Intergenerational gaps in Mexican American values trajectories: Associations with parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology

Abstract

Growth mixture modeling with a sample of 749 Mexican heritage families identified parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their mothers’ heritage cultural values and parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their fathers’ heritage cultural values from Grades 5 to 10. Parallel trajectory profiles were then used to test cultural gap-distress theory that predicts increased parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology over time when adolescents become less aligned with Mexican heritage values compared to their parents. Six similar parallel profiles were identified for the mother–youth and father–youth dyads, but only one of the six was consistent with the hypothesized problem gap pattern in which adolescents’ values were declining over time to become more discrepant from their parents. When compared to families in the other trajectory groups as a whole, mothers in the mother–adolescent problem gap trajectory group reported higher levels of mother–adolescent conflict in the 10th grade that accounted for subsequent increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms assessed in 12th grade. Although the findings provided some support for cultural gap-distress predictions, they were not replicated with adolescent report of conflict nor with the father–adolescent trajectory group analyses. Exploratory pairwise comparisons between all six mother–adolescent trajectory groups revealed additional differences that qualified and extended these findings.

Cultural Orientation Gaps Within a Family Systems Perspective

“…Further, research studying the consequences of cultural gaps also noted that mother–adolescent and father–adolescent dyads differ. For example, in Gonzales et al's () study, cultural gaps with mothers, but not fathers, were linked to mothers' reports of parent–adolescent conflict and adolescents' report of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. These findings distinguish the contributions of mother–adolescent versus father–adolescent cultural gaps and merit the examination of multiple family subsystems as separate but interrelated cultural gap processes.…”

“…For example, in Martinez (), the indirect mediation model showed that a mainstream cultural gap was associated with parent‐reported effective parenting, which was associated with adolescent‐reported substance use. Further, Gonzales et al () did not test for indirect mechanisms, but they found that the problem‐gap group (i.e., adolescents decreasing in heritage culture while mothers had consistently high heritage orientation) reported more parent–adolescent conflict (as reported by mothers) and fewer internalizing symptoms (as reported by adolescents) than did the benign group; there were no significant findings for fathers' reports.…”

“…Berry, 1995;Marsiglia et al, 2018;Buckingham & Brodsky, 2015 Cultural adaptation Encompasses the idea that individuals experience both acculturation, as they interact with and adapt to the host or receiving culture and enculturation, as they interact with and adapt to their heritage or ethnic culture. Gonzales et al, 2018Gonzales et al, , p. 1612 Enculturation Interaction and adaptation to the heritage or ethnic culture. Gonzales et al, 2018, p. 1612 The cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors from the heritage/ethnic culture.…”

“…Gonzales et al, 2018Gonzales et al, , p. 1612 Enculturation Interaction and adaptation to the heritage or ethnic culture. Gonzales et al, 2018, p. 1612 The cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors from the heritage/ethnic culture. Marsiglia et al, 2018;Schwartz et al, 2016 Mainstream culture The cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors that are held by most people within a society.…”

“…Some of these studies have examined direct, longitudinal associations, whereas others tested indirect, mediational mechanisms to explain the link between cultural gap and family or adolescent outcome. In one study of Mexican-heritage families, Gonzales, Knight, Tein, Tanaka, and White (2018) examined trajectories of heritage cultural values for mothers, fathers, and adolescents and trajectory profiles to determine parent-adolescent cultural gaps. Based on trajectory profiles run separately for father, mother, and adolescent, two groups within mother-adolescent or father-adolescent dyads were identified, a problem gap and a benign gap.…”