Author(s)

Beiying Liu

Corresponding Author

Beiying Liu

Abstract

The current research has investigated the relationship of adolescent social avoidance with parental psychological control, paying particular attention to the mediating role of the parent-child relationship in this relationship. The results from a questionnaire survey among 300 middle school students and their parents prove that the parents' psychological control behavior is significantly positively correlated with the social avoidance tendency of adolescents, meaning that the more obvious or intense the parental control behaviors, the more obvious the social avoiding of adolescents will be. It is also discovered that the parent-child relationship has played a partially mediating role between psychological control and social avoidance; that is, the higher the quality of the parent-child relationship, the less the negative impact of psychological control on social avoidance. This conclusion mainly emphasizes the important function of the parent-child relationship in family education and adolescent social adaptation. The findings from the research could be a way to understand better how family factors relate to adolescents' social behavior; at the same time, it will support theoretical improvements in family education methods and enhance adolescents' social skills.

Keywords

psychological control, social avoidance, parent-child relationship, mediating role, adolescent development