Chinese immigrant early adolescents’ perceived parenting styles, cognitive flexibility, and prosocial behavior: A three-group comparison

• In Event: Parenting processes and child outcomes among Chinese families in three Western contexts

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility (CF), a key component of executive functions, refers to the ability to appropriately adjust one’s behavior according to a changing environment (Diamond, 2013). It plays a central role in individuals’ academic achievement, social skills, and psychological well-being, especially among youth with an immigrant background who navigate between different cultural environments (Fuligni & Tsai, 2015). Research indicates that CF interacts with contextual factors, including parenting (Bornstein & Cheah, 2006) and cultural experience (Tran et al., 2019). Furthermore, it is positively linked to prosocial behavior (Miconi, Moscardino, Altoè, & Salcuni, 2019). However, little is known about the moderating role of CF in the parenting-prosocial behavior link among minority immigrant youth in comparison to their ethnic majority peers in the country of origin and in the country of destination. Based on recent recommendations (see Bornstein, 2017), this study design allows researchers to examine whether the expected associations among study variables have a common or culture-specific pattern, thus uncovering possible acculturation effects at the group level.

The current study compared Chinese early adolescents with an immigrant background (n = 122) with their nonimmigrant majority peers in Italy (n = 165) and China (n = 157) on their levels of CF to highlight the role of culture and immigrant context in such ability. Moreover, we examined whether CF moderated the expected association between parenting styles and prosocial behavior in the three groups.

Participants aged between 11 and 14 years completed the Parenting Inventory (Gao, Zhang, & Fung, 2015) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Nelson, 1976). Teachers rated their students’ prosocial behavior via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997).

Group comparisons showed that Chinese immigrant youth scored higher on the CF task than their majority peers in both China and Italy, and this ability was positively associated with prosocial behavior. Latent profile analysis revealed three parenting styles: ‘harsh’ (n = 70), ‘supportive’ (n = 180), and ‘strict-affectionate’(n = 194) (see Figure 1). Chinese immigrant, Italian nonimmigrant, and Chinese nonimmigrant early adolescents were overrepresented in each of these profiles, respectively. In regression analyses, CF strengthened the supportive parenting-prosocial behavior link among Chinese immigrants, and buffered against the detrimental effect of harsh parenting on prosocial behavior among Italian natives (see Figure 2).

Our findings confirm an increased shifting ability among youth with an immigrant background, and emphasize the differential role of parenting styles and CF in prosocial behavior across cultural groups. Moreover, the identified parenting profiles and their different distribution across cultural groups reflect the distinct cultural values of China and Italy as well as the immigration experience of Chinese families. In particular, the harsh pattern might be the result of difficult socioeconomic circumstances as well as an increased emphasis on traditional parenting styles which are frequently observed among immigrant families settled in Western societies (Su & Hynie, 2011). Psychoeducational activities may focus on increasing CF given its positive effect in both immigrant and mainstream youth to enhance the quality of intercultural relationships at home and at school.

Authors

• Xiaoyu Lan, University of Oslo
  Presenting Author

• Ughetta Moscardino, Università degli Studi di Padova (UNIPD)
  Non-Presenting Author