Long-Term Culturally Moderated Effects of Harsh Discipline on Emotion Regulation and Internalizing Symptoms Among Early-Adolescents From Three Countries

• In Event: Parenting, Peer Victimization, and Youth Emotional Experience Predicting Adolescent Adjustment: Effects of Culture and Ethnicity

Abstract

Implementation of adaptive emotion regulation skills lessens from early to middle adolescence (Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014), and limited emotion regulation skills are robustly related to internalizing symptoms among adolescents (Shafer et al., 2017) across cultures (DiGiunta et al., 2017). Parenting behaviors are important predictors of youth emotion regulation (Watkins & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2014), and yet cross-cultural evidence on this relation is scarce. Using longitudinal cross-cultural data, we examined depressive rumination as a mediator of the relation between harsh discipline (HD) and youth internalizing symptoms. We further examined whether cultural normativeness of HD affected the strength of this mediational pathway.
Participants included 533 family triads from three countries and six cultural groups—Colombia, Italy (Napoletano, Roman), and the United States (White, Black, Latinx)—in the Parenting Across Cultures project (e.g., Lansford et al., 2005). We gathered data at three time points (T1: youth Mage = 10.89, SD = .70; T2: youth Mage = 12.57, SD = .68; T3: youth Mage = 13.72, SD = .68). Mother- and father-reported harsh discipline and its normativeness (Lansford et al., 2014) were measured at T1, youth-reported depressive rumination (Abela et al., 2002) was measured at T2, and youth-reported internalizing symptoms were measured at T3 (Achenbach, 1991). Reliability estimates within each site were adequate for all measures.
We first examined partial correlations (controlling for gender) within each of the six sites separately. Overall, the strength and direction of correlations varied widely across sites when relating rumination to maternal HD (rs=-.06 to .22) and paternal HD (rs=-.21 to .04) and when relating internalizing symptoms to maternal HD (rs=-.21 to .40**) and paternal HD (rs=-.20 to .15). Rumination was significantly positively correlated with internalizing symptoms within every site (rs=.34** to .62***). The six sites differed significantly on the frequency of HD[mothers: F(5, 561)=21.10; fathers: F(5, 422)=9.73] and the normativeness of HD [mothers: F(5, 560)=20.32; fathers: F(5, 418)=7.77]. Using Mplus and methods from Preacher et al. (2007), we found the mediational pathway from mother-reported HD through depressive rumination to youth-reported internalizing symptoms was moderated by mother-reported normativeness of HD. The strength of depressive rumination as a mediator was stronger in cultural contexts where maternal HD is less normative. Tests of moderated-mediation were not significant for father-reported HD. Additional analyses will examine the effect of additional covariates on our findings. We discuss our results in terms of understanding cultural specificities of rumination as a mechanism for explaining youth adjustment and the importance of this knowledge for prevention efforts seeking to enhance the well-being of youth around the world.

Authors

• Anne-Marie Rose Iselin, Elon University
  Presenting Author

• Laura Di Giunta, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carolina Lunetti, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer E. Lansford, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Concetta Pastorelli, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Liliana Uribe Tirado, Universidad de San Buenaventura
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dario Bacchini, University of Naples 'Federico II'
  Non-Presenting Author