Cultural Values, Social Status, and Chinese American Immigrant Parents’ Emotional Expressivity

• Published in: Journal of cross-cultural psychology Vol. 50; no. 3; pp. 381 - 395
• Main Authors: Chen, Stephen H., Zhou, Qing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-04-2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Asian American people; Asian Americans; Asian cultural groups; Chinese Americans; Collectivism; Conformity; Cultural values; Emotions; Facial expressions; Families & family life; Family income; Immigrants; Intersectionality; Mothers; Noncitizens; Parents; Parents & parenting; Self expression; Social Behavior; Social status; Social values; Values; adult development; emotion; acculturation; socioeconomic status; intersectionality
• ISSN: 0022-0221; 1552-5422
• DOI: 10.1177/0022022118817653

Cultural values and social status are two salient factors in the psychological experiences of immigrant families, and both have been associated with immigrant parents’ patterns of emotional expression in previous studies. The present study examined how endorsement of cultural values (collectivism and conformity) and social status were uniquely associated with immigrant parents’ emotional expressivity in the family. First-generation Chinese American immigrant parents (N = 239, 80% mothers; M = 41.31 years old) of elementary-age children reported on their endorsement of values of collectivism and conformity, their patterns of emotional expressivity in the family context, and their family income and education levels. Path analyses indicated unique positive associations between family income and all domains of parents’ emotional expressivity and negative associations between family income and parents’ endorsement of collectivism and conformity. Parents’ endorsement of collectivism was negatively associated with negative-dominant expressivity. We discuss implications of our findings for theories of culture and emotion, as well as for future intersectional approaches with Asian American populations.