To understand how parenting styles influence adolescent mental health, the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University, collaborating with researchers from the School of Psychology of South China Normal University and the Department of Applied Psychology of 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, this can impair an adolescent’s capacity to regulate their 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 the international academic journal “Child Psychiatry & Human Development”.
Prof Lin Li, Assistant Professor of 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 aged 12 to 15 in two public schools in Foshan, with the two rounds of data collection spaced one year apart. Participating students reported on their perceptions of parents' child-rearing practices, alongside assessments of their own emotional regulation, depressive symptoms, and self-harm behaviours.
Based on the data, the research team identified four distinct parenting profiles:
• Supportive Profile: Nearly 44 per cent (43.6 per cent) of parents fell into this category, characterised by respecting their children’s opinions, granting autonomy, and infrequent use of psychological control.
• Moderate Mixed Parenting Profile: Accounting for 33.1 per cent, where parents exhibited an inconsistent parenting style that alternated between openness and demandingness, making it difficult for adolescents to anticipate their responses.
• Controlling Profile: Over 17 per cent (17.4 per cent) fell into this category, where parents demanded strict obedience, allowed minimal personal autonomy, and frequently deployed psychological control tactics like guilt induction or love withdrawal to exert pressure.
• High Mixed Parenting Profile: Nearly 6 per cent (5.9 per cent), where 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.
Based on the survey results, the research team divided parenting styles into four distinct categories: "Supportive Profile", "Moderate Mixed Parenting Profile", "Controlling Profile", and "High Mixed Parenting Profile".
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 non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) a year later. Crucially, the "High Mixed Parenting" group proves deeply problematic because the conflicting signals of superficial support paired with intense psychological control leave adolescents highly disoriented.
Research and analysis reveal that parental psychological control compromises an adolescent's capacity for emotional regulation, manifesting as impulsivity, hyper-reactivity, 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 observed, "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."
Prof Lin Li, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University.
To effectively prevent and reduce non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents, Prof Lin suggests that the education sector should identify high-risk youth early by looking at different parenting styles, and strengthening emotional management and mental health support.
Prof Lin Li from Lingnan University serves as the corresponding author of this study, Miss Du Qingnan, a postgraduate researcher from the School of Psychology of South China Normal University, is the first author, and Prof Wu Nini, Associate Professor from the Department of Applied Psychology of Guangdong University of Education, is the co-first author. The other co-authors include Prof Zheng Xiangrong, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Psychology of Guangdong University of Education, and Ms Luo Dongli of Boqi School in Nanhai District.
Read the full study here: Parenting Behavior Profiles and Subsequent Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Chinese Adolescents: A Prospective Moderated Serial Mediation Model
As generative artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly widely used in translation, questions have been raised over whether it could eventually replace professional interpreters. A joint study led by Lingnan University found that while AI can improve translation efficiency, it is still less capable than professional interpreters of adapting language to context and preserving rhetorical and communicative effects. The researchers conclude that human judgement and oversight remain essential, particularly in politically, diplomatically, and culturally sensitive settings. These findings have been published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, a Nature Portfolio journal.
The research team from Lingnan University and the Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications analysed 16 Chinese-language speeches delivered at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) between 2008 and 2023, and compared the official English interpretations by professional UN conference interpreters with AI-generated translations produced by ChatGPT-4o, examining how each handled language in different contexts.
Before generating the AI translations, the researchers designed detailed prompts that included the speaker's official position, institutional background, year of delivery, audience, and broader sociopolitical stance in order to approximate the contextual information available to professional interpreters.
However, despite providing the AI model with extensive contextual information, they found major differences between AI-generated translations and human interpretations in both contextual understanding and translation strategies.
One key difference concerns the use of personal pronouns. As Chinese frequently omits subjects, professional interpreters were more likely to introduce pronouns such as “our” and “they” to reflect interpersonal meanings and relationships between speakers and audiences, reinforcing collective identity and shared responsibility. AI-generated translations, by contrast, tended to produce more literal renderings with fewer personal pronouns.
For example, a Chinese sentence referring to vaccines as a powerful weapon against the pandemic was rendered by a professional interpreter as:
“Vaccination is our powerful weapon against COVID-19.”
whereas ChatGPT-4o translated it as:
“Vaccines are a powerful weapon against the pandemic.”
The researchers found that the interpreter’s addition of “our” strengthened the sense of collective identity, while the AI translation adopted a more neutral tone.
The study also identified distinct differences in how obligation and responsibility were expressed. Professional interpreters were more likely to adjust modal verbs according to context, using expressions such as “should” and “need to” to convey persuasive rather than mandatory obligation. AI-generated translations, however, relied more heavily on “must” and passive constructions, making responsibility less explicit.
For example, the professional interpretation reads:
“We need to enhance coordinated global COVID-19 response and minimise the risk of cross-border virus transmission.”
whereas the AI translation states:
“International joint prevention and control must be strengthened, and the cross-border spread of the virus must be minimised.”
The researchers found that the AI version obscures the agent responsible for action by using passive constructions.
The study also examined culturally embedded metaphors. More than half (52.63 per cent) of the AI translations reduced culturally specific metaphors to their literal meanings, weakening their rhetorical force. By contrast, professional interpreters adopted more flexible strategies, preserving, adapting, and explaining metaphorical expressions according to context. In about one-third of the cases (31.6 per cent), interpreters retained the metaphor and also conveyed its intended meaning.
A joint study by Lingnan University analyses 16 Chinese-language speeches delivered at the United Nations General Assembly between 2008 and 2023, comparing AI-generated translations with professional conference interpreting. The researchers find that even when AI is provided with extensive contextual information and prompts, major differences remain in contextual understanding and translation strategies between AI and human interpreters.
One example involved the traditional Chinese metaphor of people travelling “in the same boat”. The professional interpreter translated it as:
“We are called upon by our times to unite as one and work together for mutual benefit and win-win progress like passengers in the same boat.”
While ChatGPT-4o rendered it as “Working together and achieving mutual benefits and win-win outcomes are the objective demands of our time.”
According to the researchers, the AI translation conveyed the general meaning, but omitted the metaphorical imagery and its rhetorical impact.
The team noted that ChatGPT-4o generally produces fluent and grammatically accurate translations capable of completing translation tasks effectively. However, drawing on socio-cognitive theory, the study argues that professional interpreters consider not only the source text itself but also factors such as the speaker's identity, communicative setting, audience, cultural background, stance, and rhetorical purpose when deciding how to translate. This suggests that current large language models have yet to replicate fully the human capacity to interpret context and cultural meaning.
Prof Wang Binhua, Professor of the Department of Translation and Head of the Centre for English and Additional Languages at Lingnan University, member of the SIG on Artificial Intelligence in Translation and Interpreting of the European Language Council (ELC), said “Large language models still face the challenge of the ‘black box’, meaning that the mechanisms through which they produce particular translations remain difficult to explain. Unlike professional interpreters, who work within established professional ethical standards and are accountable, AI systems generate translations by identifying patterns in large volumes of language data and do not possess an intrinsic ethical framework. In translation tasks that require careful attention to cultural meaning and contextual understanding, human interpreters remain indispensable in making informed judgements about interpersonal relationships, rhetorical choices, and cultural expression.”
Prof Wang Binhua, Professor of the Department of Translation and Head of the Centre for English and Additional Languages at Lingnan University.
He added that AI is better positioned to augment rather than replace professional translators and interpreters. When integrated with human expertise, AI has the potential to improve efficiency while leaving context-sensitive and culturally informed decision-making in human hands.
For the full research paper A tale of two ‘contexts’: ideological differences in the translations of UN political speeches by human interpreters and by ChatGPT4o, please visit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-07877-7
