Why am I always lonely? The lasting impact of childhood harsh parental discipline on adolescents' loneliness

Objective

This study examined the mechanism of the effect of childhood harsh parental discipline on the developmental trajectory of loneliness among adolescents.

Background

More and more adolescents experience the problem of loneliness. The effect of early parenting on the developmental change of adolescent loneliness has not been sufficiently determined.

Method

A total of 1,214 Chinese high school adolescents responded to a series of questionnaires about loneliness, childhood harsh parental discipline, and core self-evaluation three times at intervals of six months. The latent growth modeling and the structural equation model were established to investigate the developmental change of adolescent loneliness and the mechanism of childhood harsh parental discipline that affected the trajectory of adolescents' loneliness.

Results

There was a linear growth pattern in loneliness among high school adolescents. Childhood parental psychological aggression and corporal punishment positively predicted the initial level of loneliness, and childhood parental corporal punishment negatively predicted the changing slope of loneliness. Core self-evaluation mediated the effect of childhood parental psychological aggression on the trajectory of loneliness.

Conclusion

Childhood parental corporal punishment directly affected the trajectory of adolescents' loneliness while childhood parental psychological aggression indirectly affected the trajectory of adolescents' loneliness through core self-evaluation.

Implications

This study further enriched the research content on the developmental change of loneliness among high school adolescents and revealed the long-term effect and mechanism of childhood harsh parental discipline on the trajectory of adolescent loneliness, providing new ideas for preventing and alleviating loneliness among adolescents.