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Parental Acculturative Stressors and Adolescent Adjustment Through Interparental and Parent–Child Relationships in Chinese American Families

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Abstract

Perpetual foreigner stereotype and bicultural management difficulty are two understudied acculturative stressors frequently experienced by Asian Americans. This study expanded the family stress model to examine how parental experiences of these two acculturative stressors relate to measures of adolescent adjustment (depressive symptoms, delinquent behaviors, and academic performance) during high school and emerging adulthood through interparental and parent–child relationship processes. Participants were 350 Chinese American adolescents (M age  = 17.04, 58 % female) and their parents in Northern California. Path models showed that parental acculturative stressors positively related to parent–child conflict, either directly (for both mother–adolescent and father–adolescent dyads) or indirectly through interparental conflict (for mother–adolescent dyads only). Subsequently, both interparental and parent–child conflict positively related to a sense of alienation between parents and adolescents, which then related to more depressive symptoms, more delinquent behaviors, and lower academic performance in adolescents, for mother–adolescent and father–adolescent dyads. These effects persisted from high school to emerging adulthood. The results highlight the indirect effects of maternal and paternal acculturative stressors on adolescent adjustment through family processes involving interparental and parent–child relationships.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided through awards to Su Yeong Kim from (1) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 5R03HD051629-02 (2) Office of the Vice President for Research Grant/Special Research Grant from the University of Texas at Austin (3) Jacobs Foundation Young Investigator Grant (4) American Psychological Association Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs, Promoting Psychological Research and Training on Health Disparities Issues at Ethnic Minority Serving Institutions Grant (5) American Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology, Ruth G. and Joseph D. Matarazzo Grant (6) California Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Extended Education Fund (7) American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Massachusetts Avenue Building Assets Fund, and (8) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development 5R24HD042849-14 Grant awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Author Contributions

YH conceived of the study and drafted the manuscript; SYK created the design of the study and drafted portions of the manuscript; YW participated in the interpretation of the data and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 108 East Dean Keeton St., Stop A2702, Austin, TX, 78712-1248, USA

    Yang Hou & Su Yeong Kim

  2. Department of psychology, Fordham University, Dealy 235, 441 East Fordham Road, New York, NY, 10458-999, USA

    Yijie Wang

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Hou, Y., Kim, S.Y. & Wang, Y. Parental Acculturative Stressors and Adolescent Adjustment Through Interparental and Parent–Child Relationships in Chinese American Families. J Youth Adolescence 45, 1466–1481 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0441-2

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