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This dissertation, "The Cost of Being Mommy's Boys or Girls: the Role of Internalization in the Development of Perfectionism and Depression" by Ying, Tong,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled The Cost of Being Mommy's Boys or Girls: The Role of Internalization in the Development of Perfectionism and Depression Submitted by Ying TONG for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in August 2007 The role of parents has been the focus of the research investigating the development of perfectionism. Perfectionism is found to be associated with exceedingly high parental expectations and controlling parenting styles. Although previous research has managed to enhance our understanding about how parents foster perfectionistic tendencies in their children, the way that children themselves are responsible for their perfectionism is yet to be clarified. The present study acknowledged children as active agents in the process of socialization. It was set out to investigate how mothers and children together could contribute to the development of children's perfectionism and depression. The aim of the present study was two-fold. First, it investigated whether the children's internalization of mothers' values would affect the role of the mothers' goal orientation for their children in the development of the children's perfectionism and depression. Second, it examined whether the mothers' controlling behaviors would mediate the relations between the mothers' goal orientation and the children's perfectionism and th depression. The participants were 60 H