Parental Socialization Practices Research Articles

Rejecting Multiracial Stereotypes: Parental Socialization Practices at the Intersection of Race and Gender

Stereotypes surrounding multiracial individuals include being viewed as inherently attractive because of their mixed-race background, and, therefore, having a superiority complex, which reinforces racial hierarchies and creates division and tension within communities of color. This superiority complex is often rooted in colorism and proximity to White beauty standards. Drawing upon in-depth, semistructured interviews with 19 sets of interracial parents in the United States, I describe parents’ awareness and perceptions of these stereotypes at the intersection of race and gender. Parents understand that their Black multiracial boys must contend with both multiracial stereotypes and controlling images of Black men and boys. I argue that parents’ understanding of both multiracial stereotypes, like the Biracial Beauty Stereotype, and controlling images of Black boys and men informs their racial socialization practices as they help their child(ren) build a positive racial identity and prepare for discrimination.

Convergent and divergent parental emotion socialization processes shape children's emotional responding

AbstractParents have an essential role in shaping children's emotional responses, a process called emotional socialization. Typically, researchers measure parental socialization behaviors via self‐report and in‐laboratory observations. However, the extent to which there is convergence between parents’ reported and enacted socialization practices is an open question. The aims of the current study were (1) to quantify the convergence/divergence in parents’ reported and enacted emotional socialization practices and (2) to analyze how convergence/divergence in specific parent socialization practices relates to children's emotional responding across different contexts (alone and with a parent). Participants were a diverse sample of 181 parent‐child dyads (children ages 3–11). We analyzed emotion socialization strategies (problem‐focused reactions, emotion‐focused reactions, expressive encouragement, punishing reactions, minimizing reactions, and distress reactions) as they related to children's behavioral and physiological responding to an emotional challenge. We found an overall pattern of divergence for most socialization strategies, but convergence for problem‐focused reactions. For children's observed distress, a convergent pattern of reported and enacted minimizing specifically was related to more distress while alone. For children's physiological reactivity, enacted problem‐solving was related to greater parasympathetic decreases across social context (from being alone to being with parent). Taken together, our findings suggest that convergence and divergence in parental emotional socialization practices may capture unique variability in how parents contextually respond to children's feelings, and children's emotional responding.

Does ethnic-racial socialization matter? A within-person analysis of racial discrimination and sleep health among Black and Latinx emerging adults

ObjectivesEmerging work suggests that racism-related stressors may contribute to adverse sleep health, yet little is known about how culturally relevant resources may influence the relationship between racism-related stressors and adverse sleep health. The aim of this study was to examine associations between weekly reports of racial hassles and young adults’ sleep health (i.e., sleep onset latency, total sleep time, sleep quality) and to determine whether various forms of parental ethnic-racial socialization would moderate these associations. MethodsParticipants were 141 college students (Mage = 20.7 years, standard deviation (SD) = 1.22, 70% female) who identified as either Black (n = 88; 62.4%) or Latinx (n = 53; 37.6%). Participants completed an initial 1.5-hour assessment in the laboratory and 4 weekly sleep diary surveys (assessed sleep health and depressive symptoms). ResultsWeekly racial hassles are related to greater sleep onset latency, decreased total sleep time, and poorer sleep quality. The promotion of mistrust and cultural socialization significantly moderated associations between weekly racial hassles and sleep onset latency and total sleep time, respectively. ConclusionsThese results provide supportive evidence that parental ethnic-racial socialization practices, a preemptive cultural resource, may be an understudied mechanism in sleep health research. Future research is needed to clarify the role of parental ethnic-racial socialization in promoting sleep health equity among youth and young adults.

Goodness of fit in the Chinese context of socialization in the first three years.

Based on the goodness-of-fit theory, the current research examined how parental socialization expectations and socialization practices in infancy predicted child social adjustment in the preschool year dependent on child characteristics in toddlerhood with a longitudinal sample of Chinese families. Participants were 272 Chinese mother-child dyads. Maternal socialization goals of child autonomy and obedience were assessed when the child was 6 months old. Maternal respect for autonomy and negative control were observed in free-plays at 15 months. Mothers reported child compliance and inhibitory control at 25 months and rated child externalizing behaviors at 37 months. Results showed that for children with low levels of compliance or high levels of inhibitory control, obedience socialization goals predicted more externalizing behaviors, whereas for children with high levels of compliance or low levels of inhibitory control, obedience socialization goals predicted fewer externalizing behaviors. Moreover, for children with high levels of inhibitory control, higher levels of respect for autonomy or lower levels of negative control foretold fewer externalizing behaviors. Conversely, for children with low levels of inhibitory control, lower levels of respect for autonomy or higher levels of negative control forecasted fewer externalizing behaviors. Together, our findings demonstrate that socialization expectations, socialization practices, and child characteristics are jointly predictive of social adjustment across early childhood and all the significant interactions are characterized by the pattern of a contrastive effect, therefore congruently supporting the goodness-of-fit hypotheses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Latina mothers' cultural orientation and child self-esteem: The mediating role of cultural socialization.

This longitudinal investigation evaluated parental cultural socialization practices as a central mechanism by which parents' cultural values influence developmental outcomes in ethnic-racial minority children. Drawing on a sample of 129 Latina mothers and their children (48.1% daughters and 51.9% sons), path analyses evaluated hypothesized individual and interactive contributions of mothers' Latina heritage and American mainstream cultural orientations to changes in children's self-esteem via overt and covert cultural socialization practices. Mothers reported on their cultural orientation and socialization practices when their children were ages 5 and 8, respectively. Children reported their self-esteem at ages 8 and 10. Controlling for family socioeconomic status, mothers' nativity status, and prior child self-esteem, path analyses revealed a significant indirect effect from mothers' heritage orientation to increased child self-esteem via overt cultural socialization practices. Interestingly, a multigroup analysis by gender showed that mothers' heritage orientation was positively related to overt and covert cultural socialization practices toward both daughters and sons, but the indirect paths to child self-esteem through cultural socialization did not attain significance for daughters. Moreover, among sons, the indirect path through overt cultural socialization predicted increased self-esteem, whereas the indirect path through covert cultural socialization predicted decreased self-esteem. These findings show that cultural socialization is a salient process by which parental cultural orientation influences children's self-esteem while highlighting the specificity of these effects across overt and covert expressions of cultural socialization and child gender. Efforts to promote positive self-esteem among Latinx children should encourage parental cultural socialization practices, such as teaching, reading, and/or performing activities that celebrate the Latinx culture.

Parental socialization of mental health in Chinese American families: What parents say and do, and how youth make meaning.

Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and maintain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding mental health and help-seeking behaviors. Although culture shapes parental mental health socialization, few studies have examined specific parental socialization practices regarding mental health and help-seeking, especially as a culturally anchored process. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores youth-reported parental socialization of mental health within Chinese American families by examining focus group data from 69 Chinese American high school and college students. Findings revealed that youth received parental messages that conveyed culturally anchored conceptualizations of mental health that included stigmatized views of mental illness and perceptions of mental distress as not a legitimate problem. Parents responded to youth distress in culturally consonant ways: by encouraging culturally specific coping methods, dismissing or minimizing distress, or responding with silence. Youth engaged in the active interpretation of parental messages through cultural brokering, bridging the gap between their parents' messages and mainstream notions of mental health and help-seeking. Overall, our findings point to the significant role of culture in parental mental health socialization in Chinese American families and the need to integrate culturally specific understandings of mental health into future interventions for Asian American youth.

Gender Prejudice Within the Family: The Relation Between Parents' Sexism and Their Socialization Values.

Gender inequalities are still persistent despite the growing policy efforts to combat them. Sexism, which is an evaluative tendency leading to different treatment of people based on their sex and to denigration (hostile sexism) or enhancement (benevolent sexism) of certain dispositions as gendered attributes, plays a significant role in strengthening these social inequalities. As it happens with many other attitudes, sexism is mainly transmitted by influencing parental styles and socialization practices. This study focused on the association between parents' hostile and benevolent sexism toward women and their socialization values (specifically, conservation and self-transcendence), that are the values parents would like their children to endorse. We took both parents' and children's sex into account in the analyses. One-hundred-sixty-five Italian parental couples with young adult children participated in the study. Parents, both the mother and the father, individually filled in a self-report questionnaire composed of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Portrait Values Questionnaire. Findings showed that mothers' benevolent sexism was positively related to their desire to transmit conservation values to their sons and daughters. This result was also found for fathers, but with a moderation effect of children's sex. Indeed, the positive relationship between fathers' benevolent sexism and conservation was stronger in the case of sons than of daughters. Moreover, fathers' benevolent sexism was positively associated with self-transcendence values. Finally, fathers' hostile sexism was positively associated with conservation and negatively with self-transcendence. Limitations of the study, future research developments, and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Antecedents and Consequences of Discrepant Perceptions of Racial Socialization between Parents and Adolescents within Mexican-Origin Families.

Parents and adolescents often have different views regarding parental racial socialization practices; however, studies documenting such discrepancies remain scarce. Using a person-centered approach, this study investigated patterns of parent-adolescent discrepant views on racial socialization (i.e., cultural socialization, bias coping, bias awareness) as well as antecedents and consequences of the discrepancy profiles. Participants were 604 adolescents (54% female, Mage = 12.41, Rangeage = 11-15) and their mothers and fathers. The results showed distinct discrepancy patterns and suggested that more maternal/paternal warmth was associated with profiles that have smaller discrepancies or profiles in which adolescents reported higher socialization than parents. Adolescents who reported higher or similar socialization as parents demonstrated better adjustment. Implications for interventions aimed at strengthening parent-child relationships and communication about race and culture are discussed.

Saving of Freshmen and Their Parents in Slovenia: Saving Motives and Links to Parental Financial Socialization.

Spending money within the budget, financial planning, and saving represent important positive financial behaviors that contribute to financial satisfaction of emerging adults, which in turn predicts their satisfaction with life. In a mixed method study of Slovenian first-year university students (N = 515) and one of their parents, we qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed multi-informant survey data collected online on their motivation to save money and the factors that influence the students’ choice (demographics, parental saving, and parental financial socialization). More than half of the freshmen and their parents saved money, mostly for long-term financial goals, larger investments, financial security in the future, and with self-gratification motives. Saving and the motives for saving were moderately associated within the student–parent dyads: The students whose parents saved tended to save themselves, and the saving motives of parents and their emerging adult children also showed similarities. The role of parents as agents of financial socialization in the students’ healthy financial behavior was supported by significant associations between the students' recollection of parental socialization practices (direct financial teaching and financial monitoring) and their money saving.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10834-021-09789-x.

Associations between maternal reactions to child negative emotions and child social competence: A longitudinal study.

According to a heuristic model of emotion socialization, the implications of parental reactions to child emotions may vary by child characteristics. Children's knowledge about culturally bound, emotion display rules may be one of such characteristics, as it may alter children's interpretations of their parents' behaviors. The interrelationships among parental unsupportive reactions to child negative emotions, child emotion knowledge, and child social competence, however, have rarely been investigated. The present study examined whether Chinese children's emotion knowledge moderated the associations of mothers' minimizing and punitive reactions with changes in children's peer acceptance, social cognition, and aggression over time. On two occasions separated by about 1 year, data were collected from 330 children, their mothers, and class teachers from 10 kindergartens in Hong Kong, China. The age of children in Wave 1 averaged 4.81 years (SD = 0.38), and 56% of them (n = 186) were girls. Multilevel models indicated that maternal minimizing reactions were not significantly linked to changes in child social competence. But, for children with more knowledge about emotion display rules, maternal punitive reactions were linked to increases in child peer acceptance and social cognition and decreases in aggression over time. Theoretically, findings demonstrated the interplay of parental socialization practices and child individual characteristics in shaping child development. Practically, findings pointed to the importance of explaining emotion display rules to children in Chinese communities and helping children to balance self-expression of emotions with consideration of others' feelings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Parenting and adolescent adjustment: The mediational role of family self-esteem

The present study analyzes the relationship between parental socialization practices, acceptance/involvement, and strictness/imposition, and different indicators of adolescent adjustment, taking into account the role of family self-esteem. A sample of 848 Spanish adolescents (54.70% females) ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old (M = 16.11, SD = 1.10) participated in the study. A series of structural equations models (SEMs) were tested to examine the mediational role of family self-esteem in the relationship between parenting practices and the outcome variables that capture adolescent adjustment: emotional instability, antisocial behavior, and academic achievement. The influence of parental practices on adolescent adjustment is expected to take place through family self-esteem. The results showed that the effect of acceptance/involvement and strictness/imposition practices on emotional instability, antisocial behavior, and academic achievement was mediated by family self-esteem. Family self-esteem eliminates the previous direct relationships between parental practices and all the adolescent adjustment variables, except the one between acceptance/involvement and emotional instability, which was reduced but not eliminated. Acceptance/involvement practices positively influence adolescents’ adjustment via family self-esteem, whereas strictness/imposition practices negatively influence adolescents’ adjustment via family self-esteem. This study contributes to clarifying the relationship between parental practices and adolescent adjustment, considering family self-esteem as a mediational variable rather than as an adolescent adjustment indicator. The present findings and their implications for parenting science are discussed.

Trajectories of civic socialization in context: Examining variation among children in African American and Black immigrant families.

Little is known about how developmental experiences spanning early childhood through adolescence prepare children and youth to engage with society, and even less so for ethnically diverse Black children and youth. Building from work linking positive youth development (PYD) to civic engagement, this study examined how socialization trajectories from early childhood through adolescence in concert with early childhood experiences and contexts related to adolescent civic development. Person-centered analysis (PCA) through trajectory modeling was conducted using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Family-level inclusion criteria was used to identify the subsample wherein at least 1 parent identified as Black or African American (N = 3,562); 49.5% of children were female. The ECLS-K component measure of socioeconomic status (SES) indicated that most families were from low SES backgrounds (54.5%), followed by middle and upper-middle class (36.4%,), then upper-middle class and beyond (9.1%). Civic development was measured by the PYD outcomes of competence, confidence, connection to school and peers, caring, and character, which have positively accounted for civic engagement across ethnically and racially diverse youth. Findings suggest that diversity in socialization experiences, sociocultural background, and context result in differential outcomes of civic development. This builds on previous civic engagement work by affirming the importance of parental perceptions, civic opportunity, socialization practices, and context. Moreover, this work highlights ethnic diversity among Black youth in civic development and suggests that being from an immigrant family is associated with differential civic outcomes relative to their nonimmigrant counterparts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Parenting profiles of academic and racial socialization: Associations with academic engagement and academic self-beliefs of African American adolescents

In addition to being involved and encouraging their youth academically, many African American caregivers also employ socialization practices that prepare their adolescents for entering into a school system where they will be an ethnic minority or be taught by predominantly non-minority educators. The purpose of the current investigation was to fill existing gaps in the literature by examining two dimensions of parental socialization practices: academic socialization (parent school involvement and academic encouragement) and racial socialization (cultural pride, preparation for bias, and egalitarian messages). Additionally, this study examined how the identified profiles are associated with African American adolescents' academic outcomes (academic engagement and academic self-beliefs). A latent profile analysis was utilized to analyze data on 140 African American adolescent participants (M = 12.4; SD = 1.13; 56% female). Profiles that were identified included (a) academic socializers, (b) low race salient socializers, (c) preparation for bias socializers, (d) unengaged socializers, (e) multifaceted socializers, and (f) race salient socializers. Although there was no demographic (age, gender, SES) variation in profile membership, there were some differences in academic engagement and adolescents' academic-self beliefs. Findings highlight the importance of examining how academic and racial socialization work together and their association with adolescents' academic outcomes. Implications are discussed for school psychologists and educators.

Parental Cultural Socialization Practices among Underrepresented Ethnoracial Groups in a Predominantly White Rural College Community

Prior research indicates that parents adapt their cultural socialization approaches to their community contexts, however few studies have directly examined the influence of the community context in increasingly diverse rural communities in the United States. This study examined parental cultural socialization practices among individuals from underrepresented ethnoracial groups and the perceived influence of their predominantly White rural community. Parents employed at a university in the Northeast of the U.S. participated in this study which involved in-depth semi-structured interviews and used Grounded Theory as the analytic approach. Findings include three interrelated themes: (1) the community context increased ethnic and racial identity salience, (2) parents exerted deliberate efforts to culturally socialize their children and to teach their children to develop an appreciation for diversity, multiculturalism and inclusivity, and (3) parental cultural socialization behaviors were influenced by the 2016 presidential campaign and election. The findings show that the hegemonic, White-normative and exclusionary environment created in part by the demographics of this community influenced how they socialized their children about their cultural group memberships. The findings also suggest that community-university partnerships, support to families from underrepresented ethnoracial groups and community diversity education are promising strategies to strengthen community relations.

Parental ethnic-racial socialization practices and children of color's psychosocial and behavioral adjustment: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Despite increasing empirical research documenting the association between parental ethnic-racial socialization and youth of color's psychosocial well-being, evidence on the extent to which ethnic-racial socialization practices are linked to youth outcomes and potential variation in these relations remains equivocal. In the current study, a meta-analysis of 102 studies with 803 effect sizes and 27,221 participants reveals that overall ethnic-racial socialization was positively, albeit modestly, associated with self-perceptions, interpersonal relationship quality, and internalizing behavior. Ethnic-racial socialization's overall association with externalizing behavior was nonsignificant. Moreover, ethnic-racial socialization's connection to psychosocial outcomes varied by the subtype that parents used, the developmental stage and race/ethnicity of the target child, and the reporter of ethnic-racial socialization. In particular, cultural socialization was positively associated with self-perceptions and interpersonal relationship quality and negatively associated with externalizing behaviors. In addition, ethnic-racial socialization's positive association with self-perceptions was strongest in early adolescence and among African American youth. These findings underscore the complexity of parental ethnic-racial socialization practices and the need for a nuanced perspective on it. Implications for parenting practices and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of affect-communication and rule setting in perceived family support and school adjustment

Previous research suggests that parental socialization styles affect the implementation of family support strategies and are related to school adjustment. Nevertheless, the precise nature of the influence of socialization practices on these variables during adolescence has yet to be determined. The aim of this study was therefore to examine (separately) the direct influence of maternal and paternal affectcommunication and rule setting on adolescent participants' perceived family support, and to analyze the relationship between these dimensions and school adjustment. The sample comprised 1190 secondary school and Spanish Baccalaureate students (47.1% boys and 52.3% girls; Mage = 14.76 years, SD = 1.55) from the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. The Affect Scale (EA-H) and the Rules and Demands Scale (ENE-H) were used to assess parental socialization practices, and the subscale for perceived family support from the Social Support from Family and Friends (AFA-R) measure and the School Engagement Measure (SEM) were used to assess school engagement, with the mean grades earned by participants being taken as a measure of academic performance. The results obtained reveal that paternal affect-communication contributes more than maternal affect-communication to adolescents' perception of having family support, whereas in relation to rules, only maternal rule setting was found to have an effect on perceived family support, with this effect being negative. Both components of parenting styles were found to be linked to school engagement. In the final sections, the data are discussed and the study's limitations presented.

Development and Initial Validation of Perceived Moral Socialization Scale (PMSS)

Although considerable research has underscored the role of parental socialization practices in the character building of youth, an adequate assessment tool to evaluate the youth’s perception of these practices is not available. This study reports the development and validation of the Perceived Moral Socialization Scale (PMSS). This multidimensional assessment tool assesses the emerging adult’s perception of the moral socialization practices employed by their parents, and, is useful for educators and institutions who seek to study the influence of parents on the moral development of youth. This instrument was administered as a validation study on a sample of 207 emerging adults (age 18–25). After the reliability and the validity analysis were conducted, four subscales were identified: demonstration of trust, moral discussions, inductive discipline, and moral action scaffolding. The scale also demonstrates good internal consistency reliability. These results indicate that PMSS is strong enough to be used for research seeking to understand the factors that contribute to youth wellbeing.

Supplemental Material for Parental Ethnic-Racial Socialization Practices and Children of Color’s Psychosocial and Behavioral Adjustment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Supplemental Material for Parental Ethnic-Racial Socialization Practices and Children of Color’s Psychosocial and Behavioral Adjustment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Parental ethnic-racial socialization practices and the construction of children of color's ethnic-racial identity: A research synthesis and meta-analysis.

Parental ethnic-racial socialization practices help shape the development of a strong ethnic-racial identity in children of color, which in turn contributes positively to mental health, social, and academic outcomes. Although there is a wide body of literature on the relationship between these meta-constructs, this research has not been systematically examined to either (a) determine the degree to which associations between parental ethnic-racial socialization approaches and ethnic-racial identity dimensions hold actual practical significance for parents of color or (b) estimate how these associations vary as a function of theorized mitigating factors. In response, this meta-analytic study investigated the strength of the association between parental ethnic-racial socialization practices and the construction of ethnic-racial identity, as well as factors that moderated the strength and direction of this association. Findings revealed that across 68 studies, there was a significant and substantive relationship between the global constructs of ethnic-racial socialization practices and ethnic-racial identity. Most individual practices of ethnic-racial socialization were positively associated with global ethnic-racial identity, and the strongest relationship was with pride and heritage socialization. Parental ethnic-racial socialization was also positively associated with all ethnic-racial identity dimensions tested except for public regard, with which it was negatively associated. Developmental findings showed that although ethnic-racial socialization positively predicted identity at every level of schooling, the strongest relationship was at the high school level. Finally, the association between ethnic-racial socialization and ethnic-racial identity was positive for African Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans alike, but the strongest relationship was among Latinxs. Implications for parenting practices and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal Self-Construal, Maternal Socialization of Emotions and Child Emotion Regulation in a Sample of Romanian Mother-Toddler Dyads

Over the recent years, there is growing recognition of the social and cultural regulatory processes that act upon individual emotions. The adult-to-child social regulation of emotion is even more relevant, given the development of child self-regulatory abilities during early years. Although it is acknowledged that parental regulatory attempts to their children’s emotional expressions are influenced by cultural models, relatively little is known about the specific relationship between parental cultural models and socialization practices that foster emotion self-regulation, particularly in the case of toddlers. Therefore, in the present study, our first aim was to examine, in a Romanian sample of mother-toddler dyads, the relationships between maternal cultural model of self and maternal regulatory attempts targeting toddlers’ emotions during a delay of gratification task, while controlling for maternal perceptions of child individual characteristics, namely temperament. The second aim was to analyze, within the delay of gratification task, the relations between maternal regulatory attempts, child regulatory strategies and child affect expression, as the outcome of emotion regulation. Results showed that mothers scored higher for Independence as compared to Interdependence dimensions of self-construal. Also, the multidimensional analysis of self-construal revealed that Autonomy/Assertiveness scores were significantly higher than Relational Interdependent scores. Moreover, different dimensions of Independence predicted different maternal regulatory strategies employed during the delay of gratification task. This pattern of results suggests that maternal representations of an independent self, evidenced in our sample, are reflected in regulatory practices, aimed to develop primary control in the toddler. Moreover, our data revealed several significant associations between maternal regulatory strategies and child regulatory strategies expressed during the delay of gratification task. Finally, we demonstrated that child self-regulation mediated the relation between maternal regulatory attempts and child expression of affect during this task.