Parental attachment and depressive symptoms in Chinese adolescents: The mediation effect of emotion regulation

Objective: We examined if the links between adolescents' parental attachment and depressive symptoms are mediated by emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), and identified which mediator has a stronger mediation effect. Method: The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the “Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale” were distributed to 1955 Chinese adolescents (about 50% boys; 49% in senior high school; aged 10–20 years, M = 14.85 ± 2.86 years) from seven provinces. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, regression analyses, and mediation analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses. Results: The results showed that cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression partially mediated the associations between paternal and maternal attachment and depressive symptoms after controlling for grade and sex. Further, the indirect effects of parental attachment through cognitive reappraisal were stronger than those through expressive suppression. Conclusions: These findings suggest that adolescents with secure parental attachment (vs. insecure) have a lower risk of developing depressive symptoms and that increasing use of cognitive reappraisal and decreasing use of expressive suppression may help adolescents reduce their depressive symptoms.