Maternal Love Withdrawal and Guilt Induction Predicting Chinese American Children’s Bullying Aggressive Behavior

• In Event: 2-200 - Bullying During Early Childhood: Multiple Methods and Informants in Three Ethnically and Culturally Diverse Populations

Integrative Statement

Bullying has negative consequences for children’s adjustment in school such as reduced peer acceptance and increased conflict with teachers (e.g., Gower, Lingras, Mathieson, Kawabata, & Crick, 2014). Although bullying is also readily engaged in by preschool children, it has been less extensively studied during this developmental period (e.g., Vlachou, Andreou, Botsoglou, & Didaskalou, 2011), especially among ethnic minority families. Thus, it is important to investigate factors that may contribute to bullying in young children to inform prevention and intervention efforts (Nelson, Coyne, Swanson, Hart, & Olsen, 2014). This study examined the effects of two psychological control dimensions, love withdrawal and guilt induction, on Chinese American children’s bullying aggressive behavior, using a short-term longitudinal design.

Participants were first-generation Chinese American mothers (N = 133; Mage = 37.82) and their preschool children (Mage = 4.48). Chinese American mothers reported their psychologically controlling parenting and teachers rated children’s bullying behaviors, including verbal, physical, and relational aggression, in the school setting at both Wave 1 (W1) and Wave 2 (W2). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to establish the psychometric properties and cross-wave measurement equivalence of the parenting and child constructs (Table 1).

The final model achieved acceptable model fit (Figure 1), χ2 (534, N = 133) = 616.85, p = .006, CFI = .93, and RMSEA = .04. Cross-lagged structural equation modeling analysis indicated that W1 maternal love withdrawal predicted more W2 child bullying (β = .50, SE = .15, p = .001, 95% CI [.21, .78]), whereas W1 maternal guilt induction predicted less W2 child bullying (β = -.29, SE = .13, p = .032, 95% CI [-.55, -.03]). With respect to child effects, more W1 child bullying predicted more W2 maternal guilt induction (β = .18, SE = .09, p = .039, 95% CI [.01, .35]), whereas W1 child bullying did not predict W2 maternal love withdrawal. These results held after controlling for the initial level of parenting behavior and child bullying as well as demographic variables (child age, gender, and maternal education).

The negative effect of maternal love withdrawal on child development finding was consistent with those from previous studies on Western samples, suggesting the culturally-shared negative connotations of such practices even among Chinese children residing in the U.S. In contrast, the beneficial effects of guilt induction on reducing Chinese American children’s bullying differed from previous findings on Western children. Maternal use of love and attention withdrawal may undermine attachment security and serve as behavioral models for their children to interact in hostile ways with peers in school (Nelson et al., 2013; Rubin, Coplan, & Bowker, 2009). However, guilt induction may help cultivate empathy to enhance children’s social competence within the peer group (Fung & Lau, 2012). The finding that bullying elicited greater guilt induction but not love withdrawal indicated that mothers used guilt induction to correct children’s misbehavior rather than vent their negative feelings through love withdrawal. Our results highlight the importance of construct specificity and cultural context in understanding the effects of parenting on children’s social development.

Authors

• Jing Yu, NICHD
  Presenting Author

• Charissa S. L. Cheah, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
  Non-Presenting Author

• Craig H. Hart, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chongming Yang, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joseph A Olsen, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author