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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Apr 6.
Published in final edited form as: J Child Fam Stud. 2019 Sep 21;29(4):1136–1146. doi: 10.1007/s10826-019-01584-5

Effects of Family Obligation Values and Autonomy Support on Internalizing Symptoms of Vietnamese-American and European-American Adolescents

Kim M Tsai 1, Hannah Nguyen 2, Bahr Weiss 3, Victoria K Ngo 4, Anna S Lau 5
PMCID: PMC8986163  NIHMSID: NIHMS1793106  PMID: 35392245

Abstract

Objectives

Although negotiation of family relatedness and personal autonomy is a key developmental task of adolescence, what is most adaptive for adolescents may vary across cultures. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether relations between family obligation values and adolescent internalizing symptoms may vary as a function of the level of parental autonomy support perceived by the adolescent, and to assess the extent to which such associations vary by ethnic group.

Methods

The study included 614 adolescents (Mean age = 15.57 years, 50% male) from Vietnamese-American (55%) and European-American (45%) backgrounds. Adolescents reported their: (a) family obligation values to (a1) respect, (a2) provide current assistance, and (a3) provide future support to the family, (b) perceived maternal and paternal autonomy support, and (c) internalizing symptoms.

Results

Effects of family obligation values differed across the three subdomains as a function of maternal autonomy support and ethnic group. Family obligation values to respect the family (a1, above) were related to lower levels of internalizing symptoms for both Vietnamese- and European-American adolescents who received high levels of maternal autonomy support. Ethnic differences emerged such that only among Vietnamese-American adolescents, there was a negative relation between current assistance values (a2, above) and internalizing symptoms among adolescents with high maternal autonomy support.

Conclusions

Overall, findings highlight the importance for parents to nurture adolescents’ family obligation values while also promoting their autonomy development.

Keywords: Family obligation values, Parental autonomy support, Internalizing symptoms

The negotiation of family relatedness and autonomy is a key developmental task for adolescents (Allen et al. 1994; Grotevant and Cooper 1985). One pathway through which adolescents develop a sense of family relatedness is through values centered on family obligation—the belief that one should assist, respect, and provide future support to their family (Fuligni et al. 1999). Internalization of such family obligation values has been linked to positive psychosocial outcomes, in part because they reinforce adolescents’ feelings of connectedness to their family (Germán et al. 2009; Juang and Cookston 2009; Telzer and Fuligni 2009). However, there is some evidence that adolescents’ over-involvement in family responsibilities, a central aspect of family obligation, can become burdensome and impinge on adolescents’ engagement in developmentally adaptive autonomy-related pursuits, such as spending time with their friends and making decisions on their own (Dodson and Dickert 2004; East 2010). The influence of family obligation values on adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment therefore may depend on the extent to which adolescents also have opportunities to exercise their individual autonomy.

Although both family relatedness and autonomy development are independently critical for adolescents’ psychological well-being and social adjustment (e.g., Collins and Steinberg 2006), greater understanding of their interactive effects is important because of the significant cultural variability in how family relatedness and autonomy development are nurtured within the family context. Kagitcibasi’s autonomy-relatedness framework proposes that for families from individualistic societies (e.g., the United States), children are often encouraged to practice self-agency and express their unique attributes as a means to develop their sense of autonomy (Kagitcibasi 2013). On the other hand, families from collectivistic societies (e.g., many nations in Asia) often place greater emphasis on relatedness, as manifested through values emphasizing children’s obligation to the family and deference towards their parents (Kagitcibasi 2013). In fact, adolescents from collectivistic Asian backgrounds typically endorse stronger family obligation values (Fuligni et al. 1999; Tsai et al. 2013) and receive less parental autonomy support compared to their European-American peers (Fuligni 1998; Qin et al. 2009; Supple et al. 2009). However, it is unclear how such varying levels of family relatedness and autonomy may be differentially related to the emotional mental health of adolescents from collectivistic and individualistic cultural backgrounds.

Among many first-generation Vietnamese families, parents exert high levels of authority and expect obedience from their children (Cheung and Nguyen 2007; Nguyen 2008; Tingvold et al. 2012). Parental discussion and negotiation of issues with their children are uncommon practices in Vietnamese households, serving to reinforce children’s deference to their parents as authority figures and primary decision-makers (Nguyen 2008; Tingvold et al. 2012). Furthermore, Vietnamese children are socialized to place obligations to support and respect family members before their individual needs (Nguyen and Cheung 2009). With such high levels of parental demandingness within a context of low parental warmth, Vietnamese parenting has been described as authoritarian in nature (Cheung and Nguyen 2007; Nguyen 2008).

Compared to immigrants from East Asian countries, the large majority of Vietnamese immigrants arrived to the U.S. as refugees, in a series of waves ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s (Bankston and Zhou 1997). Many families were dispersed throughout the country and into communities where they experienced social, linguistic, and economical marginalization. As a consequence, heavy reliance on immediate and extended family for assistance has remained central to the lives of Vietnamese-American families, and serves as an important mechanism for nurturing feelings of family connectedness (Tingvold et al. 2012; Trieu 2014; Bankston and Zhou 1997; Telzer and Fuligni 2009). In family contexts where family obligation values are reinforced, these cultural norms are generally associated with positive adolescent adjustment outcomes, including low levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and greater academic motivation (Germán et al. 2009; Juang and Nguyen 2009; King and Ganotice 2015; Telzer et al. 2015).

In contrast, individualistic societies such as the U.S. (Hofstede score of 91 out of 100 on individualism; Hofstede Insights 2018) place greater importance on autonomy development. A key factor underlying adolescents’ development of autonomy is the degree to which their parents support their autonomy, such as encouraging their children to make independent decisions, valuing their individual perspectives and nurturing their personal interests and relationships outside the family context (Fuligni 1998; Smetana et al. 2004, Supple et al. 2009). In such contexts, adolescents who receive autonomy support from their parents develop higher self-esteem, experience fewer internalizing symptoms, and have better academic performance and closer relationships with their parents compared to their peers who receive less parental autonomy support (Smetana et al. 2004; Qin et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2007).

These cultural differences in the socialization of family relatedness versus autonomy suggest that their relations to adolescents’ emotional mental health may be complex and differ for adolescents from collectivistic (e.g., Vietnamese) and individualistic (e.g., American) cultures. For example, low levels of autonomy support may not contribute significantly to feelings of emotional distress among adolescents from Vietnamese families due to collectivistic norms that emphasize respect and deference to parents (Tingvold et al. 2012; Trieu 2014). In a study with Chinese American adolescents, strong family obligation values were related to less externalizing problems even among individuals who had low expectations for autonomy, which suggests that low parental autonomy support is not necessarily detrimental within contexts that endorse collectivistic norms (Juang and Nguyen 2009). For European-American adolescents, however, high levels of family obligation and low autonomy support may violate their normative cultural expectations for independence and contribute to greater emotional distress. In a study comparing adolescents from the U.S. and China, the influence of autonomy support on emotional well-being was stronger for American than Chinese adolescents (Wang et al. 2007). This study (Wang et al. 2007), however, did not take into account adolescents’ concurrent values pertaining to family relatedness, which as discussed above, may be one mechanism through which these factors have their effects. Thus, it will be important to explore whether parental autonomy support may differentially moderate the relation between family obligation values and adolescents’ emotional mental health for adolescents from different cultural groups. Alternatively, it is possible that for both Vietnamese- and European-American adolescents, high family obligation values and low parental autonomy support similarly contributes to greater emotional distress. Although Vietnamese-American adolescents may be socialized to maintain strong family obligation values within their home, through acculturative processes and exposure to individualistic cultural norms of the U.S., their expectations for autonomy may mirror those of their European-American peers.

Family obligation values include three dimensions, which are the importance to: (a) provide current assistance to the family (e.g., help with household chores); (b) respect family members (e.g., follow the advice of parents); and (c) support the family in the future (e.g. assist the family financially) (Fuligni et al. 1999). It is possible that these different dimensions have different interactive effects with parental autonomy support. For instance, future support (e.g., importance to assist the family financially in the future) might interact less with parental autonomy support in relation to adolescent emotional mental health because it is a less tangible form of family support as compared to current assistance and respect that may be presently practiced at home. However, most studies have examined family obligation as a single construct. Among the few studies that have examined individual dimensions of family obligation, attention has been specifically centered on adolescents’ endorsement of current assistance values and behaviors (e.g., Juang and Cookston 2009; Telzer et al. 2014). Results suggest both positive and negative relations to psychosocial adjustment outcomes. Whereas some studies indicate that strong current assistance values and behaviors are associated with fewer depressive symptoms, less substance use, and weak affiliations with deviant peers (Juang and Cookston 2009; Telzer et al. 2014), other studies show that high involvement in family assistance behaviors is related to poorer psychological functioning, including greater internalizing symptoms and behavioral problems (Gore et al. 1993; Telzer and Fuligni 2009; Telzer et al. 2014; Williams and Francis 2010). These inconsistencies in findings may be due in part to the extent to which fulfilling family responsibilities interferes with adolescents’ establishment of autonomy. For instance, the perceived need and actual provision of current assistance to the family can place immense pressure on adolescents to meet and prioritize the demands of their family before their own needs (Dodson and Dickert 2004; East 2010). Given the mixed findings in the associations between current assistance values and adolescent adjustment outcomes and the lack of studies focused on the other two dimensions—respect, and future support—of family obligation, it is important to study these dimensions individually to develop a more precise model of how these constructs are related to adolescent emotional mental health under varying degrees of parental autonomy support.

The first research aim of the present study was to examine how parental autonomy support moderates the associations between each family obligation value and adolescent emotional mental health. We hypothesized that family obligation values would be negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms, but only among adolescents who receive high parental autonomy support. Our second research aim was to explore whether the interactive effects between family obligation values and parental autonomy support on internalizing symptoms differed between Vietnamese-American and European-American adolescents. We hypothesized that within a context of high family obligation values, low parental autonomy support may be associated with greater internalizing symptoms for European-American compared to Vietnamese-American adolescents. Finally, our analyses focused on the influence of maternal and paternal autonomy support separately and we hypothesized that maternal autonomy support would more likely to be significant in moderating the associations between family obligation values and adolescent internalizing symptoms compared to paternal autonomy support.

Methods

Participants

Participants in the current study included 614 Vietnamese-American and European-American 10th and 11th grade adolescents (Mage = 15.57, SD = 0.62; 50% male). Among the Vietnamese-American youth, 20% were first-generation (i.e., the child was born in Vietnam), 79% were second-generation (i.e., child was born in the U.S. but at least one parent was born in Vietnam), and 1% were third-generation (i.e., child and both parents were born in the U.S.). The large majority (86%) of adolescents from European-American families were third generation (or greater) with 11% second generation and 3% first generation.

Procedure

The sample was recruited in three cohorts of 10th and 11th grade high school students across three academic years. Participants were recruited from seven high schools in southern California selected on their enrollment of significant proportions of students from either Vietnamese-American or European-American backgrounds. Three schools predominantly enrolled adolescents from Asian American backgrounds, two schools predominantly consisted of students from European-American backgrounds, and one school had an approximately equal representation of Asian and European-American students.

Recruitment and sampling followed two stages. First, research staff and/or teachers made a brief announcement in 10th and 11th grade Social Studies and Science classrooms to describe the study and distribute consent packets at the beginning of the academic year. Students were instructed to return the packets with a signed parental consent form if they wished to participate in the study. We provided small incentives (e.g., pens) to individual students who returned their forms regardless of whether they were interested in participating, and provided a pizza party for the first two classrooms at each school to return all the forms, regardless of the percentage of students interested in participating. Across all schools, 4604 consent forms were distributed, with 1875 (41%) returning forms with parental consent. Study inclusion criteria were that participants be in the 10th or 11th grade, and identify as Vietnamese-American or European-American. Sixty-eight percent (N = 1281) of students returning their forms met study requirements. Because more students were eligible to participate than were needed for the study, during the second stage of recruitment a stratified random sample was selected from among the eligible students, maximizing the gender and ethnicity balance in our sample. Our final analytic sample included 614 students.

Students completed an online questionnaire at their school’s computer lab after school under the supervision of research staff. The surveys included items that assessed their family values, parent–child relationship quality and psychological well-being. It took about an hour to complete the survey and students received a $20 retail gift card for their participation.

Measures

Family obligation values

Adolescents completed three subscales of the Family Obligation Measure, which has been validated in a number of studies with participants from diverse ethnic backgrounds (e.g., Fuligni et al. 1999; Telzer et al. 2014; Tsai et al. 2013). The Current Assistance subscale includes 12 items that assess adolescents’ attitudes about providing current assistance to their family, such as how often they should “run errands that the family needs done” (1 = almost never; 5 = almost always). The scale had acceptable internal consistency in our sample (Vietnamese-American: α = 0.77; European-American: α = 0.81). The Respect subscale includes 7 items measuring adolescents’ beliefs about the importance to respect and follow the expectations of their family, such as “do well for the sake of your family” (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important). This scale had good internal consistency (Vietnamese-American: α = 0.80; European-American: α = 0.84). The Future Support subscale includes 6 items that assess the extent to which adolescents believe it is important to provide support to their families in the future, such as “help parents financially,” (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important); this subscale also had acceptable internal consistency (Vietnamese-American: α = 0.77; European-American: α = 0.71).

Parental autonomy support

Adolescents responded to six items from the parental Psychological Autonomy Support measure that evaluated the level of autonomy support that they receive from their parents, with mothers and fathers rated separately (Wang et al. 2007). Items include “My mother [father] is usually willing to consider things from my point of view” (1 = not at all true, 5 = very true). This scale had good internal consistency in our sample (Mother autonomy: Vietnamese-American: α = 0.91; European-American: α = 0.88; Father autonomy: Vietnamese-American: α = 0.91; European-American: α = 0.93).

Internalizing symptoms

Adolescents completed the Youth Self-Report form of the Child Behavior Checklist (YSR: Achenbach and Rescorla 2001). The Internalizing Problems scale, which includes anxious, somatic, depression and withdrawal symptoms (e.g., “I worry a lot,” “I don’t have much energy”) was used in the present study. Adolescents rate each item on a 3-point scale (0 = not true of me; 1 = somewhat or sometimes true of me; 2 = true or often true of me). The YSR has shown good reliability and discriminate validity across different cultural groups, including adolescents of Vietnamese descent (Guo et al. 2015).

Demographic background variables

In addition to our primary study variables, we assessed family demographic characteristics including parental education and level of family economic strain, used as control variables in our analyses. Adolescents reported on the highest level of education that each of their parents received (1 = 11th grade or below, 2 = high school graduate, 3 = some college or vocational school, 4 = graduated from college or vocational school, 5 = graduate/professional degree). We averaged adolescents’ responses across parents to obtain a single measure of parental education level (M = 3.26, SD = 1.12). Adolescents also completed an eight-item scale that assessed the extent to which their family experienced financial difficulties (e.g., “My family didn’t have enough money to pay the bills.”) over the last three months (Conger et al. 2002). This scale had high internal consistency (Vietnamese-American: α = 0.87; European-American: α = 90).

Results

We first conducted descriptive analyses to examine group mean differences and correlations among key variables. As shown in Table 1, Vietnamese-American adolescents endorsed stronger respect and future support values compared to their European-American peers. European-American adolescents reported higher levels of maternal and paternal autonomy support than Vietnamese-American adolescents. Vietnamese-American adolescents and females had greater internalizing symptoms compared to their European-American and male peers, respectively. Table 2 reports correlations among main study variables. All three dimensions of family obligation values were significantly positively correlated with one another. Economic strain was associated with many of the primary study variables, thereby supporting the importance of including this measure as a covariate in our analytic models.

Table 1.

Ethnic and gender differences among primary study variables

Vietnamese American European American Male Female Group differences
Current assistance 3.28 3.27 3.21 3.32
Respect 3.89 3.74 3.84 3.80 VA > EA*
Future support 3.35 2.61 3.03 3.00 VA > EA***
Maternal autonomy 3.00 3.54 3.37 3.11 VA < EA***; M > F**
Paternal autonomy 3.03 3.49 3.33 3.15 VA < EA***
Internalizing symptoms 20.47 17.41 15.72 22.42 VA > EA***; M < F***
Parental education 3.02 3.53 3.38 3.15 VA < EA***; M > F*
Economic strain 1.60 1.52 1.44 1.68 M < F***
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VA Vietnamese-American adolescents, EA European-American adolescents, M Male, F Female

*

p < 0.05,

**

p < 0.01,

***

p < 0.001

Table 2.

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among key variables

Mean (SD) Current assistance Respect Future support Maternal autonomy Paternal autonomy Internalizing symptoms Generation status Parental education
Current assistance 3.28 (0.92)
Respect 3.82 (0.72) 0.33**
Future support 3.02 (0.92) 0.32** 0.48**
Maternal autonomy support 3.24 (1.06) 0.17** 0.23** 0.10*
Paternal autonomy support 3.24 (1.15) 0.07 0.25** 0.09* 0.39**
Internalizing symptoms 19.08 (10.30) −0.02 −0.15** 0.04 −0.33** −0.28**
Generation status 2.27 (0.67) −0.30 −0.09* −0.33*** 0.18*** 0.14** −0.04
Parental education 3.27 (1.12) 0.01 0.08 −0.04 0.00 −0.04 0.02 0.03
Economic strain 1.56 (0.69) 0.01 −0.12** 0.01 −0.15*** −0.13** 0.30*** −0.03 —0.17***
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*

p < 0.05,

**

p < 0.01,

***

p < 0.001

To address the first research question, we estimated the interactions between each family obligation value (i.e., Current Assistance, Respect, Future Support) and parental autonomy support (maternal and paternal support separately) with internalizing symptoms as the dependent variable, thereby yielding a total of six models. In this first step of our regression models, we included the main effects of family obligation and parental autonomy support, as well as the interaction term, to predict internalizing symptoms. Additionally, all models controlled for adolescent ethnicity, gender, generation status, parental education, and family economic strain.

There was a significant interaction between Current Assistance Values and Maternal Autonomy Support (see Table 3, Step 1, column 1). To interpret this interaction effect, we estimated the slopes between Current Assistance Values and internalizing symptoms for adolescents at the mean, and one standard deviation below and one standard deviation above the mean on Maternal Autonomy Support (Aiken and West 1991; Preacher et al. 2006). As Fig. 1a illustrates, among adolescents who perceived low levels of maternal autonomy support, there is a positive relation between current assistance values and internalizing symptoms, b = 1.70, SE = 0.56, p = 0.003. For those who reported high and average levels of maternal autonomy support, current assistance values were not significantly related to internalizing symptoms.

Table 3.

The moderating role of maternal autonomy support and ethnicity on relations between family obligation values and internalizing symptoms

Predictor variable Family obligation value subscale
Current assistance Respect Future support
B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Step 1 – Research Question # 1
 Ethnicity −5.55 1.55*** −5.97 1.56*** −4.88 1.62**
 Gender 1.28 0.76 1.04 0.76 1.23 0.77
 1st generation −6.11 1.84** −6.07 1.85** −5.95 1.87**
 2nd generation −4.77 1.60** −5.02 1.60** −4.73 1.63**
 Parental education 0.48 0.29 0.51 0.29 0.49 0.29
 Economic strain 2.74 0.39*** 2.78 0.39*** 2.78 0.39***
 Family obligation value 0.51 0.39 −0.84 0.40* 0.70 0.43
 Maternal autonomy support −2.78 0.40*** −2.51 0.41*** −2.84 0.41***
 FOV × MAS −1.12 0.36** −0.82 0.36* −0.25 0.41
 R2 0.22*** 0.21*** 0.20***
Step 2 – Research Question # 2
 FOV × Ethnicity 0.15 0.79 −0.79 0.84 −0.26 0.53
 Autonomy × Ethnicity −1.83 0.80* −1.67 0.84* −1.97 0.90*
 FOV × MAS × Ethnicity 2.21 0.77** 0.36 0.76 −0.65 0.83
 R2 0.23** 0.21 0.21
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Ethnicity and gender are dummy coded (0 = Vietnamese American, 1 = European American; Male = 0, Female = 1). FOV Family Obligation Value, MAS Maternal Autonomy Support

*

p < 0.05,

**

p < 0.01,

***

p < 0.001

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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a Maternal autonomy support moderates the relation between family assistance values and internalizing symptoms. **p < 0.01. b Maternal autonomy support moderates the relation between respect values and internalizing symptoms. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

There was also a significant interaction between Respect Values and Maternal Autonomy Support (see Table 3, Step 1, column 2). Examination of the simple slopes indicated that family respect values were negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms among adolescents who reported high (b = −1.71, SE = 0.59, p = 0.004) and average (b = −0.84, SE = 0.40, p = 0.04) levels of maternal autonomy support (see Fig. 1b). Among adolescents who reported low levels of maternal autonomy, respect values were not significantly related to internalizing symptoms.

Paternal autonomy support did not significantly moderate the relations between any of the family obligation values and internalizing symptoms (bs = −0.31–0.13, SEs = 0.37–0.40), indicating that the relations between family obligation values and internalizing symptoms did not differ as a function of paternal autonomy support. Due to the non-significant findings and to save space, these results are not reported in a table.

To address our second research question, we included the two-way interactions between ethnicity and (1) family obligation values and (2) parental autonomy and also a three-way interaction between ethnicity, family obligation values and parental autonomy support in our models (Aiken and West 1991; Preacher et al. 2006). Because the addition of the ethnic group effects are hierarchical (i.e., the models include all of the terms in the Research Question 1 models), results are presented in Table 3, as Step 2/Research Question 2.

The three-way interaction between Current Assistance Values, Maternal Autonomy Support, and ethnicity was significant (see Table 3). As shown in Fig. 2, the relation between Current Assistance Values and Internalizing Symptoms differed significantly as a function of Maternal Autonomy Support for Vietnamese-American adolescents, but not European-American adolescents. Among Vietnamese-Americans who reported low levels of maternal autonomy support, current assistance values were positively correlated with internalizing symptoms (b = 2.89, SE = 0.77, p < 0.001), whereas among Vietnamese-American adolescents who reported high levels of maternal autonomy support, current assistance values were negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms, b = −2.08, SE = 0.54, p < 0.001. For European-American adolescents, irrespective of their reported level of maternal autonomy support, the relation between current assistance values and internalizing symptoms was not statistically significant.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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The interactive effect of current assistant values and maternal autonomy support varies according to adolescents’ ethnic background. VA = Vietnamese-American adolescents; EA = European-American adolescents; *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001

None of the three-way interactions between family obligation values, paternal autonomy support, and ethnic group were significant.

Discussion

The results of the present study suggest that to more fully understand the influence of adolescents’ family obligation values on their emotional mental health, it is necessary to consider adolescents’ experiences of parental autonomy support. For adolescents from both ethnic groups in the present study, family obligation values to respect the family were associated with less internalizing symptoms when adolescents perceived support for autonomy from their mothers. However, maternal autonomy support moderated the relation between current assistance values and internalizing symptoms for Vietnamese-American, but not European-American adolescents. These ethnic group differences expand on Kagitcibasi’s (2013) autonomy-relatedness framework by highlighting how cultural variation in family relatedness and autonomy development is differentially related to the internalizing symptoms of adolescents from different ethnic groups. Among Vietnamese-American adolescents who endorsed high levels of maternal autonomy, current assistance values were negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms, whereas for Vietnamese-American adolescents with high levels of maternal autonomy support, current assistance values were positively correlated with internalizing symptoms. Overall, the present study highlights the reciprocal nature of parent–adolescent relationships—as important as it is for adolescents to provide assistance to and respect their family, it is also important for parents to nurture their adolescent’s developing autonomy in return.

Our results extend previous research on the benefits of family obligation values for adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment (e.g., German et al. 2009; Telzer et al. 2014) by illustrating the importance of maternal autonomy support in moderating the degree to which family obligation values are favorable towards adolescent emotional mental health. Additionally, most prior studies examined family obligation as a single construct or focused only on current assistance. Our results indicate that it is important to evaluate all of the individual dimensions of family obligation, as each form of family obligation and their interactive effects with maternal autonomy support differentially contributed to adolescents’ internalizing symptoms. Specifically, future support values were not associated with internalizing symptoms as a function of maternal autonomy support. It is possible that in contrast to current assistance and respect values, both of which involve family responsibilities and expectations that adolescents may experience daily, beliefs regarding the importance of future support for the family may be less tangible and thus less stressful for adolescents. In regards to respect values, these values were negatively correlated with internalizing symptoms for both Vietnamese- and European-American adolescents who received high levels of maternal autonomy support. This result suggests that these adolescents show respect to their family, such as following their parents’ advice, and also perceive their mothers to similarly respect their individual perspectives and decisions in return. Thus, a family context in which mutual respect between parents and their children is practiced appears to be beneficial for adolescents’ emotional mental health.

When considering the ethnicity of the adolescents, we found that the moderating role of maternal autonomy support on the relation between current assistance values and internalizing symptoms occurred only among Vietnamese-American, but not European-American, adolescents. For Vietnamese-American adolescents, current assistance values were related to fewer internalizing symptoms among those who concurrently received high levels of maternal autonomy support, and related to greater internalizing symptoms for those who received low levels of maternal autonomy support. Vietnamese-American adolescents with parents to support their autonomy development may feel that their assistance to the family is appreciated, thus reducing feelings of emotional distress that are greater among adolescents who experience low levels of parental autonomy support. These findings suggest that although Vietnamese-American families often socialize their children with strong collectivistic cultural values centered on family interdependence (Tingvold et al. 2012; Trieu 2014), providing their children opportunities for autonomy development is also critical for their children’s emotional mental health.

These findings with Vietnamese-American adolescents are important because they suggest that it may be useful for immigrant parents to grant more autonomy to their children as they grow up in an American context that values individuality. Vietnamese immigrant parents often seek to preserve important cultural values, yet find it challenging to do so as they raise their family in a new cultural context that endorses individualistic norms and values that they are less familiar with (Cheung and Nguyen 2007; Tingvold et al. 2012). However, as Vietnamese parents begin to better understand the adaptive function of cultural flexibility across collectivistic and individualistic practices, they can recognize the value of supporting their children’s development of autonomy (e.g., nurturing their children’s self-confidence in independent decision-making) that is critical in adapting to a highly individualistic context. Vietnamese parents understand that supporting greater autonomy in their children does not necessarily undermine their efforts to transmit important collectivistic cultural values, such as those centered on family obligation (Cheung and Nguyen 2007; Tingvold et al. 2012). A shift in the increase of autonomy-granting among immigrant parents can demonstrate how values and practices focused on family relatedness and autonomy are not necessarily incompatible with one another, but rather, can work together to promote children’s psychological well-being and social adjustment (Kagitcibasi 2013). Thus, immigration and adjustment to new cultural contexts can facilitate changes in what is be considered developmentally appropriate and socially adaptive in adolescents’ negotiation of family relatedness and autonomy.

It interesting that although European-American adolescents reported similar levels of current assistance values as their Vietnamese peers, these values were not related to internalizing symptoms, and this relation did not differ as a function of maternal autonomy support as it did for Vietnamese-American adolescents. In interpreting this finding, it is important to note that the measure of current assistance in the present study reflects adolescents’ beliefs regarding the importance to assist their family, rather than parental expectations for adolescents to assist their families. Following collectivistic cultural norms of Vietnamese families, parents socialize and may place a high degree of pressure for their children to meet household demands and assist their family. As such, assisting the family is a culturally salient routine for Vietnamese adolescents, and thus can likely have greater implications for their emotional mental health. In contrast, European-American adolescents may not face the same degree of parental expectations to meet daily family demands; thus, adolescents’ endorsement of current assistance values may be less consequential to their emotional mental health as the present study suggests. From a data-driven perspective, it is possible that the higher levels of maternal autonomy support among European-American adolescents in our sample relative to their Vietnamese-American peers were sufficiently high to mitigate any potential negative associations between current assistance and internalizing symptoms. Additionally, low variability in levels of maternal autonomy support among European-than Vietnamese-American adolescents may have limited their influence in moderating this association.

Moreover, for Vietnamese-American adolescents, the increased risk for internalizing symptoms in the context of high expectations to care for one’s family, yet limited opportunities to exercise their autonomy, may reflect feelings of acculturative stress as these adolescents often negotiate between individualistic and collectivistic norms and expectations. Compared to European-American parents, Vietnamese parents are less familiar with autonomy expectations that their children face in the U.S. (Cheung and Nguyen 2007; Tingvold et al. 2012). As a result, adolescents from immigrant families may need to be more agentic in asserting their desire for autonomy with their parents, which can contribute to parent–child tension and emotional distress when their parents are not receptive to their needs. Future research can examine effective strategies that parents and children can practice in communicating and meeting each other’s expectations related to family relatedness and autonomy development.

This study also found that although paternal autonomy support was positively correlated with internalizing symptoms, it did not similarly moderate the associations between family obligation values and internalizing symptoms as maternal support had shown. This suggests that paternal autonomy support is generally positive, but does not serve as a buffer to the effects of current assistance expectations, likely due in part to fathers being generally less involved in their children’s daily activities compared to mothers (Lansford et al. 2014; Phares et al. 2009).

Limitations

First, our study assessed adolescents’ perceptions of parental autonomy support, and it may have been useful also to assess parents’ own reports. A second limitation is that the study was cross-sectional and thus, the direction of causality cannot be inferred. It is possible that the relation between adolescent internalizing symptoms and family obligation values reflects the effect of the former on the latter rather than vice versa. Furthermore, our cross-sectional design did not allow us to assess causal relations in the parent–child relationship, between parent behavior (parental autonomy support) and adolescent values (family obligations values), both of which may influence the other. For example, adolescents who demonstrate maturity in fulfilling family obligations may be granted with greater parental autonomy support or vice versa. Future longitudinal studies can better address the reciprocity in parent–child relationships over time. Additionally, it would be valuable to include other relational qualities of family dynamics, such as parental warmth and family cohesion, that influence the various factors assessed in this study. Finally, we would like to acknowledge that there were no generation differences in the interaction between family obligation values and parental autonomy support. Given that the metropolitan areas from which many of our Vietnamese participants were recruited from are some of the largest Vietnamese enclaves in the United States, it is possible that Vietnamese cultural values including those related to family obligation remain strong across multiple generations, which can account for the absence of generation differences in our key findings. As such, our findings may be limited to Vietnamese adolescents growing up in more homogeneous Vietnamese communities. It is also possible that generation differences may be more evident if our classification of generation status considered the age at which parents immigrated from Vietnam. Although the majority of our Vietnamese participants were classified as second-generation, being raised by parents who immigrated recently versus parents who immigrated while they, themselves, were young children can significantly shape the extent to which cultural values are transmitted to their children. Unfortunately, we did not gather such data about our parents which may have masked important variability within the second-generation group in our study. Thus, it is valuable for future research to take into account various factors (e.g., age of immigration) when exploring generation differences.

In conclusion, parents can shape the positive influence of family obligation values for their children’s emotional mental health by granting them opportunities to develop their autonomy. Despite the importance for adolescents to maintain a sense of connectedness with their family by means of assisting and respecting their families, it is also critical for parents to nurture adolescents’ developing need for independence. Furthermore, cultural variation in these constructs influence how autonomy and relatedness shape adolescents’ emotional mental health. For adolescents from collectivistic cultural backgrounds, the negotiation of family relatedness and autonomy in the U.S. can be an especially salient task as it may render challenges in resolving discrepant collectivistic cultural norms within an individualistic-oriented society.

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval All procedures performed in the studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. UCLA provided IRB approval for this study.

Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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