Family obligation moderates longitudinal associations between parental psychological control and adjustment of urban adolescents

This study investigated child-reported family obligation values (FOVs) in early adolescence as a moderator for associations between mother-, father-, and child-reported parental psychological control (PC) in early adolescence and child-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms in middle and late adolescents in the Philippines. Data were drawn from three waves of a larger longitudinal study, when the Filipino youth were in late elementary grades (age M = 12.04, SD = 0.58; N = 91), in junior high school (age M = 15.03, SD = 0.59; N = 80), and in senior high school (age M = 17.00, SD = 0.59, N = 75). Results revealed that high levels of FOV buffered the positive associations between mother-reported PC and internalizing symptoms in late adolescence, and between child-reported PC and internalizing symptoms in middle and late adolescence, as well as externalizing symptoms in late adolescence. Conversely, low levels of FOV exacerbated the associations between mother- and child-reported PC on externalizing symptoms in late adolescence. Findings suggest that FOV may shape the meaning and influence of PC for children and adolescents in contexts where familial obligations are normative and important.