Maladaptive perfectionism as an intervening variable between psychological control and adolescent depressive symptoms: A three-wave longitudinal study

Maladaptive perfectionism has been postulated as an intervening variable between psychologically controlling parenting and adolescent internalizing problems. Although this hypothesis has been confirmed in a number of cross-sectional studies, it has not yet been examined from a longitudinal framework. Findings from this three-wave longitudinal study show that parental psychological control (as indexed by parent and adolescent reports) at age 15 predicted increased levels of maladaptive perfectionism one year later. Maladaptive perfectionism, in turn, predicted increased levels of adolescent depressive symptoms again one year later and functioned as a significant intervening variable between parental psychological control at Time 1 and depressive symptoms at Time 3. Multi-group analyses showed that the structural relations obtained were generally consistent across gender. Suggestions for future research are outlined.