Poster #136 - Direct and Indirect Parental Warmth as Predictors of Korean American Parent-Child Relationships and Adjustment

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Compared to European American parents, East Asian parents are often described as expressing their warmth less directly and more indirectly. This is because Confucianism and collectivism have influenced communication to be implicit rather than explicit. Emotional restraint is valued and there is as a great deal of shared information to guide individual behavior in specific situations without need for explicit communication (Heine, 2016; Kim, Atkinson, &Umemoto, 2001; Markus and Kitayama, 1991).
While researchers have suggested culturally unique aspects in East Asian groups of the indirect expression of parental warmth, there is a lack of research that examines the unique role that the indirect expression of warmth may play over and above the direct expression of warmth, as it relates to aspects of the parent-child relationship and subsequent child outcomes. The current longitudinal study sought to address this issue. It examined the direct and indirect expression of parental warmth in relation to 1) two parent-child relationship variables: parent-child bonding and intergenerational cultural conflict, and 2) two child outcome variables: the quality of peer relationships and depression.
The study examined these variables in a sample of 379 Korean American adolescents and their parents drawn from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families (ML-SAAF). The data was collected at two time points, 1 year apart. At Time 1, the Chinese Parent-Adolescent Relationships Scale (Wu & Chao, 2011) was used to measure adolescents’ perception of parental indirect warmth. This measure consists of 10 items assessing parental devotion, sacrifice, and thoughtfulness the child’s needs. Parents reported their direct warmth by using nine items from the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (Rohner, 2004).
At Time 2, adolescents’ perception of parent-child bonding was measured by five items adopted from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Adolescents’ perception of intergenerational cultural conflict was measured by the Asian American Family Conflicts Scale (Lee, Choe, Kim, & Ngo, 2000). The quality of peer relationships was measured by the two items adopted from the Loneliness Scale (Asher & Wheeler, 1985) and one item developed by researchers of ML-SAAF. Depression was measured by 14 items adopted from two scales (Children’s Depression Inventory, Angold et al., 1995; The Seattle Personality Questionnaire for Children, Greenberg & Kusche, 1990).
A path analysis was conducted to test the relationships among the variables. Figure 1 presents the results of the analysis. Indirect and direct warmth at Time 1 were significantly and positively related to parent-child bonding at Time 2, and significantly and negatively related to the intergenerational cultural conflict at Time 2. Indirect warmth was significantly and positively directly associated with peer relationships, but direct warmth was not. Parent child bonding in turn predicted lower levels of depression and more positive peer relationships at Time 2. Intergenerational conflict also predicted higher levels of depression. Table 1 includes the parameters estimates for significant mediational effects. We found significant indirect effects from indirect and indirect warmth to peer relation and depression via parent-child bonding, but not via intergenerational cultural conflict.

Authors

• Jihee Im, University of Missouri-Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Duane Rudy, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seunghee Han, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yoonsun Choi, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author