A cross-cultural study of family and peer correlates of adolescent misconduct.
Participants were 4 groups of early adolescents from middle-class backgrounds (European and Chinese Americans in southern California and Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan, and Beijing, China). The 591 adolescents (M age = 13.8 years) completed questionnaires about their involvement in misconduct and about family and peer characteristics. Mothers of a subsample of adolescents (n = 405) also completed a questionnaire about their relationships with their adolescents. The 4 groups of adolescents reported significantly different mean levels of family and peer correlates but showed strikingly similar levels and patterns of self-reported misconduct. Structural equation models revealed that 2 latent variables (family relationships and peer sanctions) accounted for more variance in misconduct among European and Chinese American adolescents (51%-62%) than among the 2 Chinese groups (15%-24%), mainly because of a greater contribution of peer factors in the former groups.
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine 92697, USA.
C
C
Chen
E
E
Greenberger
J
J
Lester
Q
Q
Dong
M S
MS
Guo
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D002681:China; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003617:Dangerous Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting; D010379:Peer Group; D012917:Social Adjustment; D014481:United States