Perceived Parenting Practices and Adjustment: Moderation by Cultural Values in Chinese Emerging Adults

Filial piety is an important cultural construct in the lives and behaviors of Chinese emerging adults and may act as a moderating factor for the relationship between perceived parenting practices and indices of adjustment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not filial piety moderates the influence of psychologically controlling and warm parenting behaviors on internalizing problems, self-esteem, and risk behaviors. Using a sample of Chinese college students (N = 612), results from regression analyses indicated that filial piety moderated the relationship between psychological control and self-esteem, in that psychological control predicted lower self-esteem at high and moderate levels of filial piety values but was not related at low filial piety values. The discussion focuses on the possibility that filial piety may exacerbate the conflict between psychologically controlling tactics and autonomy.