Family relationships and adolescent psychosocial outcomes: Converging findings from Eastern and Western cultures

This study investigated the role of parent-adolescent relationships in mediating the association between family-related negative life events and adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behaviors among 1,696 eleventh graders from the United States (n = 201), China (n = 502), Korea (n = 497), and Czech Republic (n = 496). Results indicated that perceived parental involvement and parent-adolescent conflict mediated the link between family-related life events and adolescent depressed mood. The path from family-related life events to adolescent problem behaviors was mediated by perceived parental involvement, parent-adolescent conflict, and perceived parental sanctions of adolescent misconduct. With the exception of minor cross-cultural differences in the magnitude of associations among variables, this study revealed considerable similarity in the association of family factors with adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. The findings contribute to the growing literature on culture-general developmental processes.