Reexamining the Cultural Specificity of Controlling and Autonomy-Supportive Parenting in the United States and China with a Within-Individual Analytic Approach

This research examines whether prior research may not have detected cultural-specificity in the role of controlling and autonomy-supportive parenting in children's adjustment because of reliance on between-individual analyses. In two longitudinal studies (Ns = 825 and 934) of early adolescents, within-individual analyses were conducted to examine the reciprocal pathways between children's reports of parenting and their reports of their adjustment in the United States and China. Increments in controlling parenting predicted decrements in children's emotional and behavioral, but generally not academic, adjustment over time, with little evidence that this was stronger in the United States than in China. Decrements in children's emotional and behavioral, but generally not academic, adjustment predicted increments in controlling parenting over time similarly in the two countries. There were few overtime pathways involving autonomy-supportive parenting in either direction in either country.