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The effect of parenting styles on depressive symptoms among Chinese college students: The role of subjective well-being and Taq1A polymorphism

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Abstract

Based on different susceptibility models, the current study constructed a moderated mediation model to explore the influence of parenting style on college students’ depressive symptoms. A total of 301 college students (74 boys and 227 girls) participated in this study. Subjective well-being played a mediating role in the effect of parenting style on depressive symptoms. The DRD2 Taq1A polymorphism moderated the direct pathway in the PPS (positive parenting style) model and the second half of the mediating pathway in the NPS (negative parenting style) model. The findings suggest that the Taq1A polymorphism allele A2 is the plasticity gene for depression, and the A2A2 homozygous gene is the most sensitive to environmental stimuli.

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Data Availability

All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available in a repository or online in accordance with funder data retention policies. https://osf.io/yquzw/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Liu Y for his assistance with the blood sample extraction. Thanks also to Wang Bing-rui, Ying Li-hong and Zhang Miao for their assistance in data acquisition.

Funding

This work was supported by National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences (grant numbers BBA200032).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Educational Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China

    Yiqiu Hu, Zihao Zeng, Liyi Peng & Qin Yang

  2. Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Changsha, 410081, China

    Yiqiu Hu

  3. School of Pre-school Education, Changsha Normal University, Changsha, 410199, China

    Qin Yang

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  1. Yiqiu Hu
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  2. Zihao Zeng
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  3. Liyi Peng
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Contributions

Yiqiu Hu and Zihao Zeng participated in interpretation of the data, and drafted the manuscript; Liyi Peng and Qin Yang conceived of the study, participated in its design, performed the statistical analyses; Zihao Zeng and Qin Yang helped conceive of the study, participated in its design, participated in the interpretation of the data, and helped draft the manuscript; Yiqiu Hu conceived of the study, provided funds. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zihao Zeng.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Hu, Y., Zeng, Z., Peng, L. et al. The effect of parenting styles on depressive symptoms among Chinese college students: The role of subjective well-being and Taq1A polymorphism. Curr Psychol 42, 19573–19583 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03102-1

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