Sofia Luna, & Dr. Argero Zerr
The present study aimed to investigate how gendered traits and acculturation may be related to various parenting styles. In a previous study, their results showed that higher levels of acculturation in Chinese immigrant mothers was associated with less authoritarian parenting and more authoritative parenting (Vu et al., 2019). In another study, researchers found that emerging adults in Bulgaria prefer authoritative parenting and were highly likely to identify with a feminine gender-role orientation (Papazova & Gervanova, 2019). Given the results of the above studies, we decided to further explore the relationship between acculturation and gendered traits in the US. This study has implications for addressing the gap in literature about the possible relationship between parenting styles, acculturation, and gendered traits. In our study, each participants’ level of acculturation was measured via the PAN Acculturation scale (Soriano & Hough, 2000), parenting styles were assessed through the Parenting Style and Dimension Questionnaire (Robinson et al., 2001), and tendency towards certain gendered traits were measured using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). Data for the present study were collected online, with participants recruited from social media websites, including Facebook, as well as through the local community. Surveys were open to parents of 2-17 year olds residing in California. The participants (84% women, 14% men) ranged from 21 to 56 years old (M = 38), including 48% White, 30% Hispanic, 4% Black, 8% Asian, 2% identified as another ethnicity, and 8% were multiethnic. Our results showed that there was a marginally significant positive relationship between authoritative parenting and acculturation (r [114] = .17, p = .06), while authoritarian (r [116] = – .01, p = .90) and permissive parenting styles (r [109] = -.01, p = .95) were not significantly correlated with acculturation. Additional results revealed that feminine traits were negatively correlated with authoritarian parenting (r [118] = -.22, p = .02), positively correlated with authoritative parenting (r [112] = .44, p < .01), and not significantly correlated with permissive parenting. Masculine traits were not significantly correlated with any parenting styles. Additional analyses will also examine the role of ethnicity in these relationships.