Psychological Development and Education ›› 2024, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (1): 93-102.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2024.01.10

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Parental Psychological Control and Children’s Anxiety: A Moderated Mediating Model

ZHAO Jingwei1, CHEN Xiaoxu1, REN Liwen2, GENG Zhe1, XU Fuzhen1   

  1. 1. School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358;
    2. Shandong Art and Culture School, Jinan 250014
  • Published:2024-02-20

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Abstract: The present study investigated the prediction of parental psychological control on children’s anxiety, exploring the mediating role of parent-child conflict and moderated effect of children’s effortful control. A total of 464 primary school students and their parents from Shandong province were surveyed with cluster sampling twice with one year interval by using the Parental Psychological Control Questionnaire, the Child-Parent Conflict Subscale of Child-Parent Relationship Scale, the Effortful Control Subscale of Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire and the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale. The results indicated that: (1) Levels of parental psychological control could positively predict the following children’s anxiety, and the prediction of mother’s psychological control was stronger than that of father; (2) Parental psychological control had positive actor effect on parent-child conflict, and maternal psychological control had positive partner effect on father-child conflict; (3) Mother-child conflict could mediate the prediction of maternal psychological control on children’s anxiety, which was moderated by children’s effortful control, that is, the higher level of children’s effortful control could buffer the impact of mother-child conflict on children’s anxiety.

Key words: psychological control, parent-child conflict, effortful control, children’s anxiety

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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