Matching Items (2)
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- All Subjects: Fathers
- Creators: Gonzales, Nancy A.
Description
It is well-established that maternal depression is significantly related to internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems and psychopathology in general. However, research suggests maternal depression does not account for all the variance of these outcomes and that other family contextual factors should be investigated. The role of fathers beyond their simple presence or absence is one factor that needs to be further investigated in the context of maternal depression. The proposed study used prospective and cross-sectional analyses to examine father effects (i.e., paternal depression, alcohol use, involvement, and familism) on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms within the context of maternal depression. The sample consisted of 405 Mexican-American families who had a student in middle school. Data were collected when the students were in 7th and 10th grade. Results from path analyses revealed that maternal depression significantly predicted concurrent youth internalizing symptoms in 7th and 10th grade and externalizing symptoms in 10th grade. In contrast, paternal depression was not related to adolescent symptomatology at either time point, nor was paternal alcoholism, and analyses failed to support moderating effects for any of the paternal variables. However, paternal involvement (father-report) uniquely predicted youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms over and above maternal depression in 7th grade. Youth report of paternal involvement uniquely predicted both internalizing and externalizing in 7th and 10th grade. Paternal familism uniquely predicted youth externalizing symptoms in 7th grade. The present findings support that maternal depression, but not paternal depression, is associated with concurrent levels of youth symptomatology in adolescence. The study did not support that fathers adjustment moderated (exacerbate or buffer) maternal depression effects. However, paternal involvement and paternal familism showed compensatory effects on youth symptomatology in concurrent analyses.
ContributorsMontano, Zorash (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy A. (Thesis advisor) / Tein, Jenn-Yun (Committee member) / Roosa, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Parenting approaches that are firm yet warm (i.e., authoritative parenting) have been found to be robustly beneficial for mainstream White Americans youths, but do not demonstrate similarly consistent effects among Chinese Americans (CA) adolescents. Evidence suggests that CA adolescents interpret and experience parenting differently than their mainstream counterparts given differences in parenting values and child-rearing norms between traditional Chinese and mainstream American cultures. The current study tests the theory that prospective effects of parenting on psychological and academic functioning depends on adolescents' cultural frameworks for interpreting and understanding parenting. CA adolescents with values and expectations of parenting that are more consistent with mainstream American parenting norms were predicted to experience parenting similar to their White American counterparts (i.e., benefiting from a combination of parental strictness and warmth). In contrast, CA adolescents with parenting values and expectations more consistent with traditional Chinese parenting norms were predicted to experience parenting and its effects on academic and psychological outcomes differently than patterns documented in the mainstream literature. This study was conducted with a sample of Chinese American 9th graders (N = 500) from the Multicultural Family Adolescent Study. Latent Class Analysis (LCA), a person-centered approach to modeling CA adolescents' cultural frameworks for interpreting parenting, was employed using a combination of demographic variables (e.g., nativity, language use at home, mother's length of stay in the U.S.) and measures of parenting values and expectations (e.g., parental respect, ideal strictness & laxness). The study then examined whether prospective effects of parenting behaviors (strict control, warmth, and their interaction effect) on adolescent adjustment (internalizing and externalizing symptoms, substance use, and GPA) were moderated by latent class membership. The optimal LCA solution identified five distinct cultural frameworks for understanding parenting. Findings generally supported the idea that effects of parenting on CA adolescent adjustment depend on adolescents' cultural framework for parenting. The classic authoritative parenting effect (high strictness and warmth leads to positive outcomes) was found for the two most acculturated groups of adolescents. However, only one of these groups overtly endorsed mainstream American parenting values.
ContributorsLiu, Freda Fangfang (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy A. (Thesis advisor) / Tein, Jenn-Yun (Committee member) / Yoo, Hyung Chol (Committee member) / Barrera, Manuel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011