Co‐developmental trajectories of aggression and depressive symptoms in Chinese early adolescents: The role of parental control

The co-occurrence of aggression and depressive symptoms is a significant topic in developmental psychopathology; however, less is known about the different types of co-occurrence between them. This longitudinal study aimed to examine the co-developmental trajectories of proactive and reactive aggression and depressive symptoms during early adolescence, as well as the relationships with parental control. A total of 3147 Chinese secondary school students (47.9% girls; Mage = 12.76 years, SD = 0.53) participated in four surveys that were conducted over 2 years at 6-month intervals. Parallel process latent class growth modeling identified four distinct co-developmental trajectory groups of proactive and reactive aggression and depressive symptoms: the proactive-reactive aggression group (6.8%), depressive group (17.4%), low-risk group (65.8%), and co-occurring reactive-aggression and depressive group (9.9%). After controlling for gender and socioeconomic status, multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that adolescents who experienced higher levels of parental behavioral control were more likely to belong to the low-risk group. In contrast, greater parental psychological control was associated with the other three risk groups. The heterogeneity of co-occurrent proactive and reactive aggression and depressive symptoms supports the need for person-centered dynamic monitoring and interventions tailored to the unique characteristics of the groups.