Are Dimensions of Parenting Differentially Linked to Substance Use Across Caucasian and Asian American College Students?

Abstract

Background: Parental warmth and autonomy granting are commonly thought of as protective factors against substance use among Caucasians. However, limited research has examined whether associations between parenting dimensions and substance use outcomes are the same or different among Asian Americans. Method: A final analytic sample of 839 college students was used to test whether race (Caucasian vs. Asian American) moderated the relations between parenting dimensions and substance use outcomes across Caucasians and Asian Americans. We utilized the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) to measure maternal and paternal warmth, encouragement of behavioral freedom, and denial of psychological autonomy. Results: Multivariate regression models controlling for covariates including age, gender, and paternal education indicated four significant parenting by race interactions on alcohol problems and/or marijuana use. Specifically, maternal warmth was inversely associated with both alcohol problems and marijuana use among Caucasians but not among Asian Americans. Both maternal and paternal denial of psychological autonomy were positively associated with alcohol problems among Caucasians but not among Asian Americans. Conclusions: Consistent with emerging cross-cultural research, the associations between parenting dimensions and substance use behaviors observed in Caucasian populations may not be readily generalized to Asian Americans. These findings highlight the importance of considering different parenting dimensions in understanding substance use etiology among Asian Americans. Future research should use longitudinal data to replicate these findings across development and seek to identify other parenting dimensions that may be more relevant for Asian American youth.

Keywords :

• parental warmth
• parental autonomy granting
• alcohol problems
• marijuana use
• Asian Americans

THE AUTHORS

Jeremy W. Luk, MS, is a Child Clinical Psychology (minor in Quantitative Psychology) doctoral student at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is broadly interested in adolescent development, substance use etiology and treatment, as well as ethnic minority mental health. He previously worked as a Postbaccalaureate Fellow at the Prevention Research Branch of NIH/NICHD in 2008–2009, and was the recipient of an Individual National Research Service Award from NIH/NIAAA in 2011–2014. He has published (both as lead author and coauthor) over a dozen peer-reviewed papers in academic journals, and would like to pursue an academic research career after his graduation

Julie A. Patock-Peckham, PhD in Social Psychology, is a Barrett Honors Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, Tempe. She received a fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health in 2002/2003 as part of her work at the Prevention Intervention Research Center and was the recipient of an Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Health/National Institute of Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism 1999–2001. She is currently an editorial board member for the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and has coauthored over 30 papers in the fields of personality and the addictions

Kevin M. King, PhD (Clinical Psychology, Arizona State University), is an Associate Professor of Child Clinical Psychology, University of Washington. His work has shown that individuals’ poor cognitive and emotional self-regulation are more vulnerable to environmental and social risk factors (e.g., stress, poor parenting, and depressive symptoms), that the development of cognitive and emotional self-regulation during adolescence is not uniform across adolescents, and that poor or underdeveloped self-regulation puts adolescents at the highest risk for broad classes of behavior problems. He has been principal and coinvestigator on multiple federal and private foundation grants to examine substance use and self-regulation in youth

GLOSSARY

PBI: Parental Bonding Instrument.