Effect of Adolescents’ Perceived Parental Blame on Learned Helplessness: The Sequential Mediating Effects of Maladaptive Metacognitive Beliefs and Rumination

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effect of adolescents’ perceived parental blame (criticism) on learned helplessness and to examine whether maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and rumination sequentially mediate the relationship between parental blame and learned helplessness. The participants were 316 adolescents (<i>Mean age</i> =16.7, <i>SD</i> =0.75; 137 male, 179 female) attending grades 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> in high school in South Korea. The participants were selected using a snowball sampling method, while the data was collected via an online selfreport questionnaire. This survey was completed by the participants and analyzed using SPSS 28.0, Amos 26.0 (IBM Co., Armonk, NY), and PROCESS macro version 4.2 (Model 6; Hayes, 2022). The main results are summarized as follows. Firstly, the adolescents’ perceived paternal and maternal blame indicated significant direct effects on learned helplessness. Secondly, rumination mediated the effect of paternal and maternal blame on learned helplessness. Lastly, paternal and maternal blame significantly affected learned helplessness through the sequential mediating effects of maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and rumination. This study elucidates the causal structure among the various factors influencing learned helplessness in adolescents, focusing on parental blame, maladaptive metacognitive beliefs, and rumination. Furthermore, considering the verified sequential mediating effects of maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and rumination in the relationship between adolescents’ perceived parental blame and learned helplessness, these findings suggest that modifying maladaptive metacognitive beliefs may help to reduce learned helplessness among adolescents who perceive high levels of parental blame.