Gaslighting in parent-child relationships: Psychometric validation and longitudinal associations with depressive...

Gaslighting is a covert form of psychological abuse involving persistent denial, distortion, or devaluation of victims' perceptions and memories, thereby undermining their sense of reality. Within the context of family abuse, the measurement applicability of existing gaslighting control instruments to parent-child relationships, as well as their developmental consequences and underlying mechanisms, remains insufficiently examined.

This study aimed to (a) adapt and validate a measure of parental gaslighting for use in Chinese parent-child relationships and (b) examine the longitudinal association between parental gaslighting and adolescent depressive symptoms, with internal attribution of responsibility as a mediating mechanism.

Two samples of Chinese adolescents were used. Study 1 included 1951 adolescents who provided cross-sectional data, and Study 2 included 606 adolescents who participated in a three-wave longitudinal survey.

In Study 1, the Gaslighting Relationship Exposure Inventory, originally developed for adult romantic relationships, was translated, culturally adapted, and psychometrically evaluated using validity and reliability tests, and measurement invariance analyses. In Study 2, longitudinal mediation models were tested to examine temporal associations among parental gaslighting, internal attribution of responsibility, and depressive symptoms.

The adapted parental gaslighting scale demonstrated good validity and reliability, and strict measurement invariance across gender. Longitudinal analyses showed that internal attribution of responsibility functioned as a modest longitudinal mediator in the association between parental gaslighting and adolescents' depressive symptoms, with no significant gender differences in the mediating pathway.

This study provides the first validated measure of gaslighting within the parent-child relationship context and offers longitudinal evidence linking parental gaslighting to adolescent depressive symptoms via maladaptive attributional processes. The findings highlight parental gaslighting as a potentially distinct and developmentally harmful form of psychological abuse, with implications for assessment and intervention in adolescent protection contexts.