Received: 31 August 2018 Revised: 20 November 2018 Accepted: 3 December 2018

DOI: 10.1111/ajpy.12239

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Parental attachment and depressive symptoms in Chinese

adolescents: The mediation effect of emotion regulation
Wanfen Chen1 | Dajun Zhang2 | Junsheng Liu1 | Yangu Pan3 | Biao Sang1,4

1
School of Psychology and Cognitive Science,
East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
2
Faculty of Psychology, Research Center for
Mental Health Education, Southwest University,
Chongqing, China
3
Research Institute of Social Development,
Southwestern University of Finance and
Economics, Chengdu, China
4
Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences,
Shanghai, China
Correspondence
Biao Sang, School of Psychology and Cognitive
Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai
200062, China.
Email: bsang@psy.ecnu.edu.cn
Funding information
National Innovation Center for Assessment of
Basic Education Quality in China, Grant/Award
Number: 2014-06-007-01
Objective: We examined if the links between adolescents' parental attachment and
depressive symptoms are mediated by emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression), and identified which mediator has a stronger mediation effect.
Method: The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, Emotion Regulation Ques-
tionnaire, and the “Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale” were dis-
tributed to 1955 Chinese adolescents (about 50% boys; 49% in senior high school;
aged 10–20 years, M = 14.85
2.86 years) from seven provinces. Descriptive
statistics, correlation analyses, regression analyses, and mediation analyses were
conducted to test the hypotheses.
Results: The results showed that cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression
partially mediated the associations between paternal and maternal attachment and
depressive symptoms after controlling for grade and sex. Further, the indirect
effects of parental attachment through cognitive reappraisal were stronger than
those through expressive suppression.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that adolescents with secure parental attach-
ment (vs. insecure) have a lower risk of developing depressive symptoms and that
increasing use of cognitive reappraisal and decreasing use of expressive suppres-
sion may help adolescents reduce their depressive symptoms.

KEYWORDS

adolescents, cognitive reappraisal, depressive symptoms, expressive suppression,

mediation effect, parental attachment

Adolescence is a period of emotional storm, and a crucial
period for the occurrence of depressive symptoms (Allen &
Sheeber, 2008). In comparison with only 2.8% in children,
the prevalence rate of depression is 5.6% in adolescents
(Costello, Erkanli, & Angold, 2006). Depression increases
adolescents' risk for clinical disorders, suicide, substance
abuse, poor academic performance, and the deterioration of
social relationships (Duchesne & Ratelle, 2014). Longitudi-
nal studies have shown that depression episodes in adoles-
cence are risk factors for subsequent attacks (Birmaher et al.,
1996). As such, the risk factors that could result in the for-
mation and development of adolescent depressive symptoms
need to be identified, along with the protective factors which
could contribute to prevention and treatment.
Although depressive symptoms in adolescence can be
partly ascribed to transformations in cognitive, biological,
psychic, and affective aspects, recent studies have shown
that parental attachment and emotion regulation also play
essential roles (Betts, Gullone, & Allen, 2009; Kullik &
Petermann, 2013; Li & Han, 2018; Sai, Luo, Ward, &
Sang, 2016).
Parental attachment is an intimate relationship formed in
infancy and throughout a person's life. Based on attachment
theory, a safe and warm parent–child relationship is essential
for adolescents, and secure parental attachment is crucial to
adolescents' mental health (Bowlby, 1980). The parent–child
relationship, particularly a poor attachment bond, is often
considered to be the main cause of depression in adolescents

Aust J Psychol. 2019;1–8. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajpy © 2019 The Australian Psychological Society 1

2 CHEN ET AL.
(Rudolph, Flynn, & Abaied, 2008). Adolescents' attachment
behaviours with attachment figures are expressed more
through communication and self-disclosure than through
seeking physical proximity (Bretherton, 1990). Prior studies
showed that higher quality parental attachment led to less
reported depressive symptoms (Chen, Zhang, Pan, Cheng, &
Liu, 2016; Duchesne & Ratelle, 2014). These findings sug-
gest that high quality parental attachment may protect
against adolescent depressive symptoms.
Emotion regulation is inextricably associated with depres-
sive symptoms. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppres-
sion are two important emotion regulation strategies, which
attract a lot of attention from researchers (Gross & John, 2003).
Many studies have linked emotion regulation to depressive
symptoms in adults and adolescents (Brenning, Soenens,
Braet, & Bosmans, 2012; Kullik & Petermann, 2013; Sai et al.,
2016; Soto, Perez, Kim, Lee, & Minnick, 2011). For instance,
Sai et al. (2016) found that the tendency to use expressive sup-
pression in everyday life increases depressive symptoms in
adolescents, whereas the tendency to use cognitive reappraisal
reduces depressive symptoms. Another research showed that,
compared with a control group, adolescents who scored higher
on depressive symptoms were more likely to use expressive
suppression and less likely to use cognitive reappraisal (Betts
et al., 2009). These research results imply that the tendency to
use cognitive reappraisal may reduce the likelihood of adoles-
cent depressive symptoms, whereas the tendency to use expres-
sive suppression may increase the risk of it.
Attachment quality and emotion regulation are closely
linked. Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980) indicates that early
interactions with attachment figures provide an important back-
ground for later emotion regulation and subsequent emotion
adaptation. The emotion regulation model of attachment points
out that individuals may develop better emotion regulation
capacity through repeated and successful interactions with
caregivers, which in turn contributes to regulating inappropri-
ate emotions in later life (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003).
This theoretical model is supported by empirical studies about
the associations between attachment to parents and emotion
regulation in elder children and adolescent samples
(Gresham & Gullone, 2012; Kullik & Petermann, 2013).
According to the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment
(IPPA) (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), higher quality parental
attachment (i.e., lower level of “alienation” and higher levels
of “communication” and “trust”) predicts the usage of more
adaptive emotion regulation, while lower quality parental
attachment predicts the usage of more maladaptive emo-
tion regulation (Gresham & Gullone, 2012; Kullik &
Petermann, 2013).
Studies on young adults have revealed that cognitive reap-
praisal is an adaptive and healthy strategy, while expressive
suppression is a maladaptive and unhealthy strategy which can
predict poor mental health (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012).
For example, when confronted with stressful situations,
What is already known about this topic
• Depression has many harms, such as suicide, substance
abuse, and poor academic performance.
• The associations have been established between parental
attachment, emotion regulation (e.g., cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression), and depressive symptoms.
• However, less is known about the potential psychological
mechanisms of these associations.
What this topic adds
• Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression partially
mediated the associations between parental attachment and
depressive symptoms.
• Compared to expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal
was a stronger mediator between parental attachment and
depressive symptoms.
• Parental attachment and cognitive reappraisal may reduce
depressive symptoms, while expressive suppression may
increase depressive symptoms.
individuals who frequently use cognitive reappraisal are more
likely to re-evaluate the situations meaningfully and actively.
Consequently, compared to infrequent users of cognitive reap-
praisal, they not only experience and express more positive
emotions and less negative emotions, but also report higher
self-esteem and life satisfaction (Gross & John, 2003). Con-
trastingly, compared to non-suppressors, suppressors experi-
ence and express less emotions. Furthermore, once the
suppressors express their emotions, they likely report more neg-
ative emotions, less positive emotions, lower self-esteem, and
lower life satisfaction compared to individuals who seldom use
expressive suppression (Gross & John, 2003). Additionally, a
meta-analysis concerning adolescents and adults compared the
effectiveness of the two emotion regulation processes (cogni-
tive change and response modulation) defined by the process
model (Gross, 1998) and showed that cognitive change (cogni-
tive reappraisal) was a more effective strategy than response
modulation (expressive suppression) for self-report measures of
emotion (Webb et al., 2012).
Many researchers have respectively explored the effect
of parental attachment on depressive symptoms and the
effect of emotion regulation on depressive symptoms; how-
ever, few have simultaneously investigated the plausible
impacts of parental attachment and emotion regulation on
depressive symptoms in adolescent samples (Kullik & Peter-
mann, 2013). The underlying psychological mechanisms
behind these associations have not been fully tested either.
In order to provide empirical bases for intervention and treat-
ment of depressive symptoms, this study integrates these
three variables and attempts to explore the potential
CHEN ET AL. 3

psychological mechanisms behind them. In addition, 1 | METHOD

because previous research suggested that both grade and sex
may significantly affect parental attachment (Chen et al.,
2016), expressive suppression (Dong & Zhang, 2015), and
depressive symptoms (Cui, Shi, Zhang, & Yu, 2012;
Fredrick, Demaray, Malecki, & Dorio, 2018; Luo, Xiang,
Zhang, & Wang, 2017), we included these two variables as
covariates in our data analyses. Therefore, based on the
above literature review, we examined the relationships
between parental attachment, emotion regulation (expressive
suppression and cognitive reappraisal), and depressive
symptoms among Chinese adolescents. In this research,
paternal attachment and maternal attachment were examined
separately. After controlling for sex and grade, the current
research was conducted according to the following
hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1:Paternal and maternal (parental)
attachment will be significantly negatively
associated with depressive symptoms and
expressive suppression, and significantly posi-
tively correlated with cognitive reappraisal.
Cognitive reappraisal will be significantly neg-
atively correlated with depressive symptoms.
Expressive suppression will be significantly
positively correlated with depressive
symptoms.
Cognitive reappraisal will mediate
Hypothesis 2:
the associations between parental (paternal
and maternal) attachment and depressive
symptoms.
Expressive suppression will medi-
Hypothesis 3:
ate the associations between parental attach-
ment and depressive symptoms.
Hypothesis 4: The mediation effect of parental
attachment through cognitive reappraisal will
be significantly stronger than that through
expressive suppression.
1.1 | Participants
Adolescents (N = 1955; 967 boys, 955 girls, 33 unknown)
were recruited from randomly selected classes in seven
junior high schools and seven senior high schools in seven
Chinese provinces: Hunan, Guangdong, Henan, Jiangsu,
Sichuan, Tianjin, and Jilin. They were currently in Grades
7 to 12 in November 2014:1,001 students from junior high
school (Grades 7 to 9) and 954 students from senior high
school (Grades 10 to 12). Participants' ages were between
10 and 20 years (M = 14.85, SD = 2.86): 4 were 11-year-
old, 113 were 12-year-old, 274 were 13-year-old, 1,560 were
14-20-year-old, and 44 did not provide their age. Table 1
presents participants' characteristics.
1.2 | Procedures
Before the start, this research was approved by the Ethics
Committee of Southwest University. The measurements
were conducted in participants' respective classrooms.
Before the questionnaires were distributed, the teachers told
students that the survey was only for research purposes, that
their participation was voluntary, and that they were free to
reject participation without any bad consequences. This
study obtained verbal informed consent from all participants.
Subsequently, participants filled out the self-report surveys
anonymously and submitted them directly to their teachers.
1.3 | Measures
1.3.1 | Parental attachment
The paternal and maternal attachment subscales of the IPPA
were taken to gauge participants' parental attachment. Each
of them includes 25 items using a 5-point Likert scale
(1 = never; 5 = always) to assess the degree of Alienation,
Trust, and Communication (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987).
For the maternal attachment items, adolescents assessed the
level of alienation (e.g., “I get little attention from my
mother”), trust (e.g., “My mother respects my feelings”),
and communication (e.g., “I tell my mother my problems

TABLE 1 Participants' characteristics

Grade Sex
7 8 9 10 11 12 Boy Girl Unknown Total
Hunan 54 59 58 58 57 55 182 148 11 341
Guangdong 58 59 60 56 - - 117 115 1 233
Henan 61 41 51 59 59 59 142 185 3 330
Jiangsu 50 35 45 50 57 47 164 114 6 284
Sichuan 47 13 39 45 42 53 88 148 3 239
Tianjin 55 60 56 55 52 20 167 125 6 298
Jilin 48 52 - 36 54 40 107 120 3 230
Total 373 319 309 359 321 274 967 955 33 1955
4 CHEN ET AL.
and troubles”). Attachment relationships between adoles-
cents and fathers were measured by the paternal items with
parallel wordings. After reverse scoring, the attachment
scores for father and mother were the sum of the 25 related
items. Higher scores represented better parental attachment
quality. The IPPA has been successfully applied to Chinese
adolescents (Chen et al., 2016), showing good reliability and
validity. In the current research, Cronbach's alpha coeffi-
cients were 0.91 for both paternal and maternal attachment
subscales.
1.3.2 | Emotion regulation
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was used to assess
adolescents' tendency to use cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression in their daily lives (Gross & John,
2003). This questionnaire comprises 10 items; six measure
cognitive reappraisal and four measure expressive suppres-
sion. Participants rated the items on a 7-point Likert scale
(from “1 = strongly disagree” to “7 = strongly agree”). A
Chinese version of this questionnaire which has been vali-
dated by adults and teenagers was used (e.g., Sai et al.,
2016). In this study, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0.71
for the cognitive reappraisal subscale and 0.66 for the
expressive suppression subscale.
1.3.3 | Depressive symptoms
The Chinese version of the “Center for Epidemiological
Studies-Depression Scale” (CES-D) was employed to assess
participants' depressive symptoms (Radloff, 1977). This
scale consists of 20 items that gauge present levels of
depressive symptoms (e.g., “I felt depressed”). Participants
were asked to endorse how frequently in the last week each
depressive symptom appeared on a 4-point Likert scale ranging
from 0 (rarely or none of the time [less than 1 day]) to
3 (most or all the time [5–7 days]). Four positively worded
items were reverse-scored. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient
for the CES-D in present study was 0.89.
1.4 | Data analyses
SPSS 19.0 was used for data analyses. Before the analyses,
we used multiple imputation to deal with the missing data.
Then, first, to test whether the data were up to the standards
TABLE 2 M, SD, and correlations of all variables (N = 1955)
Variable M SD
1. Paternal attachment 90.89 17.44
2. Maternal attachment 97.01 16.64
3. Cognitive reappraisal 30.10 6.39
4. Expressive suppression 15.59 5.45
5. Depressive symptoms 40.43 10.08
6. Sex (1 = B, 2 = G)
7. Grade
Note. B = boy; G = girl.
*p < 0.05.; **p < 0.01.
for normality and linearity, descriptive statistics and regres-
sion analyses—calculating for kurtosis, skewness, and the
variance inflation factor—were conducted. Second, correla-
tional analyses were administered to test the associations of
parental attachment with the two mediators and one outcome
variable in the expected directions. Third, we used the PRO-
CESS Macro in SPSS (Hayes, 2013) to perform multiple
mediation analyses to test the mediating effects of cognitive
reappraisal and expressive suppression in the associations
between paternal and maternal attachment and depressive
symptoms. We employed 1,000 bootstrap samples. A bias-
corrected bootstrapping procedure was used to estimate 95%
confidence intervals (CI) around the indirect effect. If zero
did not fall in the CI of the indirect effect, it meant that this
indirect effect was significant (Shrout & Bolger, 2002).
Respective analyses were employed for paternal and mater-
nal attachment. We compared indirect effects for each medi-
ation model to compare the relative strength between two
mediators (Hayes, 2013).
2 | RESULTS
2.1 | Preliminary analyses
The results of descriptive statistics and regression analyses
indicated no severe violations of normal and linear hypothe-
ses (e.g., kurtosis from −0.38 to 0.12, skewness from −0.59
to 0.32, and variance inflation factor from 1.07 to 1.46).
Table 2 shows the means (M), standard deviations (SD), and
Pearson's bivariate correlations for all variables.
Table 2 shows that paternal and maternal attachment
were significantly positively associated with cognitive reap-
praisal, and significantly negatively associated with expres-
sive suppression and depressive symptoms. Depressive
symptoms were significantly negatively associated with cog-
nitive reappraisal and positively associated with expressive
suppression. Paternal and maternal attachments were signifi-
cantly positively correlated with each other. Cognitive reap-
praisal and expressive suppression were significantly
positively correlated with each other. In addition, sex was
positively related to paternal and maternal attachment, and
negatively related to expressive suppression. Grade was
1 2 3 4 5 6
—
0.54** —
0.25** 0.25** —
−0.12** −0.11** 0.18** —
−0.40** −0.37** −0.26** 0.17** —
0.05* 0.11** 0.00 −0.14** −0.01 —
−0.11** −0.07** −0.01 −0.07** 0.04 0.07**
CHEN ET AL. 5

negatively related to paternal and maternal attachments, and TABLE 3 Unstandardized indirect effects from parental attachment to

expressive suppression. Consequently, sex and grade were depressive symptoms

included as covariates in subsequent mediation analyses. Indirect effect Effect BootSE BootLLCI BootULCI
Paternal attachment ! depressive −0.04 0.01 −0.06 −0.03
symptoms (total)
2.2 | Mediation effect test Paternal attachment ! cognitive −0.03 0.01 −0.04 −0.02
2.2.1 | Paternal attachment, emotion regulation, and reappraisal ! depressive
symptoms
depressive symptoms
Paternal attachment ! expressive −0.01 0.00 −0.02 −0.01
Multiple mediation analysis revealed the following results. suppression ! depressive
First, the association between paternal attachment and symptoms

depressive symptoms was mediated by cognitive reappraisal Maternal attachment ! depressive −0.04 0.01 −0.06 −0.03
symptoms (total)
and expressive suppression (see Figure 1, Table 3). Second,
Maternal attachment ! cognitive −0.03 0.01 −0.04 −0.03
the total effect of paternal attachment on depressive symp- reappraisal ! depressive
toms was −0.23 (p < 0.001). Third, the direct effect of symptoms

paternal attachment on depressive symptoms was still signif-
icant (β = −0.19, p < 0.001). Fourth, the mediating effects
of paternal attachment on depressive symptoms through cog-
nitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were signifi-
cant (indirect effects = −0.03; −0.01, 95% CI = −0.04,
−0.02; −0.02, −0.01, respectively). The percentages of the
mediating effect in the total effect of cognitive reappraisal
and expressive suppression were 13.45 and 5.25%, respec-
tively, for the paternal attachment mediation model. Further-
more, the contrast test of the mediating effects indicated that
the mediating effect of paternal attachment through cognitive
reappraisal was significantly stronger than that through
expressive suppression (C1 = −0.02, 95% CI = −0.03,
−0.01) (Hayes, 2013).
2.2.2 | Maternal attachment, emotion regulation, and
depressive symptoms
Similarly, multiple mediation analysis suggested that the
association between maternal attachment and depressive
symptoms was mediated by cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression (see Figure 2, Table 3). The total
effect of maternal attachment on depressive symptoms was
−0.22 (p < 0.001). The direct effect of maternal attachment
on depressive symptoms kept significant (β = −0.18,
p < 0.001) as well, and the mediating effects of maternal
attachment on depressive symptoms through cognitive reap-
praisal and expressive suppression were significant (indirect
Maternal attachment ! expressive −0.01 0.00 −0.02 −0.01
suppression ! depressive
symptoms
effects = −0.03; −0.01, 95% CI = −0.04, −0.03; −0.02,
−0.01, respectively). The ratios of the mediation effect in
the total effect of cognitive reappraisal and expressive sup-
pression were 14.95 and 4.94%, respectively, for the mater-
nal attachment mediation model. Likewise, the contrast test
of the mediation effects showed that the mediation effect of
maternal attachment through cognitive reappraisal was sig-
nificantly stronger than that through expressive suppression
(C2 = −0.02, 95% CI = −0.04, −0.01) (Hayes, 2013).
3 | DISCUSSION
Adolescents' paternal/maternal attachment, cognitive reap-
praisal, expressive suppression, and depressive symptoms
were significantly related in the expected directions. More-
over, after controlling for grade and sex, cognitive reapprai-
sal and expressive suppression mediated the effects of
paternal and maternal attachment on depressive symptoms.
Additionally, the indirect effects of paternal and maternal
attachment through cognitive reappraisal were significantly
stronger than that through expressive suppression.
The findings of the correlation analyses verified H1.
First, adolescents' paternal and maternal attachment

FIGURE 1 Mediation effect of emotion regulation on the association FIGURE 2 Mediation effect of emotion regulation on the association
between paternal attachment and depressive symptoms. Note. Path between maternal attachment and depressive symptoms. Note. Path
coefficients were unstandardized; **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001; insignificant coefficients were unstandardized; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001;
paths of grade and sex were not drawn in the figure insignificant paths of grade and sex were not drawn in the figure
6 CHEN ET AL.
negatively associated with depressive symptoms. That is,
higher quality parental attachment related to less depressive
symptoms, which was consistent with prior research (Chen
et al., 2016; Duchesne & Ratelle, 2014; Kullik & Petermann,
2013). These results support attachment theory (Bowlby,
1980). Second, paternal and maternal attachment were posi-
tively correlated with cognitive reappraisal, and negatively
correlated with expressive suppression. These findings are
similar to previous research results (Gresham & Gullone,
2012; Mikulincer et al., 2003). When confronting life events,
compared with adolescents having low quality parental
attachment, adolescents with high quality parental attach-
ment are more possible to use the cognitive reappraisal strat-
egy and less possible to use the expressive suppression
strategy. Third, a negative relation was shown between cog-
nitive reappraisal and depressive symptoms. This finding is
in line with prior research (Sai et al., 2016), which suggested
that increased use of cognitive reappraisal correlates to
decreased depressive symptoms. Fourth, the result that
expressive suppression positively related with depressive
symptoms is in accordance with previous findings about
adolescents (Brenning et al., 2012; Sai et al., 2016), which
indicated that the more expressive suppression adolescents
use, the more depressive symptoms they experience. How-
ever, this result is inconsistent with the outcomes of a study
that employed a Chinese adult sample (Soto et al., 2011),
which showed that expressive suppression does not relate to
depressive symptoms. Altogether, these results reveal that
expressive suppression usage is positively related to depres-
sive symptoms among Chinese adolescents, but this relation
is no longer suitable for adults. This perhaps can be
explained by the fact that, compared with Chinese adults,
adolescents are not very capable of employing expressive
suppression to regulate their emotions, which may make
them experience more negative emotions, and eventually
bring about more depressive symptoms (Sai et al., 2016).
Further, the findings partially demonstrate the process model
of emotion regulation, which indicates that cognitive reap-
praisal use is related to positive emotions, and expressive
suppression use is related to negative emotions
(Gross, 1998).
The present results indicated that cognitive reappraisal
partially mediates the relationships between paternal/mater-
nal attachment and depressive symptoms while controlling
for grade and sex, which supports H2. Parental attachment
not only directly influenced depressive symptoms, but also
indirectly influenced depressive symptoms through cognitive
reappraisal. The findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal
plays an important role in the relations between paternal/
maternal attachment and depressive symptoms. To our
knowledge, research focusing on the associations between
parental attachment, cognitive reappraisal, and depressive
symptoms among adolescents has been scarce. The current
study examined their relations and explored the potential
underlying psychological mechanisms. The present results
lend support to attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980), as they
imply that forming secure and comfortable parental attach-
ment may have positive effects on adolescents' cognitive
reappraisal usage, which may contribute to decreasing ado-
lescents' depressive symptoms.
Consistent with H3, the findings showed that expressive
suppression partially mediates the associations between
paternal/maternal attachment and depressive symptoms
while controlling for grade and sex. In other words, parental
attachment could have a direct and indirect (via expressive
suppression) influence on depressive symptoms. The find-
ings suggest that expressive suppression has a mediation
effect on the associations between parental attachment and
depressive symptoms. These findings are similar to the find-
ings of prior research (Brenning et al., 2012) and support
attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980). In addition, the findings
also demonstrate the person–context interaction theories
(Magnusson & Stattin, 1998), which suggest that remote
environmental factors (e.g., parental attachment) can influ-
ence human psychological development through proximal
individual factors (e.g., emotion regulation). The present
results imply that insecure parental attachment may prevent
adolescents from fluently expressing their emotions, which
perhaps lead them to experience more depressive symptoms.
In accordance with H4, the data indicated that the media-
tion effects of paternal/maternal attachment through cogni-
tive reappraisal are significantly stronger than that through
expressive suppression. This finding has several possible
explanations. According to the emotion regulation model of
attachment (Mikulincer et al., 2003), adolescents with high
quality parental attachment prefer to use cognitive reapprai-
sal strategy rather than expressive suppression strategy.
Moreover, attachment security may promote one's emotion
regulation by endorsing comfortable and supportive relation-
ships (Eisenberger & Naliboff, 2011). This unique advantage
implies that securely attached individuals can successfully
regulate their emotions or re-evaluate life events in a rela-
tively modest manner (Gross & John, 2003). In other words,
they adopt an effective cognitive reappraisal strategy. Fur-
ther, compared with expressive suppression, cognitive reap-
praisal is a more adaptive and effective emotion regulation
strategy (Aldao, Nolenhoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010;
Gross & John, 2003; Webb et al., 2012). Future studies
should explore these reasons in more depth.
This study provides new and useful information about
these associations and their underlying psychological mecha-
nisms. The findings suggest that adolescents with insecure
parental attachment (vs. secure) have a higher risk of devel-
oping depressive symptoms, and cognitive reappraisal and
expressive suppression play mediating roles after controlling
for grade and sex. One implication is that effective measures
need to be taken to help Chinese adolescents increase their
use of cognitive reappraisal and decrease their use of
CHEN ET AL.
expressive suppression, which may both reduce their depres-
sive symptoms. Another implication is that researchers
should pay more attention to the importance of building
healthy parental attachment for effective emotion regulation
and the prevention of depressive symptoms.
Although the present investigation has theoretical and
practical value, it has some limitations. First, the cross-
sectional nature of the research hampers the establishment of
a causal association between variables. To address this ques-
tion and ascertain causality, experimental or longitudinal
studies are required to verify the findings. Second, the cur-
rent study employed self-report methods, which may elicit
response bias. Future research on parental attachment, emo-
tion regulation, and depressive symptoms can therefore ben-
efit from the use of other types of measurement
(e.g., observation, experiments, and interviews). Third, there
are many kinds of emotion regulation strategies; however,
only two of them—cognitive reappraisal and expression
suppression—were gauged in this study. Future research
should explore other strategies (e.g., emotional venting,
rumination, and distraction) to examine parental attachment
and depressive symptoms.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the National Innovation
Center for Assessment of Basic Education Quality in China
(2014-06-007-01). We would like to thank all the partici-
pants, leaders of the seven provinces for helping us with data
collection, and the graduate students from Southwest Uni-
versity who helped us in entering data for analyses.
ORCID
Wanfen Chen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5419-9586
Dajun Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0761-5118
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