CCAD LAB Undergraduate Research Assistant Hye Jin Park received the URA for her proposal, “The Role of Marital Quality and Parenting in Korean-American Children’s Social Problem-Solving Reasoning Skills.” (Graduate Student Mentor: You Jung Seo)
“Korean-American children’s ability to reason through social problems in prosocial ways is associated with their positive social adjustment. Positive parenting, including parental warmth predicts more positive social skills in children. Moreover, positive marital relationship quality has been found to lead to more parental warmth and children’s prosocial skills. However, the mediating role of maternal warmth in the association between marital quality and children’s prosocial problem-solving reasoning skills among Korean-American families is unknown. Thus, we examined: (1) the association between Korean immigrant mothers’ marital quality and their young children’s prosocial problem-solving reasoning skills, and (2) the mediating role of maternal warmth in the association between marital quality and children’s prosocial problem-solving reasoning skills. Korean immigrant mothers with preschool-aged children (N=169) reported their marital quality and maternal warmth. Children were interviewed on their prosocial problem-solving reasoning skills. Results revealed that maternal warmth fully mediated the effects of positive marital quality on children’s prosocial problem-solving reasoning skills. Specifically, higher levels of positive marital quality were associated with higher levels of maternal warmth, which in turn was associated with children’s greater use of prosocial reasoning skills while solving social dilemmas. The significance and implications of these findings for Korean-American children’s social adjustment were discussed.”
CCAD LAB Undergraduate Research Assistant Tarek Antar received the URA for his proposal, “Examining the Role of Parental and Peer Socialization in the Development of the Muslim-Adolescent Identity.” (Graduate Student Mentor: Merve Balkaya)
“The development of religious minorities’ sense of identity regarding both their religious group and the majority group is particularly important during adolescence. Adolescents receive cultural messages from those around them through cultural socialization practices. However, few studies examine the role of religious socialization in adolescents’ identity development. Even less is known about how religious socialization by mothers (MRS) and peers (PRS) may independently and interactively impact adolescents’ group identities. Furthermore, although Muslim individuals comprise the fastest growing religious minority group in the U.S., research on this scrutinized group is scarce. Hence, the present study examined the role of MRS, PRS, and the interactive effect of MRS and PRS on Muslim-American adolescents’ religious (Muslim) and national (American) identities. Muslim-American adolescents (N=212; 13-18 years-old) reported on their perceptions of their MRS, PRS, and Muslim and American identity. Overall, PRS was a stronger predictor of adolescents’ Muslim identity than MRS. Mothers’ promotion of pluralism predicted stronger Muslim identity, whereas promotion of mistrust and preparation for bias predicted lower levels of American identity. Finally, the positive relations between MRS and adolescents’ Muslim and American identities were weaker and became non-significant with increasing levels of PRS. Implications for supporting healthy identity development among Muslim-American adolescents are discussed.”
They presented their findings at URCAD on April 24, 2019. Congratulations, Hye Jin and Tarek!