Cross-Cultural Comparison of Expected Parental Reactions in Spanish and Argentinean Low Income Adolescents

MESTRE, M.V.; RICHAUD, M. C.; MESURADO, B.; SAMPER, P.; TUR, A.

Stockholm

Congreso; The 13th European Congress of Psychology.; 2013

Each country has its own cultural model of parenting, which implies that parental behaviors vary accordingly around the world (LeVine et al., 1994). This idea has led many authors to stress the importance of studying the contexts in which parenting takes place (Baumrind, 1966, 1996; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Kotchick & Forehand, 2002; Richaud, 2010). Although the term parental expectation has been defined in a variety of ways, the majority of the works on the subject have defined this concept as the beliefs and judgments that parents have about the achievement and behavior in the future of their sons and daughters, as regards what the parents want or expect from their children (Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010). A considerable body of evidence seems to show that communities differ as regards what they deem valuable for the development of their children (Keller, 2007). In light of this fact, parenting behaviors tend to follow the cultural models that the community in question considers suitable (Keller, 2007). Several investigations have revealed the relationship between parental expectations and children?s psychological adjustment (Belsky, 1990; Burbach & Borduin, 1986; Lin, 1999), On the other hand, the studies carried out by Wyatt and Carlo (2002) showed that the adolescents that had positive maternal and paternal expectations with regard to their prosocial behavior revealed themselves to be more involved in prosocial activities.