Perceived Parental Comparison, Authenticity and School Adjustment in Adolescence: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis.

In increasingly competitive educational contexts, parents often evaluate and compare their children's performance, which may shape adolescents' self-related experiences and adjustment. Little is known about how different forms of perceived parental comparison are dynamically associated with adolescents' psychological functioning and school adjustment. Using a cross-lagged panel network approach, this study examined the dynamic associations among perceived parental comparison, authenticity and school adjustment. Four hundred forty-nine adolescents in China (Mage = 15.81 ± 0.61; 51.9% female) participated at two time points. Results showed that parental upward social comparison emerged as the most structurally influential node, exhibiting the highest out-expected and bridge expected influence. Self-alienation, parental temporal comparison of decline and peer relationship problems also occupied prominent structural positions, whereas parental downward comparison showed the highest in-expected influence. In addition, upward and downward social comparisons were linked to peer relationship problems in opposite directions, and school adjustment was associated with subsequent changes in decline-focused parental comparisons. Progress-focused comparison was associated with lower self-alienation, and authenticity showed modest but meaningful links with school adjustment. Overall, the findings suggest that parental comparison, authenticity and school adjustment are embedded within a dynamic and reciprocal system during adolescence, with distinct comparison forms playing differentiated structural roles.