3 Transactional processes between support and depressive symptoms 77 induce feelings of emotional insecurity, which may, in turn, increase depressive symptoms (Cummings & Davies, 1995). The interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (Rohner, 2016) suggests that it is a universal process that the degree of parental acceptance and rejection predicts their children’s mental health, although the way parents express support may vary across cultures, countries, and families. Especially children’s and adolescent’s perception of the supportive and caring behavior of their own parents is an important predictor of their well-being. Hence, when adolescents perceive their own parents as less accepting (e.g., less warmth and affection) and more rejecting (e.g., feeling unappreciated, forgotten, or belittled), they might be more likely to develop depressive symptoms. Furthermore, interpersonal theories of depression (Coyne, 1976; Rudolph, 2009) emphasize that depressive symptoms of the adolescent may also affect (the perception of their) interpersonal functioning, such as the parent-child relationship. Hence, a transactional perspective (Granic, 2005; Sameroff, 2010) is critical to understand how the adolescent not only reacts to the changes in perceived parental support but may also trigger subsequent changes in their (perception of) parents’ supportive behavior. To study transactional processes, longitudinal designs are needed, as they can disentangle the direction of effects (i.e., parent-to-adolescent and/or from adolescent-toparent). Although a concurrent empirical link between parental support and depressive symptoms in adolescence is well-established (Pinquart, 2017b; Yap et al., 2014), findings of prior longitudinal studies are inconsistent about the direction of the effects (Branje et al., 2010; Stice et al., 2004). Moreover, most existing longitudinal studies have assessed these bidirectional cross-lagged effects at the between-family level (Branje et al., 2010; Stice et al., 2004; Young et al., 2005). These between-family studies have examined how families differ in their levels of parental support and depressive symptoms. For example, they have demonstrated that in families with higher levels of parental support adolescents show lower levels of depressive symptoms at the next measurement occasion compared to adolescents in families with lower levels of parental support (Branje et al., 2010). However, methodological concerns have been raised that results from between-family analyses do not by definition generalize to the within-family level, both in terms of the effect size or even the direction of the effect (i.e., positive or negative; Berry & Willoughby, 2017; Hamaker et al., 2015; Keijsers, 2016). Therefore, more recently, studies have also assessed the within-family level to tap into the linkages between overtime fluctuations within individual families – thus the longitudinal processes that unfold between a parent and his or her own adolescent (Hamaker, 2012; Keijsers, 2016). A recent study of related
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw