Perceptions of Parental Treatment Styles and Psychological Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents

Chinese secondary school students (N = 2, 150) responded to instruments assessing their parent’s treatment styles and their own psychological wellbeing. Results arising from bivariate and canonical correlation analyses showed that students’ assessments of paternal (PT) and maternal (MT) treatment styles correlated significantly with measures of their general psychiatric morbidity, anxiety, depression, somatic symptoms, purpose in life, and ego strength. PT and MT were most strongly correlated with total scores on the Purpose in Life Questionnaire. These findings generally suggest that Chinese adolescents’ recollections of their parents’ treatment styles are significantly associated with their own psychological well-being, whether defined by active or passive mental health criteria.