The Longitudinal examination of the directional effects between perceived parental psychological control and adolescents’ self-reported externalizing and internalizing problems in Lithuania

The negative effect of parental psychological control on offspring adjustment have been well documented (Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994; Bögels & Brechman, 2006), but few studies have examined the independent impact of mother’s and father’s parenting practices, and the role of adolescent's externalizing and externalizing problems on parental behaviors. This study examined longitudinally these reciprocal relationships taking into account adolescents’ gender, age, and family socio-economic status. Analyzes were based on 3-year longitudinal data from the POSIDEV study in Lithuania with a total of 586 adolescents aged 15–17 from two-parent families who filled in the Youth Self Report (YSR 11-18, Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and the Psychological Control Scale-Youth Self Report (PCS-YSR, Barber 1996). We found evidence for both parents and adolescent effects with strongest effects for internalizing behaviors to parental psychological control and mothers' psychological control to adolescents' externalizing behaviors. No moderation effect of age and socio-economic status was found, indicating that relationship between psychological control and problem behavior is consistent in different age groups and independent of socio-economic status. Overall, the results provide support to a reciprocal model in that adolescents affect parents as much as parents affect adolescents