UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item PARENTAL ETHNIC-RACIAL SOCIALIZATION PROCESSES AMONG CHINESE AMERICAN FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN(2023) Zhang, Xinyi; Wang, Cixin; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite literature suggesting that socializing children of color regarding race and ethnicity is key to protect them against racism in America, little is known about how Asian American young children are ethnically and racially socialized by their parents. In the event of increased anti-Asian racism during COVID-19, it becomes urgent that we address this knowledge gap. The goal of the present study is to understand the parental ethnic-racial socialization processes with Asian American young children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Fifty-seven low-income (n=36) and middle-and-upper-income (n=21) Chinese American mothers (Mage = 37.14, SD =4.99) of four-to-seven-year-old children (Mage =5.63, SD =0.82, female n=33, 58%) from Maryland and New York were interviewed. The participants shared the frequency and strategies of their ethnic-racial socialization processes and their perception of the effectiveness of these strategies. Using qualitative content analyses, results indicated that: (a) The two income groups shared the same frequency of using each ethnic-racial socialization dimension (cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and egalitarianism and silence about race); (b) Different patterns emerged in the content of how they used preparation for bias and promotion of mistrust; (c) Mothers from the low-income group were more likely to experience discrimination and to share the discrimination experiences with their children to prepare them for bias; (d) Mothers from both of the income groups recognized that their children face model minority stereotypes in the society, but they held different attitudes towards the stereotypes; (e) The two income groups found cultural socialization helpful and promotion of mistrust harmful. More diversity and less consensus were found in their perception of the effectiveness of preparation for bias and egalitarianism and silence about race. The current study is the first study to reveal diversity of ethnic-racial socialization processes among the Chinese American families with young children. It provides empirical support that socioeconomic context is an indispensable variable in understanding ethnic-racial socialization processes in families of color.Item Racial Socialization, Observed Maternal Conflict Behaviors, and Externalizing Problems in Black Mother- Adolescent Dyads(2021) Shan, Salwa; Smith-Bynum, Mia; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)African Americans living in the United States face unique stressors as a result of being part of a marginalized group that has been consistently at the bottom of the social structure system. We see the impact of systemic racism when we look at the racial disparities associated with various economic, political, and civil rights in our society. The emphasis on rules and strict parenting in African American families is related to the need that many African American parents feel to protect and inform their children of the many forms of racial discrimination they will face in American society. In order to raise children who are less likely to be engaged in risk behaviors and better prepared for the environment they are living in, African American parents enforce stricter rules and discipline for their children and utilize racial socialization as a unique parenting strategy. Adolescents who struggle for behavioral autonomy in areas where parents try to emphasize their control, often engage in deviant behavior and are more at risk of struggling to be compliant with rules and adjusting as they grow and develop. Some research has indicated that parent-child conflict has increased when there has been a focus on rules due to adolescents’ desire for autonomy. The role of maternal conflict as a contextual factor when delivering racial socialization messages has not been studied and may have significant impacts on the transmission and reception of such messages. This study aims to address the gap in research and connect the contextual factors of parent-child relationship quality in influencing the transmission and reception of racial socialization messages as seen by the impact on externalizing behaviors in adolescents.Item Empathy across development: Examination of multiple contexts and levels of analysis(2019) Stern, Jessica A; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Empathy—the ability to understand and “feel with” others’ emotional states, along with the tendency to feel concern for others’ wellbeing—shapes important aspects of social functioning across development (Eisenberg, 2017). In three empirical papers, we explore predictors of empathy across different stages of development, and across multiple levels of analysis within Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model. Paper 1 examined associations between brain structure and observed empathic responding among N = 78 school-aged children (4–8y). Larger bilateral hippocampal volume (adjusted for intracranial volume) predicted greater empathic responding, but only for boys. The association was not driven by a specific subregion of the hippocampus (head, body, tail), nor did it vary with age. Findings suggest that hippocampal structure contributes to individual differences in young children’s empathic responding, consistent with findings in adults (Laurita & Spreng, 2017). Paper 2 examined whether parental attributions and empathic emotions in response to child distress predicted 4-year-olds’ observed empathic responding two weeks later. In a sample of N = 88 mother–child dyads, bootstrapped mediation analyses showed that parents’ less negative and more situational/ emotion-focused attributions about child distress predicted parents’ empathy, which in turn predicted their children’s empathic responding to the experimenter’s distress. Findings shed light on the role of parents’ social information processing in the intergenerational transmission of empathic care. Drawing on attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982), Paper 3 used experimental priming methods based to test whether temporarily enhancing adolescents’ feelings of relational security at school could increase their empathy for a bullied peer. Adolescents (13–15y; N = 234) were randomly assigned to imagine school-based experiences involving (a) receiving emotional support, (b) engaging in a fun social activity, or (c) engaging in a neutral activity; they then read a news story about a bullied peer and rated their feelings of empathy and willingness to help the victim. Multilevel modeling revealed no main effect of priming on adolescents’ empathy; however, dispositional attachment security significantly predicted empathy and willingness to help, pointing to the importance of dispositional security in social relationships for shaping empathy in school contexts.Item THE INFLUENCE OF STRESS AND SOCIAL SUPPORT ON PARENTING BEHAVIORS AMONG LOW-INCOME FAMILIES: MEDIATIONAL PATHWAYS TO CHILDREN’S SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT(2019) Kuhns, Catherine Emily; Cabrera, Natasha; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Economic stress been shown to compromise children’s social development and undermine parenting behaviors in mothers of young children. A separate literature suggests that social support may attenuate the negative effects of maternal stress on parenting behaviors. Guided by the Family Stress Model and the Stress Buffering Model, this study examined the indirect pathways from maternal experiences of stress (economic and parenting) to children’s social competencies and behavior problems longitudinally in a sample of children from the Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES). It also tested the moderating effects of two types of social support (instrumental and emotional) on the negative association between stressors (economic and parenting) and children’s social skills. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) results demonstrated support for the Family Stress Model, such that economic stress (at age 1) was longitudinally and indirectly related to children’s social competencies and problem behaviors (at age 3) via observed maternal sensitivity (at age 2). That is, higher levels of economic stress were related to elevated levels of behavior problems and lower levels of social competencies because it increased parenting stress and decreased maternal sensitivity. However, there was no evidence that social support moderated the association between either type of stress and parenting. Findings are discussed in light of policy and programmatic efforts to broaden support of families and children by incorporating services that promote sensitive parent-child interactions and reduce maternal parenting stress.Item Executive Functioning and Parenting in Mothers of Children with and without ADHD(2016) Mazursky-Horowitz, Heather Michelle; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Parental scaffolding robustly predicts child developmental outcomes, including improved self-regulation and peer relationships, and fewer externalizing behaviors. However, few studies have examined parental characteristics associated with a parent’s ability to scaffold. Executive functioning (EF) may be an important individual difference factor associated with parental scaffolding. Yet, no research has examined parental EF in relation to scaffolding. Scaffolding may be particularly important for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) due in part to their core difficulties with inattention, disorganization, EF, and self-regulation, and the resulting need for greater structure, supervision, and consistency from parents. Moreover, parents of children with ADHD may experience greater challenges with scaffolding, both as a result of having a child with ADHD and their own increased risk for EF deficits. Yet, little research has examined child ADHD in relation to parental scaffolding. This study extends the extant literature on EF and parenting by examining individual difference factors associated with maternal scaffolding, and utilizing a multi-method assessment of maternal EF that may more effectively tap specific EF deficits associated with scaffolding. The current study aimed to examine: (1) the association between maternal EF and scaffolding, (2) the association between child ADHD symptoms and scaffolding, and (3) the interaction between child ADHD symptoms and maternal EF in predicting observed scaffolding. We hypothesized that deficits in maternal EF and child ADHD symptoms would each be negatively associated with observed scaffolding, and that child ADHD symptoms would interact with maternal EF deficits to predict the greatest deficits in observed maternal scaffolding. Results partially supported our hypotheses, in that some aspects of maternal EF, as measured by Digit Span and the Hotel Test, were predictive of observed maternal scaffolding. However, child ADHD symptoms did not significantly predict maternal scaffolding after controlling for child age, maternal education, and maternal EF; nor did the interaction of maternal EF and child ADHD symptoms. Working memory and task shifting may therefore be key components of parental EF that could be targeted in interventions designed to improve parental scaffolding.Item Maternal ADHD and parenting: The moderating role of maternal emotion regulation(2017) Woods, Kelsey; Chronis-Tuscano, Andrea; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Separate literatures have examined the associations between maternal attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and parenting and maternal emotion regulation (ER) and parenting. This study used a multi-method evaluation of parenting to examine the independent and interactive effects of maternal ADHD symptoms and ER on self-reported and observed parenting among families of school-aged children. We hypothesized that maternal ADHD symptoms and ER difficulties would be positively associated with negative parenting and negatively associated with positive parenting. We also hypothesized that maternal ADHD symptoms and ER difficulties would interact to predict the strongest association with negative parenting behavior. There were significant main effects of maternal ER difficulties on self-reported negative parenting and maternal ADHD symptoms on self-reported harsh responses to children’s negative emotions. Maternal ADHD symptoms and ER were not significantly associated with positive parenting or observations of parenting.Item Empathy in parents and children: Links to preschoolers' attachment and aggression(2016) Stern, Jessica A.; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Though theory suggests that parents’ empathy is important for children’s empathic development, the transmission of empathy from parent to child remains poorly understood. The goals of this investigation were to test an intergenerational model of empathy with child attachment as a potential mediating mechanism and to replicate findings linking child empathy to reduced risk for aggression. Eighty-nine preschoolers and their mothers completed measures of parent empathy, as well as child attachment, empathy, and aggression. Parent empathy predicted child empathy, but associations varied by the measure of empathy employed. Attachment did not mediate the association between parent and child empathy, although secure attachment predicted greater child empathy. Child empathy predicted aggression, but the direction of the effect varied by the measure of child empathy and by child sex. Findings shed light on the intergenerational transmission of empathy and highlight the importance of multi-method assessment in the study of empathy.Item Children’s Adjustment to Parents’ Break Up: The Family System Mechanisms(2015) Karberg, Elizabeth; Cabrera, Natasha J; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research has shown that many aspects of family functioning are directly and indirectly linked to children’s social development. One important aspect of how families function is family structure. In this regard, families have undergone tremendous change over the last decades resulting in increased cohabitation and divorce. These types of families are believed to be more unstable than married families. Instability creates more stress that can be difficult for children to cope with resulting in increased behavioral problems. Although past studies have shown an association between union instability and children’s externalizing problem behaviors (EPB), the mechanism by which this occurs is less understood. Using Family Systems Theory and data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (n = 3,387), I examined whether family processes – father and mother involvement, co-parenting support, and maternal responsiveness – explained the association between union instability and children’s EPB at 9 years. I also examined whether marital status and children’s temperament moderated this association. Using measured variable path analysis, I found that only co-parenting support mediated the association between union instability and child EPB, and only for children whose mothers experienced a divorce (not a nonmarital separation), controlling for known covariates of children’s EPB. The association between union instability and children’s EPB through co-parenting and parenting was not moderated by child temperament. These findings suggest that co-parenting rather than parenting explains children’s social adjustment when families undergo a divorce.Item Links Between Parental Responses to Adolescent Distress and Adolescent Risk Behavior: The Mediating Role of Thought/Emotion Suppression(2015) Jones, Jason Daniel; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The rates of substance use and unsafe sexual practices among America's youth are a major public health concern. The goal of this study was to examine novel inter- and intrapersonal predictors of adolescent risk behavior. Aim 1 of this study was to examine how supportive and unsupportive parental responses to adolescents' negative emotions relate to adolescent substance use and sexual behavior, and to test whether the tendency to suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions mediates this link. Aim 2 was to further explore the putative link between suppression and adolescent risk behavior by testing whether physiological arousal when viewing negative emotional stimuli mediates this link. Participants included 115 adolescents (mean age = 17.19 years, SD = 1.27; 48% female) and 109 mothers. Aim 1 analyses revealed limited support for the hypothesized links: (a) adolescent-reported unsupportive maternal responses were associated with greater self-reported suppression (but not the other two measures of suppression), which in turn was related to more frequent sexual behavior in the past year and (b) adolescent-reported supportive maternal responses were negatively associated with adolescent substance use in the past year. Aim 2 analyses did not support any links between suppression and physiological arousal or between physiological arousal and adolescent risk behavior. Overall, these results suggest some potential links among parents' responses to their adolescents' negative emotions, suppression, and adolescent risk behavior. However, the hypothesized links that were significant in the path models were between variables measured by adolescent self-reports; therefore, the findings should be viewed as preliminary. I discuss these findings in the context of the available literature on parental emotion socialization, suppression, and adolescent risk behavior, and suggest directions for future research that could move this area of inquiry forward.Item Parental Hostility and Parent Stress Physiology: The Moderating Role of Child Effortful Control(2014) Merwin, Stephanie; Dougherty, Lea R.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined the moderating role of child effortful control on the association between observed parental hostility and parents' cortisol awakening response (CAR), a critical index of stress system functioning. Participants included 99 medication-free parents and their preschool-aged children. Parents obtained salivary cortisol samples at waking, 30, and 45 minutes post-waking and at bedtime across two consecutive days. Parental hostility was assessed during an observational parent-child interaction task, and child effortful control was assessed using parent report. Observed parental hostility was associated with parents' lower cortisol levels at 30 and 45 minutes post-waking and lower CAR. Low levels of child effortful control were associated with parents' lower bedtime cortisol. Moreover, results demonstrated an interaction effect between parenting and child behavior on parent CAR. The findings highlight the significance of continued examination of the neurobiology of parenting with a focus on the interactive effects between parenting and child behavior.
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