Maternal Encouragement of Modest Behavior, Temperamental Shyness, and Anxious Withdrawal Linkages to Chinese American Children's Social Adjustment: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Past studies have revealed potential differences in the functional meaning and social evaluation of children's temperamental shyness between Chinese interdependence-oriented and North American independence-oriented cultural contexts. However, very little is known about shy Chinese American children's adjustment in Western school contexts and potential pathways underlying their adjustment. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the associations between Chinese American children's temperamental shyness and their social adjustment outcomes, including peer exclusion, prosocial behavior, and assertiveness/leadership skills. In addition, the mediating role of children's display of anxious-withdrawn behavior and the moderating role of first-generation Chinese immigrant mothers' encouragement of modesty in their parenting practices as applied to associations between temperamental shyness and social adjustment outcomes were explored. Path analyses indicated that the impact of Chinese American children's temperamental shyness on their socio-emotional adjustment was mediated by their display of anxious-withdrawn behavior in school. However, when Chinese immigrant mothers encouraged their children to be more modest, children's temperamental shyness was less strongly related to negative social adjustment outcomes through diminished anxious-withdrawn behavior. These results highlighted the importance of culturally-emphasized parenting practices in fostering Chinese American children's adjustment in the U.S.

Keywords: Shyness; adjustment; culture; parents/parenting; social behavior.

Figure 1.

The conceptual moderated mediation model.

Figure 2.

The moderated mediation model with standardized regression coefficient after controlling for the effects of maternal acculturation, child age, and child gender. Note: **p<.01, ***p<.001. Effects presented in this figure represent direct effects between the variables. Conditional indirect effects were calculated at three levels of maternal encouragement of modesty presented in Table 3.