Multidimensional Discrimination Distress, Controlling Parenting, and Parent-Adolescent Attachment Relationships: Racial/Ethnic Differences.

Abstract

Parents have multifaceted identities, across dimensions like race/ethnicity, gender, and class, which shape their experience of discrimination. However, little is known about how distress from such multidimensional discrimination influences parenting behavior and parent-adolescent relationships. We tested associations between mothers' multidimensional discrimination distress and parental control (overcontrol and conditional regard) and daughters' attachment, among 82 African American (AA), Hispanic/Latina (HL), and non-Hispanic White (NHW) mother-adolescent daughter dyads in the United States. Additionally, we examined whether these associations vary by race/ethnicity. Mothers reported their distress due to multidimensional discrimination and adolescents reported mothers' overcontrol, mothers' conditional regard, and adolescents' attachment to mothers. Across racial/ethnic groups, more multidimensional discrimination distress was associated with more maternal overcontrol. Additionally, racial/ethnic groups differed in associations between discrimination, maternal conditional regard, and adolescent attachment, such that AA mothers were buffered from the deleterious effects of discrimination on conditional regard and adolescent attachment. HL mothers were buffered from effects on adolescent attachment and conditional regard for anger expression, but not fear expression. Findings suggest that stigmatized racial/ethnic groups may rely on adaptive cultural practices to parent effectively in the face of multidimensional discrimination distress, but these resources may not be available to NHW mothers.