Jian Jingkang, Qin Xuemei, Gao Wenxin, Xu Fuzhen
School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
The New South Wales Department of Education, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
J Youth Adolesc. 2025 Jun 18. doi: 10.1007/s10964-025-02204-w.
Although reciprocal associations between changes in parental overprotection and children's anxiety are theoretically expected, there is a lack of empirical evidence on these linkages that tap into both between-family differences and within-family effects. This longitudinal multi-informant study examined reciprocal associations between parental overprotection and children's anxiety at the between- and within-family level, as well as explored whether these linkages differed by informant, parental role, and children's gender. A total of 471 children (55.2% for boys, M at T1 = 9.73, SD = 0.57), their fathers (N = 466, M at T1 = 38.92, SD = 4.13), and mothers (N = 469, M at T1 = 37.55, SD = 3.85) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study with one-year intervals. Results from random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM) indicated that at the between-family level, paternal overprotection, maternal overprotection, and children's anxiety were positively correlated with each other. While at the within-family level, in the parent-reported model, children's anxiety predicted an increase in parental overprotection after one year, with a stronger predictive effect on maternal overprotection than that on paternal overprotection, and in the child-reported model, positively reciprocal predictive effects were found between maternal overprotection and children's anxiety over time, and in the cross-informant-reported models, maternal overprotection reported by children could positively predict the following children's anxiety reported by parents. The above results did not differ between boys and girls. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of disentangling the between-family and within-family effects, and it is crucial to consider the perceptions of both parents and children in longitudinal research concerning the reciprocal associations between parenting behaviors and children's psychosocial development.
尽管从理论上预期父母过度保护的变化与孩子的焦虑之间存在相互关联，但缺乏关于这些联系的实证证据，这些联系涉及家庭间差异和家庭内效应。这项纵向多 informant 研究在家庭间和家庭内层面考察了父母过度保护与孩子焦虑之间的相互关联，还探讨了这些联系是否因 informant、父母角色和孩子性别而有所不同。共有 471 名儿童（男孩占 55.2%，T1 时的均值 = 9.73，标准差 = 0.57）、他们的父亲（N = 466，T1 时的均值 = 38.92，标准差 = 4.13）和母亲（N = 469，T1 时的均值 = 37.55，标准差 = 3.85）参与了一项为期三年、间隔一年的纵向研究。随机截距交叉滞后面板模型（RI-CLPM）的结果表明，在家庭间层面，父亲的过度保护、母亲的过度保护和孩子的焦虑彼此呈正相关。而在家庭内层面，在父母报告的模型中，孩子的焦虑预测了一年后父母过度保护的增加，对母亲过度保护的预测作用比对父亲过度保护的更强；在孩子报告的模型中，随着时间推移，母亲的过度保护与孩子的焦虑之间存在正向相互预测效应；在交叉 informant 报告的模型中，孩子报告的母亲过度保护能够正向预测随后父母报告的孩子焦虑。上述结果在男孩和女孩之间没有差异。总体而言，这些发现凸显了区分家庭间和家庭内效应的重要性，在关于养育行为与孩子心理社会发展之间相互关联的纵向研究中，考虑父母和孩子双方的看法至关重要。
