The Moderating Effects of Close Social Relationships: Psychological Separation and College Adjustment

Living up to Parental Expectations, Psychological Separation, and Life Satisfaction

“…Second, we found that life satisfaction was negatively associated with general independence and positively associated with conflictual independence. This result accords with previous studies of Korean college students showing negative associations between general independence and college adjustment and positive associations between conflictual independence and college adjustment (Choi, 2002;Park & Jin, 2015). Because Korean culture places more emphasis on relatedness than individuality (Kim, 1999), having high general independence and perceiving oneself as independent is not necessarily a healthy adaptation.…”

“…We found, however, that conflictual independence was positively associated with life satisfaction. This result accords with research in both East Asian and Western cultural contexts (Lopez & Gover, 1993;Park & Jin, 2015) demonstrating that higher conflictual independence plays a positive role in adjustment. In other words, not having negative emotions such as guilt, anxiety, or anger in parent-child relationships can enhance life satisfaction.…”

“…On the other hand, studies that have distinguished general independence from conflictual independence in Korean (Park & Jin, 2015) and Korean American (Choi, 2002) samples have found that conflictual independence was positively associated with college adjustment while general independence was negatively associated. Choi (2002) contended that since interdependence stems from familial bonding and love in collectivistic cultures, general independence can be understood as psychological detachment from parents rather than healthy psychological independence in these cultures.…”