Exploring Familism as a Buffer Between Family/Cultural Conflict and Internalizing Symptoms in Latino Immigrant Children

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

The stressors that first-generation immigrant Latino youth face put them at risk for poorer mental health, including heightened depressive symptoms. Twenty-two percent of Latino youth exhibit more depressive symptoms than their peers from different ethnic backgrounds (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). Family/cultural conflict is marked by the tension that arises when acculturation and the pursuit of individual goals conflict with cultural values and notions of family cohesion (Rivera et al., 2008). Family/cultural conflict has been linked to heightened psychological distress in Latino immigrant populations (Molina et al., 2016). However, attitudinal familism, or the belief that the family comes before the individual, has been shown to diminish psychological distress resulting from family/cultural conflict (Rivera et al., 2008). Therefore, it is possible that familism could serve as a protective factor between family/cultural conflict stress and mental health outcomes. The present study aims to explore the effect of familism as a potential buffer between family/cultural conflict and internalizing symptoms in immigrant-origin Latino children.

Participants included 104 children aged 7 to 11 years and their primary caregivers. Participant families were required to have least one Mexican-origin immigrant parent, one child between 6-10 years, and family income at or below 150% of the federal poverty line. Data was collected during a series of three home visits spaced six months apart (T1-T3). Participants completed the Hispanic Stress Inventory (Cervantes et al., 1991), to assess family/cultural conflict stress, the Familism Scale (Gil et al., 2000), to assess familism, and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1999), to assess child internalizing symptoms.

Cross-sectional bivariate correlation analysis revealed that primary caregiver (PC) report of familism was negatively correlated with PC report of child internalizing symptoms (r= -.23, p=0.027). Cross-sectional regression analysis indicated a significant main effect of family/cultural conflict stress on internalizing symptoms at T3 (B= .353, p< .001). PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) was used to conduct moderation analyses. Cross-sectionally, PC report and child report of familism did not significantly moderate the effect of family/cultural conflict stress on internalizing symptoms. The moderation was also tested longitudinally, and results revealed that the interaction between family/cultural conflict stress and familism had a significant effect on child internalizing outcomes (B= .03, t(88)=3.1, p< .01). This suggests that high levels of family/cultural conflict stress at T1 and low levels of PC report of familism at T2 predict low levels of child internalizing symptoms at T3.

As hypothesized, familism was significantly associated with lower internalizing symptoms and family/cultural conflict stress was significantly associated with higher internalizing symptoms cross-sectionally. However, familism emerged as a moderator in longitudinal analyses only. This longitudinal moderation did not reflect the hypothesized relationship; rather than playing a protective role as was expected, familism appeared to exacerbate the relationship between family/cultural conflict stress and child internalizing outcomes over time.

Future work may explore the potential for familism to moderate the outcomes of different types of stress, as well as seek out different factors that may buffer the relationship between family/cultural conflict stress and internalizing symptoms.

Authors

• Saadia Elahi, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Laura Distel, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Jolie, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Decarlo Santiago, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author