Parental Psychological Control, Religious Coping, and Psychological Distress in Chinese American Christian Adolescents

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2014-07-31

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Abstract

Asian American adolescents have been documented as having high levels of depressive symptoms and psychological distress. Asian American Christians are an understudied, growing subpopulation of Asian American adolescents who represent a unique intersection of identities that may have implications for how they cope with stress. This study examined the effects of parental psychological control and religious coping on adolescent psychological distress in Chinese American Christian adolescents.

A community sample of Chinese American Christian adolescents (N = 52), ages 14 to 18, completed online questionnaires containing measures of parental psychological control, adolescent religious coping, and adolescent psychological distress. Correlational analyses and path analyses were used to assess hypothesized relationships. Path analyses showed significant paths from negative religious coping to depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms. While correlational analyses did not show significant associations between composite scores, associations were found between mother erratic emotional behavior and depressive symptoms, mother erratic emotional behavior and anxiety symptoms, and father erratic emotional behavior and depressive symptoms. Mother love withdrawal was associated with greater use of positive religious coping, as well as the specific methods of spiritual connection, religious forgiving, collaborative religious coping, and religious focus. Spiritual discontent, a negative religious coping method, was correlated with depressive symptoms. These findings contribute to our understanding of the roles of parental psychological control and religious coping on psychological distress levels in Chinese American Christian adolescents.

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