The authors examined 2 forms of parental psychological control and how they related to child behavior problems in 2 cultural groups. A sample of 165 Hong Kong (HK) Chinese and 96 European American (EA) parents completed measures of parental control strategies, parental rejection, and child behavior problems. The use of hostile psychological control (criticism, interference, invalidation) was more strongly associated with the use of relational induction (guilt induction, shaming, reciprocity, social comparison) among EAs compared with HK parents. Psychological control was related to parental rejection across both groups, but it was only independently associated with child behavior problems for EA families. Relational induction, on the other hand, was not associated with child behavior problems in either group but was more strongly associated with parental rejection among EAs compared with HK parents. The findings suggest that there are distinguishable forms of psychological control that may have distinctive implications for parent-child relations and child behavioral adjustment depending on the cultural context.

Previous research has documented elevated levels of social anxiety in Asian American college students when compared with their European American peers. The authors hypothesized that higher symptoms among Asians could be explained by cultural differences in attunement to the emotional states of others. Socialization within interdependent cultures may cultivate concerns about accurately perceiving other's emotional responses, yet at the same time, norms governing emotional control may limit competencies in emotion recognition. A sample of 264 Asian American and European American college students completed measures of social anxiety, attunement concerns (shame socialization and loss of face), and attunement competencies (self-reported sensitivity and performance on emotion recognition tasks). Results confirmed that ethnic differences in social anxiety symptoms were mediated by differences in attunement concerns and competencies in emotion recognition. Asian American college students may find themselves in a double bind that leads to social unease because of a cultural emphasis on sensitivity to others' emotions in the midst of barriers to developing this attunement skill set.

We studied the efficacy and implementation outcomes of a culturally responsive parent training (PT) program. Fifty-four Chinese American parents participated in a wait-list controlled group randomized trial (32 immediate treatment, 22 delayed treatment) of a 14-week intervention designed to address the needs of high-risk immigrant families. Parents were eligible for intervention if they were Chinese-speaking immigrants referred from schools, community clinics, or child protective services with concerns about parenting or child behavior problems. Retention and engagement were high with 83% of families attending 10 or more sessions. Results revealed that the treatment was efficacious in reducing negative discipline, increasing positive parenting, and decreasing child externalizing and internalizing problems. Treatment effects were larger among families with higher levels of baseline behavior problems and lower levels of parenting stress. Further augmentation of PT to address immigrant parent stress may be warranted. Qualitative impressions from group leaders suggested that slower pacing and increased rehearsal of skills may improve efficacy for immigrant parents unfamiliar with skills introduced in PT.

We examined familial and cultural factors predicting parent-child (dis)agreement on child behavior and parenting problems. Immigrant Chinese parents (89.7% mothers; M age = 44.24 years) and their children (62 boys; 57.9%) between the ages of 9 and 17 years (M = 11.9 years, SD = 2.9) completed measures of parent punitive behavior and child problems. Concordance in item profiles and discrepancies in overall problem levels were assessed. Overall, immigrant parents reported fewer child and parenting problems than did their children. Relationship closeness predicted less disagreement in ratings of child internalizing symptoms and punitive parenting. Parental acculturative stress and parent-child acculturation dissonance predicted more disagreement regarding internalizing problems. The findings highlight potential under-identification of internalizing problems among immigrant Chinese families that may be driven by acculturation processes.

The study examined the efficacy of a school-based mindfulness intervention on mental health and emotion regulation outcomes among adolescents in a wait-list controlled trial. The study also explored mediators and moderators of intervention effects. A total of 145 predominantly ethnic minority (Asian and Latino) 9th grade students with elevated mood symptoms were randomized to receive a 12-week mindfulness intervention at the start of the academic year, or in the second semester of the year. Students completed measures of emotion regulation and mental health symptoms at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed significant treatment effects of the mindfulness intervention for internalizing symptoms and perceived stress at post-treatment. Pooled pre-to-post treatment analyses of the entire sample revealed a small effect size for attention problems, medium for internalizing and externalizing problems, and large for perceived stress. We also found a small effect size for cognitive reappraisal, medium for expressive suppression, emotional processing, emotional expression, and rumination and large for avoidance fusion. Mediation analyses showed that treatment effects on internalizing symptoms and perceived stress were mediated by reductions in expressive suppression and rumination. Moderation analyses revealed that treatment effects were larger among youth with more severe problems at baseline for internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and perceived stress. However, for attention problems, students with lower severity at baseline appeared to have larger treatment gains. The study provided evidence that mindfulness intervention was beneficial for low-income ethnic minority youth in reducing perceived stress and internalizing problems, and improving emotion regulation outcomes. Furthermore, mindfulness training was associated with reduced mental health symptoms via improvements in emotion regulation.