Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Aug;53(4):667-683.
doi: 10.1007/s10578-021-01153-2. Epub 2021 Mar 22.

Links Between Parenting and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Ten Countries

Alexander T Vazsonyi  1 , Albert J Ksinan  2   3 , Magda Javakhishvili  2   4 , J Melissa Scarpate  5 , Emily Kahumoku-Fessler  6
Affiliations

Links Between Parenting and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Ten Countries

Alexander T Vazsonyi et al. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

The present study tested the links between perceived maternal and paternal parenting and internalizing and externalizing problems across ten cultures (China, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States). Self-report data were collected from N = 12,757 adolescents (Mage = 17.13 years, 48.4% female). Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models tested whether: (1) the six parenting processes (closeness, support, monitoring, communication, peer approval, and conflict; Adolescent Family Process, Short Form (AFP-SF, 18 items) varied across cultures, and (2) the links between parenting processes and measures of internalizing and externalizing problems varied across cultures. Study findings indicated measurement invariance (configural and metric) of both maternal and paternal parenting processes and that the parenting-internalizing/externalizing problems links did not vary across cultures. Findings underscore the ubiquitous importance of parenting processes for internalizing and externalizing problems across diverse Asian, European, Eurasian, and North American cultures.

Keywords: Closeness; Conflict; Cross-national; Family process; Measurement.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Bornstein MH (1980) Cross-cultural developmental psychology. In: Bornstein MH (ed) Comparative methods in psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp 231–282
    1. Bornstein MH (2010) Handbook of cultural developmental science. Psychology Press, New York
    1. Dornbusch SM, Ritter PL, Leiderman PH, Roberts DF, Fraleigh MJ (1987) The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Dev. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130618 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Spera C (2005) A review of the relationship among parenting practices, parenting styles, and adolescent school achievement. Educ Psychol Rev 17:125–146 - DOI
    1. Hadiwijaya H, Klimstra TA, Vermunt JK, Branje SJ, Meeus WH (2017) On the development of harmony, turbulence, and independence in parent–adolescent relationships: a five-wave longitudinal study. J Youth Adolesc 46:1772–1788 - PubMed - PMC - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources