Premium
Consequences of ‘tiger’ parenting: a cross‐cultural study of maternal psychological control and children's cortisol stress response
Author(s) -
Doan Stacey N.,
Tardif Twila,
Miller Alison,
Olson Sheryl,
Kessler Daniel,
Felt Barbara,
Wang Li
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.12404
Subject(s) - psychology , stressor , mediation , psychological control , developmental psychology , psychological stress , area under the curve , clinical psychology , medicine , political science , law
Parenting strategies involving psychological control are associated with increased adjustment problems in children. However, no research has examined the extent to which culture and psychological control predict children's stress physiology. We examine cultural differences in maternal psychological control and its associations with children's cortisol. Chinese ( N = 59) and American ( N = 45) mother‐child dyads participated in the study. Mothers reported on psychological control. Children's cortisol was collected during a stressor and two indices of Area Under the Curve ( AUC ) were computed: AUC g which accounts for total output, and AUC i, which captures reactivity. Results indicate that Chinese mothers reported higher levels of psychological control and Chinese children had higher levels of AUC g than their American counterparts. Across both cultures, psychological control was significantly associated with increased cortisol levels as indexed by AUC g. There were no associations for AUC i. Finally, mediation analyses demonstrated that psychological control fully explained cultural differences in children's cortisol stress response as indexed by AUC g.