Perceived Parental Warmth and Depression in Early Adolescents: Path Analysis on the Role of Self-esteem as a Mediator

The prevalence of depression in malaysia instigated the twofold objectives of the present study. first, the relationship between perceived parental warmth, self-esteem and depression was examined, followed by the exploration on the role of self-esteem as a mediator between perceived parental warmth and depression among early adolescents. the model for early adolescent’s depression was guided by beck’s cognitive theory of depression and parental acceptance-rejection theory. a total of 1394 adolescents aged 13 to 15 years, who reported living with both married and biological parents, provided complete self-report data on the measures (conger’s subscale for parental warmth, rosenberg selfesteem scale, beck depression inventory for malays) for the three observed variables (namely, perceived parental warmth, self-esteem and depression). in order to determine the role of self-esteem as a mediator, pearson correlation was first conducted to ensure that the initial variable (perceived parental warmth) was related to the outcome (depression) and mediator (self-esteem) variable as suggested by baron and kenny (1986). path analysis was then employed to establish the mediating effect of self-esteem. results revealed that the data from the study fitted the model and that perceived parental warmth had an indirect effect on depression through self-esteem. findings also revealed that self-esteem was a complete mediator in the relationship between perceived parental warmth and depression. implications for the alternative approach in preventing depression were further discussed