(PS7-C59) Evaluating Perceived Parental Attitudes Among Latinx Parent-child Acculturative Stress Profiles

Common among immigrant families, theory suggests that acculturation rates differ among parents and children and these gaps are associated with poorer family functioning. Few studies have examined acculturative stress (AS), the reduction in well-being due to acculturation challenges, in a dyadic way. The current study utilizes four latent profiles derived from latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine differences in parent and child expressed emotion (EE). EE refers to attitudes of criticism, warmth, and emotional overinvolvement (EOI). While EE and AS have never been examined together, they are both risk factors for youth internalizing problems and AS has been associated with less family cohesion. Participants include 284 Latinx middle school students and their parents. Dyads completed respective versions of the Acculturative Stress Measure, measuring perceived discrimination and cultural and language conflicts, and the Brief Dyadic Scale of Expressed Emotion, measuring perceived parental EE. The four latent profiles derived from parent and child-reported AS were entered as independent variables in separate one-way multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). These profiles indicating the level of AS experienced by each informant are high child-low parent, low child-high parent, low child-low parent, and moderate child-low parent. The EE subscales of criticism, warmth, and EOI for parent and child were entered as dependent variables in their respective MANOVA. The overall test for child-reported EE was significant, Wilks ƛ = .90, F(9, 676.73) = 3.51, p < .001 indicating differences in the dependent variables across the profile groups. Specifically, profile membership was associated with child-reported parental criticism, F(3, 283) = 8.90, p < .01 and EOI, F(3, 283) = 4.44, p = .01. For parent-reported EE, the overall test was also significant, Wilk’s ƛ = .92, F(9, 676.73) = 2.78, p = .003. Specifically, profile membership was associated with parental warmth, F(3, 283) = 3.31, p = .021 and EOI, F(3, 283) = 5.16, p = .002. Post-hoc analyses revealed differences between multiple profiles. Youth in the high child-low parent AS profile reported significantly higher parent criticism than both the low child-high parent AS and low child-low parent AS profile. Also, youth in the moderate child-low parent profile reported significantly higher parent criticism than youth in the low child-low parent profile. Youth in the high child-low parent AS profile reported significantly higher parental EOI than youth in the low child-low parent AS profile. Parents in the LHAS profile reported significantly lower parental warmth than parents in the low child-low parent profile. Parents in the low child-high parent AS profile report significantly more EOI than parents in both the high child-low parent and low child-low parent AS profiles. Overall, these results indicate that informants reporting higher AS are also reporting higher EE. Notably, the pattern between AS and specific EE constructs varies based on informant perspective and their AS level. Clinicians working with immigrant families should be mindful of acculturative stressors threatening the parent-child relationship with dyads reporting opposing AS levels at particularly higher risk.