Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-186).

Parental psychological control has been linked to numerous negative outcomes among emerging-adult children. Given that emerging adulthood is a time for young people to become autonomous, explore their identities, and begin to feel like an adult, controlling parenting that limits these necessary developmental experiences can be particularly harmful to emerging adults. Given this vulnerability, the current study aimed to understand how parental psychological control affects emerging adults' adjustment (i.e., internalizing problems, externalizing problems, identity exploration), explore a moderating factor (i.e., best friendships) that could help these struggling emerging adults, and examine how these relations could differ by parent and child gender. Participants came from four universities across the United States and completed the READY questionnaire online at two time points, one year apart (N = 273, Mage = 20.95). Results revealed that maternal psychological control positively predicted identity exploration for males and best friendships moderated the relationship between parental psychological control and identity exploration for females. No significant results were found for internalizing and externalizing problems. I then discuss conceptual factors that may play a role in understanding the relation between parental psychological control, best friendships, emerging adult adjustment (i.e., internalizing problems, externalizing problems, identity exploration), and gender.

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Previous cross-cultural research in nonverbal immediacy indicates that nonverbal immediacy behavior varies across cultures, and some researchers have suggested that power distance might serve as a moderating variable, however no research has systematically set out to determine whether that is the case. This study assessed the perceived use of nonverbal immediacy under symmetric and asymmetric power conditions, as well as gender, in three cultures: Brazil, Kenya, and the United States. Quantitative data was collected from 527 participants who completed a nonverbal immediacy measure and an individual power distance measure under either a symmetric or an asymmetric power condition. Results related to power distance partially supported the idea that cultural power distance may act as a moderating variable with regard to the use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors. Related to gender, results revealed that: (a) female participants perceived more nonverbal immediacy behaviors than males, (b) under symmetric power conditions females were perceived to use more nonverbal immediacy than males, and (c) under asymmetric power conditions there was no statistically significant difference between use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors between females and males. Implications of results, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented.