The cross‐cultural significance of control and autonomy in parent–adolescent relationships

Although the concept of parental control has been around since the earliest conceptualizations of parenting style (e.g., Rollins & Thomas, 1979; Schaefer, 1965), until today it remains by far the most debated, controversial, and ambiguous concept in research on parenting and socialization (Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009). An important step toward conceptual clarification was made in the 90s with the introduction of the distinction between behavioral control and psychological control (Barber, 1996; Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994; Steinberg, 1990). Whereas behavioral control was said to refer to parental regulation of children's behaviors through strategies such as setting expectations and monitoring, psychological control was said to refer to intrusive and manipulative parental behaviors such as guilt-induction, shaming, and love withdrawal (Barber, 1996). Today, the construct of behavioral control is still to a large extent an enigma. Debates have arisen about both the operationalization and the conceptualization of this construct. The most vivid debate about the operationalization of behavioral control deals with the question of how monitoring (one key component of behavioral control) should be assessed, that is, in terms of passive parental knowledge or in terms of active parental efforts to monitor and to solicit information (Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Other debates about the conceptualization of behavioral control deal with a variety of questions, including the question whether the association between behavioral control and psychosocial outcomes in children and adolescents is linear or curvilinear in nature (e.g., Mason, Cauce, Gonzales, & Hiraga, 1996) and the question of how encompassing the construct of behavioral control is. Relative to the concept of behavioral control, which is surrounded by operational and conceptual fuzziness, the concept of psychological control is somewhat less troubled. Scholars generally accept Barber's (1996) definition of psychological control as a manipulative and sometimes insidious type of parental control that involves socialization pressure and that impedes with healthy development. In terms of assessment, Barber (1996) developed a valid and psychometrically sound measure, that is, the Psychological Control Scale – Youth Self-Report (PCS-YSR; Barber, 1996). Because researchers interested in psychological control have been rather consistent in using this scale, empirical work on psychological control is relatively coherent and cumulative in nature. There is increasing consensus that parental psychological control is related both concurrently and longitudinally to a plethora of adverse developmental outcomes, including internalizing distress, poor academic achievement, and externalizing problems (Barber & Harmon, 2002). Still, even the construct of psychological control is not without debate (Barber & Xia, in press; Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). The four papers in this special section, which were presented in 2008 as part of a symposium (entitled 'The cross-cultural significance of control and autonomy in parent–adolescent relationships') held at the conference of the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA) in Turin (Italy), deal with three important issues related to parental psychological control. These issues are (a) the very nature and conceptualization of psychological control, (b) the relation between psychological control and parental autonomy-support, and (c) the cross-cultural generalization of the effects of psychological control. Although there is consensus among parenting researchers that psychological control involves socialization pressure, manipulation, and intrusiveness, there is variability among scholars in terms of how broadly they define psychological control (Barber & Xia, in press; Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). Some scholars tend to define psychological control in relatively narrow terms. For instance, on the basis of Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000), Soenens and Vansteenkiste (2010) distinguished between two different ways in which parents can be pressuring, that is, internal pressure and external pressure, and they linked psychological control primarily to the concept of internally pressuring parenting. Whereas external pressure refers to oftentimes blunt, overt, or even tangible contingencies that make children feel as if they are pressured from without [e.g., (threats of) physical punishment, controlling rewards, and removal of privileges], internal pressure refers to parental behaviors that appeal to internally pressuring forces and feelings in the child's functioning, including feelings of guilt, shame, and separation anxiety. Internally controlling strategies would basically convey a conditionally approving parental orientation, where parents let their love and approval fluctuate with the extent to which adolescents live up to parental standards. These strategies would create a sense of inner conflict in adolescents because they experience both feelings of loyalty to parental authority and feelings of pressure and resentment toward parents (Assor, Roth, & Deci, 2004). Because conditional regard and the parental strategies used to communicate conditional regard have been identified as important features of psychological control (Barber & Harmon, 2002), Soenens and Vansteenkiste (2010) argued that psychological control seems to be mainly about internally controlling parenting. In keeping with this narrow definition of parental psychological control, two papers in this special section focus on parental conditional regard. This is most explicit in the first paper of this special section. Assor and Tal highlighted the construct of positive conditional regard, an orientation where parents provide more love, approval, and respect than usual when children meet parental demands. Although positive conditional regard may seem like a harmless or even beneficial parenting strategy from the perspective of operant conditioning, the findings of Assor and Tal show that it relates to indicators of a fragile self-esteem in Israeli middle adolescents. Specifically, it was found to relate to feelings of self-aggrandizement following success and to feelings of shame following failure. This work is important because it shows that the dynamics of parental psychological control can be counterintuitive and can also be quite subtle, insidious, and covert. When discussing psychological control, scholars often have in mind relatively blunt and visible instances of parental manipulation and pressure. The findings by Assor and Tal show that also seemingly benign parenting strategies, which on the surface may be considered examples of positive feedback and positive reinforcement, relate to a vulnerable type of self-worth and to undesirable developmental outcomes. As such, these findings are reminiscent of the work of Carol Dweck and colleagues (e.g., Kamins & Dweck, 1999) on the counterintuitive effects of person praise on young children's competence, coping, and self-worth. Much like positive conditional regard, person praise (e.g., saying "You're so smart!" when a child obtains a good grade at school) conveys to children that they are appreciated more as a person in case they meet adult standards. When receiving person praise frequently, children learn to attribute performance outcomes to internal and stable causes. This kind of attributions backfires when children are confronted with failure because they then tend to attribute failure to low ability, which might give rise to feelings of inferiority and helplessness (Kamins & Dweck, 1999). In the second paper of this special section, Soenens and colleagues also focus on conditional regard as a key ingredient of psychological control. Specifically, they provide new data with a recently developed measure of psychological control that differentiates between parental psychological control used in two major domains of life, that is, interpersonal relationships and achievement (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Luyten, 2010). This distinction is based on the psychodynamic theory of Blatt (2004) which, much like many other theories of personality development, distinguishes between two fundamental developmental lines, one dealing with issues of relatedness and one dealing with issues of achievement and self-definition (Blatt, 2004). In their operationalization of the two domains of psychological control (labeled dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control, respectively), Soenens and colleagues essentially formulated items tapping into parental conditional regard. Given the recent evidence that both negative and positive conditional regard yield maladaptive outcomes (Assor & Tal, this volume; Roth, Assor, Niemiec, Ryan, & Deci, 2009), Soenens et al. made sure to include items tapping into both types of conditional regard. Consistent with predictions derived from the theory of Blatt, they found that dependency-oriented psychological control was primarily related to a dependent orientation in adolescents. Achievement-oriented psychological control, in contrast, primarily related to an orientation of self-critical perfectionism. Adolescent dependency and self-criticism were, in turn, related to depressive symptoms and functioned as mediators in associations between domain-specific manifestations of psychological control and adolescent depressive symptoms. All these relationships were very similar in the two samples in this study, that is, Belgian and South-Korean adolescents. In contrast to this relatively narrow interpretation of psychological control in terms of conditional regard and internal pressure, other scholars advocate a broader interpretation of psychological control (Barber & Xia, in press). One example of this broader view is provided in the third paper of this special section by Barber, Xia, Olsen, McNeely, and Bose. Using a refreshing qualitative approach, Barber and colleagues solicited examples of times when adolescents felt disrespected by their parents from adolescents from three different countries (Thailand, Costa Rica, South-Africa). In this qualitative phase of the study, eight different themes emerged, some of which were classic instances of psychological control (e.g., guilt-induction) and some of which were relatively new (e.g., comparing to others). Next, these domains were translated into questionnaire items, resulting in a new 8-item scale. In a large and culturally diverse sample of adolescents, this measure was found to be psychometrically sound and to demonstrate incremental validity. That is, it explained variance in important developmental outcomes in addition to the PCS-YSR. This qualitative approach yielded important new insights in how parental control is experienced by adolescents and suggests that psychological control, as a construct, may be more encompassing and broader than assumed so far. It is important to note, however, that the latter conclusion may be largely due to the fact that that interview prompt used by Barber et al. was itself quite broad. By asking for parental behaviors that made adolescents feel disrespected, adolescents seemed to provide a diverse array of parental behaviors, some of which go beyond the parental strategies of psychological control identified in earlier research. Some of these strategies do not involve internal pressure per se but lean toward external pressure (e.g., ridiculing is rather similar to explicit verbal hostility) or toward low parental warmth and support (e.g., ignoring). Possibly because of the broad scope of their measure, Barber and colleagues do not consider their new measure as just a new or alternative measure of psychological control. Instead, they refer to their new scale as a measure of parental disrespect and define parental disrespect as a broad experience or condition encompassing a multiplicity of intrusive parental behaviors that are harmful to the child's self-worth. One important lesson that can be learned from these papers is that different researchers use different definitions and measures of variables related to psychological control and that, accordingly, it is important to use accurate labels in referring to measures and constructs. To avoid conceptual confusion in future work, researchers should not necessarily assume that we have a consensually agreed upon definition of psychological control and would indeed do well to indicate exactly how and from which theoretical perspective they define psychological control. In terms of future research directions, it seems vital to bring together the different approaches discussed here in integrative studies. Initial work on parenting often used factor analysis to unravel the major dimensions behind a diversity of parenting behaviors (e.g., Schaefer, 1965). Given the proliferation of constructs related to parental psychological control in recent years and given the increasing application of diverse theoretical frameworks to the construct of psychological control (Barber & Xia, in press), it may be time to revert to a factor-analytic approach and to do a joint factor analysis of measures related to psychological control. In Fig. 1 we provide a hypothetical scheme of distinctions and associations between different constructs related to parental psychological control. This scheme, which is largely based on Soenens and Vansteenkiste's (2010) conceptual analysis of psychological control from the perspective of SDT (Deci & Ryan, 2000), might serve as a framework for future work on associations between different conceptualizations of parental (psychological) control. As can be seen in Fig. 1, another important question is how we should conceptualize the other end of the psychological control continuum. Is parental support for autonomy the opposite of psychological control and, if it is, how should autonomy-support be defined? Psychological control in relation to other parenting dimensions. Historically, controlling parenting, and parental psychological control in particular, has been contrasted with parental autonomy-support (Schaefer, 1965). Only recently, however, studies have begun to systematically and explicitly examine associations between both constructs. It has been suggested that the association between psychological control and autonomy-support is less straightforward than initially assumed. Specifically, the nature of this association would depend on how parental autonomy-support is defined. Soenens et al. (2007), for instance, examined the relevance of a distinction between parental promotion of independence and parental promotion of volitional functioning. Promotion of independence was defined as parental encouragement of a self-sufficient orientation where children would learn to think, decide, and solve problems without support or intervention from others and from their parents in particular. The opposite of promotion of independence would not be psychological control but would instead be parental encouragement of dependence. In contrast, on the basis of SDT, parental promotion of volitional functioning was defined as parental support for children's self-endorsed functioning (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991). Parents high on promotion of volitional functioning would take the child's perspective, encourage the child to take initiative, learn the child to behave on the basis of authentic preferences, provide relevant choices whenever possible, and provide a meaningful rationale in case no choice can be allowed. Theoretically, psychological control is largely antithetical to promotion of volitional functioning because parents high on parental psychological control deny the child's perspective and instead pressure the child to think, behave, and act in ways dictated by the parent. Soenens et al. (2007) found that promotion of independence and promotion of volitional functioning are indeed distinct. Importantly, they also found that, whereas promotion of independence was largely orthogonal to psychological control, promotion of volitional functioning was strongly negatively related to psychological control. These findings suggest that psychological control is indeed largely antithetical to promotion of volitional functioning. They also suggest that parents can promote independence either in a psychologically controlling fashion or in a relatively more volitional fashion. Indeed, parents may either push their children with psychological control to be independent or they may notice and respect their child's spontaneous inclination toward more independent functioning and provide opportunities and choices for their child to become more independent. Against the background of the observation that the association between controlling and autonomy-supportive parenting depends on how autonomy-support is defined, the fourth paper in this special section explored the validity of a domain-specific differentiation in the construct of autonomy-support. Manzi and colleagues argue that autonomy-support can manifest in different domains of life and that, depending on the domain involved and depending on cultural climate, associations between autonomy-support and adolescents' well-being may differ. Specifically, Manzi and colleagues distinguish between autonomy-support in the domains of thinking, decision-making, and physical separation. In samples from the US, Belgium, Italy, and China, they found that parental autonomy-support in the domain of decision-making was related most consistently to adolescents' adjustment, with autonomy-support in this domain relating negatively to depressive symptoms. The two other domains of autonomy-support were related less strongly to ill-being and their associations were moderated by culture. The findings presented by Manzi and colleagues underscore the complexity of the construct of autonomy-support. We believe that, in order to advance the literature on parental control and autonomy-support, there is a strong need for (a) conceptual clarification and (b) clear and valid operationalizations. In terms of conceptualization, one may wonder whether the domain-specific differentiation proposed by Manzi and colleagues is largely similar to Soenens et al.'s (2007) distinction between promotion of independence and promotion of volitional functioning. Herein, we propose that the distinction between promotion of volitional functioning and promotion of independence is largely orthogonal to the distinction between domain-specific manifestations of autonomy-support. Specifically, we argue that promotion of independence and promotion of volitional functioning may both manifest in each of the life domains specified by Manzi and colleagues (see Fig. 2 for a graphical representation of this argument). For instance, in the domain of physical closeness, parents may either encourage distance and separation (i.e., promotion of independence) or they may try to be attuned to their child's desired level of physical closeness and then provide opportunities and choices for the child to display his or her desired level of physical closeness (i.e., promotion of volitional functioning). On the basis of SDT, we would argue that, in each of the domains proposed by Manzi and colleagues, parental promotion of volitional functioning is more directly conducive to need satisfaction in adolescents and to subsequent well-being than promotion of independence. In terms of operationalization, it is troubling that a single measure can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, whereas Soenens et al. (2007) used Grolnick et al.'s (1991) measure of autonomy-support to tap into parental promotion of volitional functioning, Manzi and colleagues used it as a measure of autonomy-support in the domain of decision-making. This illustrates that, at the operational level, the differentiation between independence and volitional functioning and the domain-specific differentiation are confounded. Clearly, there is a need to construct measures that tap unambiguously into the constructs they are supposed to measure. The model shown in Fig. 2 may provide a source of inspiration to develop clear and valid measures for different dimensions and domains of autonomy-support. Types and domains of parental autonomy-support. In current research on parental control, there is debate and controversy about the question whether associations between parental psychological control and ill-being in adolescents generalize across nations and cultures (Pomerantz & Qian, 2009). In this debate, some scholars take a relativistic position, arguing that the effects of controlling parenting is moderated by cultural orientation. One often cited relativistic argument is that (psychologically) controlling practices are more commonly endorsed in some cultures and in vertical-collectivist cultures in particular. Because those practices are widespread or even normative in those cultures they would be less detrimental to children's well-being. Another relativistic argument is that the meaning of psychological control may be different depending on cultural orientation (e.g., Chao & Aque, 2009). In collectivist cultures, children may be more likely than children from individualistic cultures to interpret psychologically controlling practices as expressions of well-meant parental involvement. Because of their more benign attribution, children from collectivist cultures would then suffer less or even benefit from parental psychological control. Largely contradicting these relativistic arguments, however, studies increasingly show that parental psychological control is related to ill-being and adverse developmental outcomes across the globe (e.g., Barber, Stolz, & Olsen, 2005). The papers in this special section add to this pattern of findings. Although controlling parenting was measured in very diverse ways, it was related to maladaptive personality styles, coping mechanisms, and developmental outcomes across six different countries (Thailand, Costa Rica, South-Africa, Belgium, South-Korean, and Israel) with a strongly differing cultural climate. Additionally, Manzi and colleagues found that low support for autonomy in the domain of decision-making was related to ill-being in the US, Belgium, Italy, and China (although it should be noted that the associations of two other-domain specific expressions of parental autonomy did differ somewhat by nation). The consistency of findings linking (psychologically) controlling and autonomy-suppressing parenting to adverse developmental outcomes in adolescents raises the question whether there is a universal mechanism explaining the effects of such parenting. For instance, on the basis of SDT it has been argued that psychologically controlling parenting frustrates three fundamental and universal needs, that is, the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). Adolescents who perceive their parents as psychologically controlling are likely to experience feelings of pressure (i.e., autonomy frustration), helplessness and incompetence (i.e., competence frustration), and interpersonal alienation (i.e., relatedness frustration). From this perspective, it should not come as a surprise that psychologically controlling parenting yields detrimental effects across the globe because it undermines the satisfaction of needs that have been shown to be universally vital for well-being and adaptive behavior (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Does this mean that culture does not have any impact on the dynamics involved in psychological control and that the relativistic approach to psychologically controlling parenting has it all wrong? We believe it does not. When studying the effects of parenting, we believe it is important to distinguish between what parents actually say and do (i.e., objective parenting practices) and how parental behavior is experienced by adolescents (i.e., subjective parenting practices). One important reason why cross-cultural research has yielded relatively consistent evidence for the undermining effects of psychological control across cultures may be that most studies relied on adolescents' subjective experiences of psychological control. Such experiences are closely linked to subjective feelings of need frustration and to subsequent maladjustment. Although cultural orientation does not seem to strongly moderate the associations between subjective experiences of psychological control and adolescent outcomes, there might be more room for moderation in the association between objective parental practices and subjective adolescent experiences of parenting. For instance, an objective expression of disappointment (e.g., a parent saying literally: 'I am disappointed with you') might be experienced differently depending on adolescents' cultural orientation. Adolescents with an individualistic orientation may subjectively experience this statement as pressuring and internally controlling whereas adolescents with a collectivist or interdependent orientation may be relatively more likely to see it as a legitimate expression of involvement and concern. In conclusion, we argue that research on the role of cultural orientation in dynamics of psychological control can be advanced by including, next to assessments of subjective experiences of parenting, objective markers of parenting behaviors. This might be achieved for instance by observing parental behavior or by presenting adolescents with vignettes of concrete parental behaviors and statements. The four papers in this special section address three important questions in research on parental psychological control, that is, (a) the question of how broadly psychological control needs to be defined, (b) the question of how autonomy-support, or the other side of the continuum defined by psychological control, needs to be defined, and (c) the question whether cultural orientation moderates associations between parental psychological control and adolescent developmental outcomes. Although the four studies in this special section were conducted from several perspectives and sometimes provide different answers to these three questions, they generally converge on the finding that psychological controlling and autonomy-suppressing parenting is related to ill-being and maladaptive outcomes. Given these findings, psychological control is a construct that deserves to remain high on the research agenda of scholars in the domain of socialization and parenting.