This study investigated roles of racial and ethnic socialization in the link between racial discrimination and school adjustment among a sample of 233 adopted Korean American adolescents from White adoptive families and 155 non-adopted Korean American adolescents from immigrant Korean families. Adopted Korean American adolescents reported lower levels of racial discrimination, racial socialization, and ethnic socialization than non-adopted Korean American adolescents. However, racial discrimination was negatively related to school belonging and school engagement, and ethnic socialization was positively related to school engagement for both groups. Racial socialization also had a curvilinear relationship with school engagement for both groups. Moderate level of racial socialization predicted positive school engagement, whereas low and high levels of racial socialization predicted negative school engagement. Finally, ethnic socialization moderated the link between racial discrimination and school belonging, which differed between groups. In particular, ethnic socialization exacerbated the relations between racial discrimination and school belonging for adopted Korean American adolescents, whereas, ethnic socialization buffered this link for non-adopted Korean American adolescents. Findings illustrate the complex relationship between racial and ethnic socialization, racial discrimination, and school adjustment.

The current study sought to understand the influence of cultural values on mental health attitudes and help-seeking behaviors in college students of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Asian and Latinx college students (N = 159) completed an online survey in which they reported on their adherence to cultural values as measured by ethnicity-specific cultural values and general attitudes towards mental health. Factor analysis revealed two common factors of cultural values irrespective of ethnicity: Interdependent Orientation (IO) and Cultural Obligation (CO). Regardless of ethnicity, the more students endorsed IO values, the less likely they were to perceive a need for mental health treatment. IO value adherence was also predictive of more negative attitudes towards mental health. CO values were not predictive of perceived need or help-seeking behaviors. Findings highlight the importance of understanding shared cultural values across ethnic-racial groups and considering how the multidimensionality of culture may help explain shared mental health behaviors crossing lines of ethnic group membership.

The current study examined the association between adolescents’ divergent thinking and features of their drawings in the United States and China. A total of 321 American (n = 125) and Chinese (n = 196) adolescents completed a battery of assessments on divergent thinking and free drawing adapted from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Central (e.g., focal object) and contextual (e.g., background) features characterizing adolescents’ drawings were coded. Results indicated that Chinese adolescents included more central features in their drawings compared to their American counterparts. Chinese, but not American, adolescents’ inclusion of contextual features was positively associated with their divergent thinking. Findings suggest the potential for culture to influence adolescents’ cognition, such that contextual features in drawings may be particularly conducive to the development of divergent thinking in cultures where contextual sensitivity is emphasized.

To understand the role of family emotional socialization across cultural contexts, this research examined the associations between family emotional expressiveness and early adolescents' emotions in the United States and China. Two times over the course of 1 year, 566 American (n = 331) and Chinese (n = 235) adolescents (age range: 11–14 years) reported on their family members' emotional expressiveness, which was further categorized into three facets (i.e., positive, negative dominant, and negative submissive family expressiveness), and their own experience of positive and negative emotions. In both countries, positive family expressiveness (e.g., expressing excitement) was associated with adolescents' experience of positive emotions 6 months later, above and beyond their prior positive emotional experience. A between‐country difference was evident in the association between positive family expressiveness and adolescents' experience of negative emotions, such that positive family expressiveness was associated with dampened negative emotions 6 months later among American but not Chinese adolescents. Negative dominant family expressiveness (e.g., expressing anger) was not associated with adolescents' emotional experience 6 months later in both countries. However, negative submissive family expressiveness (e.g., expressing sadness) foreshadowed reduced positive emotional experience only among American adolescents. Findings highlight the importance of culture in understanding the implications of family expressiveness for adolescents' emotional experiences.

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