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Predictors of Parental Psychological Control in Immigrant Chinese Canadian Families: Universal and Acculturation Stressors

While extensive research has supported the negative impacts of psychological control (i.e., intrusive parenting behaviors that restrain a child’s self-expression) on child adjustment (e.g., Barber et al., 2005), less has systematically investigated predictors of psychological control, especially in the context of immigrant families. Soenens and Vansteenkiste (2010) suggested that parents are more likely to engage in psychological control when their basic psychological needs are frustrated. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2002), the need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence are essential for well-being. I hypothesized that lower satisfaction of the need for competence and relatedness, each indicated by a number of stressors, would predict increasing psychological control over time. Participants were 182 immigrant Chinese families (2/3 randomly recruited) with adolescent children. Family members were assessed two times, 18 months apart. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that, despite high stability in psychological control over time, low parent-child agreement, high perceived discrimination, and high language stress predicted increases in psychological control over time for mothers. In addition, low marital satisfaction predicted increasing psychological control for newcomer fathers, and high interpersonal acculturation stress predicted increasing psychological control for fathers who had been in Canada for a longer period. Implications for practice and polity are discussed. / Graduate / 0621

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/5491
Date28 July 2014
CreatorsMiao, Sheena Wen-Hsun
ContributorsCostigan, Catherine L.
Source SetsUniversity of Victoria
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
RightsAvailable to the World Wide Web

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