitalized depressed patients were compared with those provided by 387 normal adults. The 2 groups were also compared on ratings of parental behavior along the acceptance-rejection and autonomy-control dimensions, based on reports of other informants. Differences between the groups suggest that depression in adult life may be related to parental rejection and control through techniques such as derision, negative evaluation, and withdrawal of affection during childhood. Maternal rejection was found more closely associated with depression in female than in male children, and the effect was essentially the same among black and white subjects. Paternal rejection, on the other hand, appeared more closely associated with depression in males than females among blacks, while among whites paternal rejection was related to depression in females rather than males. It is suggested that the thoughts of personal worthlessness and inferiority seen in depression and theorized by Beck to be of principal etiologic significance in the disorder may have their origin in the early parent-child relationships.

Parental Acceptance‐Rejection: Theory, Methods, Cross‐Cultural Evidence, and Implications

“…Parental rejection has been found to be consistently related to both clinical and nonclinical depression and depressed affect within major ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans (Crook et al 1981), Asian Americans (Greenberger and Chen 1996), European Americans (Belsky and Pensky 1988;Whitbeck et al 1993), and Hispanic Americans (Dumka et al 1997). Parental rejection has been found to be consistently related to both clinical and nonclinical depression and depressed affect within major ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans (Crook et al 1981), Asian Americans (Greenberger and Chen 1996), European Americans (Belsky and Pensky 1988;Whitbeck et al 1993), and Hispanic Americans (Dumka et al 1997).…”

EEG during different emotions in 10-month-old infants of depressed mothers

“…Families in our study were primarily lower income and African American therefore, our results may not be generalizable to a larger population of mothers and their infants. Ethnic, racial, and cultural factors have been shown to influence maternal depression and the models designed to predict the development of emotional problems (Crook et al, 1981;Harnish et al, 1995). For example in one study, Harnish et al (1995) found that maternal depression, mediated by the quality of the mother± infant interactions, predicted childhood behaviour problems in Caucasian children but not in African American children.…”

Gene–environment interplay between parent–child relationship problems and externalizing disorders in adolescence and young adulthood

“…For example, there is evidence for long-term associations between adolescent parent-child relationship quality and adult EXT (Bailey et al , 2011, Epstein et al , 2013), but it is unclear if adolescent parent-child relationship quality continues to moderate genetic influence on adult EXT. Relatedly, there is evidence of associations between adults’ reports of relationship quality with their parents and their own psychosocial development (Amato, 1994, Crook et al , 1981, Riggio, 2004, Seiffge-Krenke, 2006), but it is unclear if the quality of parent-child relationships in adulthood moderates genetic influence on adult EXT, or whether such effects are limited to childhood and adolescence. Questions such as these are important to address to better understand the role of development in the etiology of EXT.…”