Parenting hassles mediate predictors of Chinese and Korean immigrants’ psychologically controlling parenting

Charissa S.L. Cheah, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Jing Yu, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Craig H. Hart, Brigham Young University
Sevgi Bayram Özdemir, Örebro Universitet
Shuyan Sun, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Nan Zhou, Capital Normal University
Joseph A. Olsen, Brigham Young University
Momoka Sunohara, Concordia University

Abstract

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. We examined: (1) the mediating role of parenting daily hassles in the associations between three predictors (child temperament, maternal psychological well-being, and marital quality) and psychologically controlling practices in two Asian immigrant samples. We also explored the moderating role of maternal acculturation in the path from parenting daily hassles to psychological control. Participants were 152 Chinese and 165 Korean immigrant mothers with preschool children in the U.S. Multi-group path analysis revealed that easier child temperament, higher psychological well-being, and better marital quality were each associated with fewer parenting daily hassles, which in turn were associated with less psychological control. These general mediating effects held for both groups. However, the indirect effects of child temperament, maternal psychological well-being, and marital quality through parenting daily hassles were further moderated by acculturation for Chinese immigrant mothers, but not Korean immigrant mothers. The culturally similar and different findings across the two groups were discussed.