Maternal depressive symptoms, parental warmth, and adolescent prosocial behavior: Disentangling within- and between-family effects

Abstract

Background: The role of maternal depressive symptoms in adolescent prosocial behavior has attracted increasing research attention, but the temporal sequences and possible mechanisms linking maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent prosocial behavior remain unclear. This study examined the longitudinal associations at both within- and between-family levels between maternal depressive symptoms and adolescent prosocial behavior, taking into account parental warmth (including maternal and paternal warmth) as a potential mediator of the association.

Methods: A sample of 4223 mother-child dyads (adolescent mean age T1 = 10.91 years, SD = 0.70; 54 % boys) participated in a four-wave longitudinal study with 6-month intervals.

Results: The between-family level analysis of cross-lagged panel modeling revealed that maternal depressive symptoms negatively predicted adolescent prosocial behavior. Parental warmth (including maternal and paternal warmth) and prosocial behavior bidirectionally and positively predicted each other, and parental warmth played a mediating role between maternal depressive symptoms and prosocial behavior over time. The within-family level analysis of random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling found that increases in maternal depressive symptoms predicted later decreases in paternal warmth, which in turn led to higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms. Similarly, adolescent prosocial behavior positively predicted maternal warmth at the next time point, which in turn predicted subsequent increases in prosocial behavior.

Conclusions: These findings emphasize the developmental processes connecting maternal depressive symptoms, parental warmth, and adolescent prosocial behavior and the importance of fostering parental warmth in reducing maternal depressive symptoms and promoting adolescent prosocial behavior.

Keywords: Adolescents; Maternal depressive symptoms; Parental warmth; Prosocial behavior.