HMN 2026: How Guilt induction and love withdrawal are more likely to trigger depressive symptoms in adolescents

To understand how parenting styles influence adolescent mental health, the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University, collaborating with researchers from the School of Psychology at South China Normal University and the Department of Applied Psychology at Guangdong University of Education, conducted a one-year longitudinal study. The research findings show that when parents use psychological control to manage their children, such as forcing compliance through guilt induction or love withdrawal—a tactic widely regarded as emotional blackmail—it can impair an adolescent’s capacity to regulate emotions. This then exacerbates depressive symptoms and heightens the risk of self-harm, particularly in girls.

Researchers point out that preventing adolescent self-harm requires not only addressing individual emotional issues but also improving family dynamics. The study was published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

Prof. Lin Li, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University, and her collaborators conducted a two-wave survey between 2020 and 2021. The study tracked 742 junior secondary school students from Grade 7 to Grade 8 in two public schools in Foshan, with the two rounds of data collection spaced a year apart. Participating students reported their perceptions of parents’ child-rearing practices, along with assessments of their own emotional regulation, depressive symptoms and self-harm behaviors.

Based on the data, the research team identified four distinct parenting profiles. Nearly 44% of parents (43.6%) fell into the “Supportive Profile,” characterized by respecting their children’s opinions, granting autonomy and infrequent use of psychological control. This was followed by the “Moderate Mixed Parenting Profile,” accounting for 33.1%, in which parents exhibited an inconsistent parenting style that alternated between openness and demandingness, making it difficult for adolescents to anticipate their responses.

More than 17% of parents (17.4%) fell into the “Controlling Profile,” in which parents demanded strict obedience, allowed minimal personal autonomy and frequently deployed psychological control tactics such as guilt induction or love withdrawal to exert pressure. The final category, nearly 6% of parents (5.9%), was the “High Mixed Parenting Profile,” in which parents, under the guise of acting for the child’s own good, offered superficial autonomy and support while simultaneously using psychological control tactics such as guilt induction and love withdrawal to demand compliance.

The study indicates that “Supportive” families respect autonomy and value emotional communication, resulting in a lower risk of depression and self-harm in children. Conversely, the three profiles involving psychological control, most notably the “Controlling” group, showed a marked correlation with nonsuicidal self-injury a year later.

Crucially, the “High Mixed Parenting” group proved deeply problematic because the conflicting signals of superficial support paired with intense psychological control left adolescents highly disoriented.

Research and analysis reveal that parental psychological control compromises an adolescent’s capacity for emotional regulation, manifesting as impulsivity, hyperreactivity and difficulty coping with negative emotions. This prolonged emotional dysregulation creates a direct pathway to depressive symptoms and subsequent self-harm, a trend that is particularly pronounced among female respondents.

Prof. Lin noted that the findings offer clear direction for both educators and parents, showing that a beneficial upbringing requires balancing boundaries with proper autonomy and emotional support.

By reducing psychological control, parents can help children develop important emotional regulation skills.

She said: “Conducted in South China, this study is most relevant to Hong Kong, especially given our fiercely competitive environment. Many local parents have exceptionally high aspirations for their children, hoping they will excel and succeed. Some view control as a form of care and responsibility, or act out of a conviction that it is ‘for their own good,’ inadvertently exerting psychological pressure as a result. Far from achieving the desired educational outcome, this may severely damage a child’s mental health, sense of self-worth and the parent-child relationship.”

To effectively prevent and reduce nonsuicidal self-injury in adolescents, Prof. Lin suggests that the education sector identify high-risk youth early by looking at different parenting styles and strengthening emotional management and mental health support.

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