East Asian child-rearing attitudes: an exploration of cultural, demographic and self-disclosure factors among US immigrants.
Child-rearing attitudes among East Asian groups have been emphasized in the developmental psychology literature in the context of their association with academic achievement. Although child-rearing attitudes play an important role in the transmission of cultural values, much of the research on East Asian child-rearing attitudes has ignored cultural variables and has instead focused on authoritarian parenting style. The current study examined the association between three classes of variables-culture (i.e., ethnic identity, self-construal, acculturation), demographics (sex, years in the US, English fluency), and self-disclosure-and traditional child-rearing attitudes (TCRA) among East Asian immigrants in the United States. It was hypothesized that higher levels of TCRA would be associated with higher levels of ethnic identity, interdependent self-construal, separation, and guarded self-disclosure, and fewer years spent in the United States. The participants included 170 East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) immigrants (88 men, 82 women) who were administered a battery of psychometrically established measures. Our hypotheses were largely supported. We found that, while there was no significant sex by ethnicity effect for TCRA, men were significantly more likely than women to endorse TCRA and the Korean group had significantly higher TCRA than the Japanese group. Ethnic identity, interdependent self-construal, separation, years in the US, and guarded self-disclosure were significant independent predictors of TCRA. The findings suggest the need for broadening the content of assessment tools of child-rearing attitudes and measuring associated cultural and noncultural variables among East Asian ethnic groups. Future research on child-rearing attitudes among Asian ethnic groups may benefit from (1) measuring multiple dimensions of TCRA, (2) assessing associated cultural variables directly rather than inferring them in an ad hoc fashion based on observed ethnicity differences, (3) measurement of demography (including sex and years spent in the host country) and (4) examining the potential influence of guarded self-disclosure.
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519-1187, USA. declan.barry@yale.edu
Declan T
DT
Barry
Matthew J
MJ
Bernard
Mark
M
Beitel
D000069:Acculturation; D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology*; D001290:Attitude / Q000208:ethnology*; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology*; D005202:Asia, Eastern / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016487:Parenting / Q000208:ethnology; D012649:Self Concept; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012933:Social Identification; D012945:Social Values / Q000208:ethnology; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult