Implications of Chinese and American mothers’ goals for children’s emotional distress.

Abstract

This research examined a cultural socialization model in which differences in Chinese and American parents' goals for children foster differences in children's emotional distress via parents' responses to children's performance. Chinese and American mothers and their children (N ϭ 397; M age ϭ 13.19 years) participated in a 2-wave study spanning a year. Mothers reported on their self-improvement (i.e., children striving to improve) and self-worth (i.e., children feeling worthy) goals, as well as responses to children's performance. Children reported on their emotional distress (e.g., anxiety and depression). Chinese (vs. American) mothers' greater endorsement of self-improvement goals predicted their more frequent use of failure-oriented responses (e.g., highlighting children's mistakes), which accounted for Chinese (vs. American) children's heightened emotional distress over time.

Delving Into the Minds of Chinese Parents: What Beliefs Motivate Their Learning‐Related Practices?

“…Regardless of whether Chinese children and adolescents have done well or poorly, their parents tend to respond with failure‐oriented responses (e.g., highlighting mistakes) that focus on the negative aspects of their performance. By contrast, European American parents tend to use success‐oriented responses (e.g., highlighting correct answers) that focus on the positive aspects of their children’s performance (Ng et al, , ). Chinese adolescents indicate that a bad grade can evoke strong, negative reactions from parents, but a good grade is rarely recognized with praise (Kim & Fong, ; Qin, Way, & Mukherjee, ).…”

Differential Associations Between Parents' Versus Children's Perceptions of Parental Socialization Goals and Chinese Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

“…Specifically, Chinese children's report of maternal self-development goals was positively associated with their perceived maternal authoritative parenting, which was then negatively associated with their depressive symptoms (Li et al, 2010). However, Chinese mothers' report of their self-worth goals, which focused on enhancing children's self-regard so as to share conceptual similarities with self-development goals, did not predict children's emotional distress over time either directly or indirectly through parenting (Ng et al, 2019). A similar contradictory result was also observed in research regarding filial piety goals, which refers to parental expectation for their children to take family responsibilities such as respecting their elders and honoring the family.…”

“…Although the relationships between parental socialization goals, parenting, and adolescent depressive symptoms have been initially explored in prior studies (e.g., Ng et al, 2019), research examining the indirect pathways through specific parenting practices is still scarce and worth further investigation. Parental autonomy support and psychological control, two independent but highly related constructs (Soenens et al, 2009;Kunz and Grych, 2013), may serve as two variables linking the indirect pathways.…”

Mothers’ Goals Influence Their Responses to Children’s Performance: An Experimental Study in the United States and Hong Kong

“…Ecological perspectives view parents' practices as embedded in a cultural system in which both distal and proximal aspects of the environment along with characteristics of children and parents are influential (e.g., Bornstein, 2012;Bronfenbrenner, 1986). Drawing from such perspectives, parents' goals for children have been the focus of a growing body of research, with attention to the forces that shape them (e.g., Lamm et al, 2018;Qu, Pomerantz, & Deng, 2014) and their contribution to parents' practices (e.g., Grolnick, Gurland, DeCourcey, & Jacob, 2002;J. Ng et al, 2019).…”

“…In this vein, J. Ng et al, (2019) sought to identify if parents' goals for children undergird their responses to children's performance. These investigators found that American mothers hold selfworth goals for children (i.e., placing importance on children feeling positively about themselves) more than do Chinese mothers.…”