The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effects of self-acceptance in relation between parental psychological control and adolescent depressive symptoms. A total of 373 middle or high school students in Seoul and Gyeonggi area participated. The Domain-specific Assessment of Psychological Control (DAPC: Park & Lee, 2009) was used to access perceived parental psychological control. The Unconditional Self-Acceptance Questionnaire (USAQ: Seo, 2011) was used to access self-acceptance. The Center for Epidmiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D: Radloff, 1977) was used to measure depressive symptoms. The data were analyzed using frequencies, percentiles, means, standard deviations, t-tests, Pearson''s correlations, SEM(Structural Equation Modeling) and multigroup analysis.

The major findings of this study were as follows:

1. The average level of parental psychological control and adolescents'' self-acceptance were not significantly different as a function of gender. However, the average level of depressive symptom was higher in female adolescents than in male adolescents.

2. Parental psychological control was negatively related to adolescents'' self-acceptance, and was positively related to adolescents'' depressive symptoms. Adolescents'' self-acceptance was negatively related to depressive symptoms.

3. Paternal psychological control had influenced on adolescents'' depressive symptoms indirectly via self-acceptance. Maternal psychological control had influenced on adolescents'' depressive symptoms both directly and indirectly via self-acceptance. The mediation model was invariant across gender.

These results suggest that adolescent depressive symptoms could be lowered by reducing negative effects of parental psychological control and enhancing adolescents'' self-acceptance.