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Influence of Parent-Child Communication on Parental
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A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between
Japanese and American Parents

presented by

Naomi Kagawa

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INFLUENCE OF PARENT-CHILD COMMUNICATION ON PARENTAL
UNDERSTANDING OF CHILDREN:
A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON BETWEEN
JAPANESE AND AMERICAN PARENTS

By

Naomi Kagawa

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Communication Department

2003

ABSTRACT

INFLUENCE OF PARENT-CHILD COMMUNICATION ON PARENTAL
UNDERSTANDING OF CHILDREN:
A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON BETWEEN
JAPANESE AND AMERICAN PARENTS

By

Naomi Kagawa

This thesis proposes that Japanese parents, who are in a collectivistic culture
and use high context communication style, may perceive their children differently
from American parents who are in an individualistic culture and use low context
communication styles. The influence of parental perceptual differences and
parent-child communication on parental understanding of their children was examined.
The main findings include that American parents who felt more connectedness to their
children understand their children better than do Japanese parents, in terms of family

related issues.

AKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have many people to thank on completing this thesis. First, I am heartily
grateful to my parents in Japan for their support and understanding of my ambition to
study communication here at Michigan State University.

Second, I have tremendous appreciation for my academic adviser, Dr. Steven
McComack, who always encouraged me to accomplish anything as well as academic
works. I am also grateful to my other committee members: Dr. Sandi Smith and Dr.
Kelly Morrison in the Department of Communication and Dr. Tom Luster in the
Department of Family and Ecology. Their support and suggestions helped me to
contemplate many relevant concepts and issues in depth.

Third, I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Hiroko Nishida, who
allowed me to collect Japanese data, and Mr. Koki Obuchi, who actually distributed
questionnaires to the subjects. This thesis would not have been completed without
their help.

Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Allan Sillars, who is truly
a pioneer of understanding research. I hold his research in extremely high esteem and

appreciate his having introduced me to the relevant articles.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .............................................................. v
PERSONAL PROLOGUE .................................................... 1
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................ 3
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................... 5
Chapter 3: RATIONALE & HYPOTHESES ............................ 20
Chapter 4: METHOD & PROCEDURE ................................. 25
Chapter 5: RESULTS ......................................................... 32
Chapter 6: DISCUSSION .................................................... 45
APPENDIX A .................................................................. 51

APPENDIX B .................................................................. 52
REFERENCES ............................................................... 61

iv

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Comparison in Definitions of Connectedness and

Autonomy ............................................................. 10
Table 2: Means for Top Three Common Major Issues

between Japanese and Americans .................................. 27
Table 3: Means and Standard Deviations regarding Amount

of Parent-Child Communication .................................... 39
Table 4: Means and Standard Deviations regarding Parents’

Direct Opinions, Parents’ Perceptions of Children’s

Opinions, and Children’s Opinions in terms of

Three Issues ........................................................... 41
Table 5-1: Correlations depending on Nationality and

Issues (Agreement) .................................................. 42
Table 5-2: Correlations depending on Nationality and

Issues (Perceived Agreement) ...................................... 42
Table 5-3: Correlations depending on Nationality and

Issues (Raw Understanding) ....................................... 42
Table 5-4: Correlations depending on Nationality and

Issues (Actual Understanding) .................................... 43

PERSONAL PROLOGUE

Mother: “Hey, do you wanna go to see grandma this afternoon?”
Daughter: “Nope!”

Mother: “You sure? It’s not far from here.”

Daughter: “No. . .. I won’t go there.”

Mother: “OK, then.”

This is a part of conversation between my friend, Chris, an American mother,
and her daughter Megan, when three of us were visiting our mutual friends almost two
years ago. It was not a special conversation, but I experienced culture shock when I
observed this parent-child interaction. In this conversation, the daughter was only
four years old, but still her mother let her little daughter decide what the daughter
would do by herself. However, in my perception, this parental attitude is not usual in
Japanese society; Japanese parents are inclined not to seek their children’s opinions,
especially when the children are under six years old. In my impression, most of the
time, Japanese parents decide their children’s schedule and behave as if they totally
know what their children would like to do. Therefore, the incident in which the
American mother asked her child’s opinion, even a child who was very small, struck
me as a culturally distinct behavior. This experience of having encountered a
parent-child interaction in American society led me to think that American parents’
perceptions of their children might be different from Japanese parents.’ Specifically,
American parents may be more likely to perceive and treat their children as separate
individuals, rather than as an extension of themselves, compared to Japanese parents.

Thinking about the example above, Japanese and American parents may have
different behaviors and beliefs about their children. There are at least two examples
from my experiences. The first example is as in the prologue above; American

parents frequently seem to provide their children many opportunities to express their

opinion. Parents try to learn what children want to do, instead of assuming that they
want to do what the parents think they want to do. Parents may seek children’s
opinion, “Do you want to go to see grandmother this weekend?” In another case,
usually, it is children themselves who decide what they will eat at a restaurant.
Parents may ask, “What do you like?” or “Would you like a potato?” In comparison,
my speculation is that, Japanese parents do not provide their children many
opportunities to express their opinions. Parents rarely ask their children what they
want to do. Rather, they behave as if they perfectly know what their children want,
need, like and think. For instance, parents may tell their children, “We will go to see
grandmother this weekend.” Also, parents may decide what their children will eat at a
restaurant without asking the children what they want to eat. Parents may say, “Let’s
have a potato,” or “You will have a potato, won’t you?” Japanese parents believe that
they know what children want to do and what children like to do.

The other example of culturally distinct parent-child communication is the
way in which parents refer to themselves. Japanese parents often call themselves
“mother/ father” in front of their children, while American parents tend to call
themselves “I.” It seems to me that Japanese parents are inclined to identify
themselves as “a part of a parent-child relationship,” not as a discrete “individual.” In
comparison, American parents may identify themselves as “an individual” as well as
“mother/ father.” Although they feel closeness to their child, they perceive a parent
and their child as a pair consisting of two separate souls. Japanese parents usually
call themselves “mother/father,” instead of “I,” in front of their children. A Japanese
mother may tell her child, “Mother will go shopping, so stay in this room, OK?” or
“Pass the salt to Mother.” On the other hand, an American mother may tell her child,

“I will go shopping, so stay in this room, OK?” or “Pass me the salt.”

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

Child-parent relationships have been examined as an important factor for
child development within many fields, including communication, human ecology, and
psychology. As a discipline, plenty of studies place the primary interest on child
development and measure the effects of the variance in parenting or attachment styles
on child personalities (Herz & Gullone, 1999; Lieb, Wittchen, Hofler, Fuetsch, 2000),
adjustment patterns (Dudley & Wisbey, 2000; Slicker, 1998; Wintre & Yaffe, 2000), or
academic success (McBride-Chang & Chang, 1998; Warash & Markstrom, 2001).
Family communication research, however, has not focused on the relationship between
a child-parent relationship and the parents’ general feelings or perceptions of their
children. In this paper, the effect of parents’ general perceptions of children, in terms
of connectedness, on the degree to which parents understand their children’s emotions
and thoughts will be examined.

It is important to compare parent-child relationships across cultures.
Parent-child interactions are primary human behaviors that are shaped by culture.
Given that people from different cultures perceive the world differently (Balsineler &
Beck, 1995; Callister, Vehviolaines-Julkunen, & Lauri, 1996; Neuliep & Ryan, 1998),
it is inevitable that parents’ thoughts and perceptions differ across cultures.

This thesis looks at how Japanese and American parents understand or
misunderstand their children, from the perspective of their fundamental cultural beliefs
regarding child-parent bonds. This thesis is a cross-cultural extension of two studies
regarding understanding: Sillars, Pike, Jones, and Murphy (1984) and Sillars, Folwell,
Hill, Maki, Hurst, and Casano (1994). While Sillars et al. (1984) and Sillars et al.
(1994) looked at understanding and communication in marital relationships, I will

pursue understanding and communication in parent-child relationship.

3

In chapter 2, literatures on connectedness, understanding, and Japanese and
American cultures will be reviewed. In chapter 3, assumptions regarding the
relationship between connectedness and understanding will be supplied, and my
primary hypotheses and a research question will be presented. In chapter 4, methods
and procedures will be discussed. In chapter 5, results will be provided. This thesis

will be concluded with a discussion of my findings in chapter 6.

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

In this thesis, I am proposing that Japanese and American parents are different
in terms of how they perceive their children. Specifically, I am predicting that
Japanese parents, who are in a collectivistic culture with high context communication,
tend to misunderstand their children compared to American parents, who are in an
individualistic and low context communication culture. To provide support for my
hypotheses, I must first visit the literatures on self conceptions, high/low context
communication, connectedness, cross-cultural differences, and understanding.

1) Self Conceptions

Individualism-collectivism is a broadly accepted theoretical dimension of
cultural differences used to predict a widevariety of communication behaviors in a
number of different cultures (Niles, 1998; Oetzel, 1998; Triandis, 1985).
Individualism is a social pattern consisting of loosely connected individuals who view
themselves as unique, and collectivism is a social pattern consisting of closely linked
individuals who view themselves as members of one or more “in-groups” (Hofstede,
1980; Triandis, 1995).

Historically, Japan and the United States have been classified as typical
collectivistic and individualistic cultures respectively (Hofstede, 1980; Schwartz,
1994). Many researchers support that Japanese collectivistic culture is different from
American individualistic cultures along several important value orientations, including
importance of the family, interrelatedness with others, and separation from in-groups
(Triandis, Brislin, & Hui, 1988; Triandis, McCusker, Betancourt, Iwao, Leung, Salazar,
Setiadi, Sinha, Touzard, & Zaleski, 1993). For instance, Americans value individual
benefits such as personal goals, freedom, and independence, while Japanese value

group benefits, such as harmony amongst group members and group interest as a

5

whole.

People in collectivist cultures identify the self in relation to others, and the
self is mutually dependent. In these cultures, the self is evaluated in terms of one's fit
in the social setting, and this cultural framework produces an interdependent,
collectivistic self (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). This interdependent construal of self
involves an emphasis on the feeling of connectedness to in-group members, and
interdependent individuals are inclined to seek a way to fit in with relevant others to
become a part of various interpersonal relationships (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

This has been defined by Guzley, Araki, and Chalmers (1998) as “inherent
connectedness.”

Kimura (1989) defined the Japanese self as a mutually, interdependently, and
continuously reformed self through interaCtions with others. It is assumed that
Japanese parents identify themselves as “mother/father” more than as “an individual.”
They consider parents and their children as a single soul. More emphasis is placed on
group benefits than on individual benefits, and interdependence, cooperation, and
mutual reliance are encouraged.

On the other hand, individualism involves seeing oneself as a separate, unique
individual, and the self does not include others. This independent construal of self
involves the view that an individual is a unique entity with a unique repertoire of
feelings, and thoughts (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Markus and Kitayama (1991)
described persons in individualistic cultures as having an independent view of self and
being “egocentric, separated, autonomous, idiocentn'c, and self-contained” (p.226).

In individualistic cultures, the dominant norms and values reinforcing the idea of the
self as independent and autonomous are thought to produce an independent,
individualistic self (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). Traits such as self-reliance and

independence are positively evaluated, and as Hofstede (1991) claimed, self identity

6

comes from within individuals.

Recently, the link between the Individualism-Collectivism scale and the
Self-Construal scale has been debated. Levine, Bresnahan, Park, Lapinski,
Wittenbaum, Sheannan, Lee, Chung, and Ohashi, (2003) conducted a meta-analysis of
published self-construal research and found that the self-construal scales are unstable,
unreliable, and fail to mirror the intended cultural differences. In response,
Gudykunst and Lee (2003) argued that there is no major conceptual or measurement
error in the self-construal scales.

2) High- and Low- context Communication

The classification of high/low-context culture originally was introduced by
Hall (1959). High-context communication involves less verbal communication, and
utterances are typically indirect. Hall (1976) described high-context communication
as one in which “most of the information is already in the person, while very little is in
the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message” (p.79). Communication
interactions in this type of culture are intuitive and contemplative, and people tend to
use indirect and ambiguous messages (Miracle, Chang, & Taylor, 1992). An indirect
approach where a mood or image is projected in an attempt to build a relationship with
the interactant is appropriate in high-context cultures (Stewart & F urse, 1986).
Ting-Toomey (1985), using high/low-context classification in her research, observed
frequent usage of intuitive-reflective rhetoric in individuals in high-context cultures.

In a low-context culture, words and their denotation are most trusted, and

people are expected to act on them. Hall (1976) described low-context
. communication as a place where “the mass of the communication is vested in the
explicit code” (p.79). Communication interactions are analytical and action oriented,
and people tend to use clearly articulated and spoken messages (Miracle, Chang, &

Taylor, 1992). Utterances are typically direct, and people prefer to express their

7

thoughts, emotions, and expectations to one another through clear words. Gudykunst
and Ting-Toomey (1988) insisted that what is said carries much more weight than what
is meant through context, and people are encouraged to speak their minds. Compared
to high-context cultures, low-context cultures are cultures in which “protocol plays
less of a role” (Jacobs, 1998, p.110). More-direct and well-expounded messages and
clearly articulated points of differentiation are appropriate for low-context cultures
(Stewart & Furse, 1986).

Japanese live in a high-context culture, while Americans live in a low-context
culture (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988; Hall, 1976, 1987; Takada & Jain, 1991).
Jacobs (1998) suggested that Japanese communication is based on personal
relationships and formal etiquette. There is no need to express everything by words
since many kinds of aspects are considered to be shared within in-group members,
such as families, friends, or ethnic groups. It is expected that people presume others’
thoughts, emotions, and expectations, without needing clarification in words.
Communication by “hear one and understand ten” - meaning understanding more than
what a person heard — is required as virtuous. Therefore, much understanding comes
from counting on or guessing from a little segment of what is literally heard.
3) Connectedness
a. Definition of Connectedness

Connectedness and autonomy are major topics in relational research.

However, careful attention needs to be paid to the fact that the concepts of “connected”
or “connectedness,” contain broad meanings and are defined differently from article to
article. Neisser (1973), who studied a mother's practical importance to her daughter,
pointed out that the definition of closeness would vary by culture, depending on the
cultural environment in a society and a family’s economic or social circumstances.

Juang ( 1977) examined Asian-American university students’ autonomy and

8

connectedness in terms of their relationships with their parents. She defined
connectedness as “the extent to which adolescents feel their parents are supportive and
understanding” (p23). She claimed that connectedness is one of the components an
adolescent goes through in the process of obtaining a sense of autonomy. Grotevant
(1983) identified communication styles from the aspect of individuality and
connectedness. Connectedness includes “permeability” (openness or responsiveness
to others) and “mutuality” (sensitivity and respect of others’ points of view). In
contrast to connectedness, separateness is defined as “one’s ability to express
differences from each other.”

Among the varieties of definitions for “connectedness” and “autonomy,” Kerr
and Bowen’s (1988) claim seems to be most relevant to my research. They defined
high differentiation within a family system in terms of low dependence. Similarly,
Williamson (1981) argued for a connection between relatively low
differentiation/individuation and greater dependence within a family system. What
these authors meant by “differentiation” or “individuation” seems to be conceptually
equivalent to what I mean by “autonomy” or “less connectedness.”

The disagreement regarding correspondence between a term and its meaning
leads to the necessity to define the terms clearly for this study. In this thesis,
“connectedness” is defined as the spiritual oneness between self and the other. In the
child-parent context, it defines the parents’ perception to see their child as a part of
themselves and observe their child subjectively. Also, “autonomy” is defined as the
psychological separation of self from the other. In child-parent context, it represents
the parents’ tendency to see their child as a unique individual and to observe their child
objectively. Autonomy lies at the opposite pole from connectedness, and it is
identical to “least connectedness.” This autonomy-connectedness scale mediates

people’s cultural beliefs and parental attitudes.

9

Table]: Comparison in Definitions of Connectedness and Autonomy

 

 

 

Authors Connectedness/ Definitions
Autonomy
Juang Connectedness “the extent to which adolescents feel
(1977) their parents are supportive and
understanding”
Grotevant Connectedness “permeability” (openness or
( 1983) responsiveness to others) and

“mutuality” (sensitivity and respect
of others’ points of view)

 

 

 

 

Kerr and Autonomy high “differentiation” within a family
Bowen system in terms of low dependence
(1988)
Williamson Connectedness relatively low
(1981) “differentiation/individuation” and
greater dependence within a family
system
Kagawa Connectedness ° spiritual oneness between self
(for This and the other
Thesis) ° parents’ tendency to see their
child as a part of themselves
and observe their child
subjectively
Autonomy ° psychological separation of self

from the other
° parents’ tendency to see their
child as a unique individual

and to observe their child

 

 

 

 

objectively

 

b. Research on “Autonomy” and “Connected/Connectedness"

Lambom and Steinberg (1993) examined the effect of adolescents’ autonomy
on their adjustment styles in parent-adolescent relationships. The researchers divided
adolescents into four types, depending on two factors: 1) degree of emotional

attachment to parents and 2) level of support from parents. The four categories are

10

“individuated” (high in emotional attachment and high in support), “detached” (high in
attachment and low in support), “connected” (low in attachment and high in support),
and “ambivalent” (low in both attachment and support). The researchers found that
“individuated” adolescents were more adaptive and had more pride and academic
competence. It was claimed that autonomy is stressful and creates obstacles for
adolescents.

Cooper, Grotevant, and Condon (1983) investigated the influence of
individuality and connectedness on psychosocial competence and defined these two
independent variables with two components, respectively. “Individuality” includes
self —assertion (ability to have and express own opinion) and separation (ability to
distinguish self from others). “Connectedness” is composed of permeability (being
open to others’ opinions) and mutuality (being sensitive or respectful of others).
They concluded that a balance of individuality and connectedness is important to
adolescents so that they can become capable of expressing their own opinions and
hearing others’.

Lambom, Mounts, Steinberg, and Dombusch (1991) compared
Asian-Americans and European-Americans in respect to the degree of self-reliance.
The scores of Asian-Americans were lower than those of European-Americans. The
result suggested that Asian parents emphasize connectedness, rather than autonomy
since self-reliance is conceptually closely related to independence and autonomy.

Feldman and Rosenthal (1991) compared the age when behavioral autonomy is
expected between adolescents in Hong Kong and in America. Behavioral autonomy
is expected at a later age in Hong Kong compared to in America. It is assumed that
Japanese social expectancy is more similar to Hong Kong’s than to Americans since
both Hong Kong and Japan belong to Asian culture. The result also suggested that

autonomy is not required until a later age in Japanese society. Therefore,

11

connectedness may exceed autonomy in value in Japanese parenting.

Although no studies were found that dealt with parental psychological unity in
terms of a parent-child relationship, two cross-cultural studies are most relevant to my
examination. First, Rose (1999) examined parent-child interactions patterns among
Japanese and American mothers in terms of consumer socialization. A total of 661
questionnaires (243 in Japan and 418 in the U. S.) were completed by mothers of
children between the ages of three and eight years old in Japan and the United States.
Samples were taken from relatively well-educated, middle- to upper-middle-class
families. The results suggested that Japanese mothers maintain greater control over
their children's consumption than do American mothers, who encourage and expect the
earlier development of independent consumption. This is consistent with the
collectivist and interdependent beliefs in Japanese society. The result supports the
observation that Japanese parents have more consumption rules than American
counterparts (Robertson, Ward, Gatignon, & Klees, 1989). It is also in line with
Doi’s (1962) claim that Japanese mothers promote dependence in their children and
perceive their children as more dependent. Although this research looked specifically
at mothers’ parental attitudes on consumption socialization, the results suggested that
Japanese parents are more psychologically connected to their children than American
parents.

Rasrogi and Wampler (1999) compared the perception of adult daughters'
relationship with their mothers across the European-American, Asian-Indian American,
and Mexican-American cultures, along the dimensions of closeness, reliability, and
collectivism. Closeness was defined as a sense of connection and intimacy in the
relationship, which was not restricted to geographical proximity. Reliability referred
to knowing the existence of the mother or daughter for their dependence on each other.

Collectivism referred to the balance between one's individuality/differentiation and the

12

needs of the group. A total of 91 women (30 or 31 for each ethnic group) between the
ages of 25 and 35, having some college education, were elicited as the sample.
One-way ANOVAs demonstrated that the Asian-Indian American group was higher for
actual connectedness and closeness, and both the European-American and the
Asian-Indian American groups scored significantly higher than the Mexican-American
women for ideal closeness. The European-American group emphasized both
autonomy and caring, while the Asian-Indian American group emphasized a secure
relationship. This result parallels the differences in actual connectedness and
closeness between the two groups. The content analysis suggested that the
Asian-Indian American women sought more advice and support from their mothers
and more dependence, while the European-American women stressed non-dependency,
especially in financial matters. Moreover, the European-American culture fostered a
significantly higher level of ideal differentiation than did the other cultures. The
comparison between the European and Asian-Indian groups is relevant to my study.
The European group is expected to have a similar culture to American, whereas Asian
Indian culture seems to reflect more Japanese culture than American, in terms of the
classification of Western and Eastern/Asian cultures. This study implies that the
concepts of dependent, connected, and closeness are dominant in Japanese society,
while independent, autonomy, and differentiation are valued in American society.

4) Cross-Cultural Differences (Japanese versus American Parenting)

Researchers have concluded that mother-child interactions differ significantly
between Japan and the US. (Shwalb & Shwalb, 1996). Bomstein (1989) suggested
that Japanese and American parentings are different in the degree to which they
emphasize " group identification versus individual assertiveness" 03.197). People in
the United States are viewed as autonomous, whereas people in Japan are composed of

an inherently interrelated set of group members and are inherently integrated with

13

others.

Japanese mothers educate their children emphasizing politeness, harmony,
emotional maturity, and avoidance of conflict (Hess, Kashiwagi, Azuma, Price, &
Dickson, 1980; Kazui, 1997; Ujiie, 1997; Power, Kobayashi-Winati, & Kelley, 1992).
Japanese parents focus on maintaining and strengthening the parent-child bond until
the child naturally intemalizes adult standards (Hess et al., 1980). Doi (1973)
suggested the concept “amae,” meaning to depend and require of others benevolence
or help, predetennines Japanese culture. “Amae” is originally based on parent-child
relationship. Maintenance of connectedness to parents and peers is considered as
more valuable than autonomy.

On the other hand, compared to Japanese mothers, American mothers
generally expect their children to behave independently and make their own decisions
from a younger age (Tajima, 1995). Most mothers in the United States emphasize the
skills of expressing needs and desires through verbal communication as their parenting
goals; they value independence, assertiveness, and autonomy (Caudill & Schooler,
1973; Schooler, 1996).

Also, regarding high/low-context communication, Japanese parents, who live
in a high-context culture, assume that context is the bigger concern than uttered words
themselves. They may believe that their own thoughts, emotions, and expectations
are, of course, shared with core in-group members, specifically with their children.
Consequently, they do not feel the necessity to communicate for clarification of their
child’s thoughts, emotions, and expectations. American parents, who are likely to use
low-context communication, are assumed to try to verbally communicate with their
children. As well as sending their message to their children through direct utterances,
American parents are expected to believe that their children’s verbal expressions are

necessary to understand their children’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings.

14

Cultural differences in parental beliefs and attitudes are seen in the
educational systems in kindergartens. In Japanese kindergartens, teachers decide the
schedule for the day and tell the children what to do. Teachers do not encourage the
children to think of what children want to do. Conversely, at American kindergartens,
teachers highly respect children’s voices. Teachers usually ask the children what the
children want to do each time. The children have opportunities to express their
opinions and desires to the teachers.

The differences in educational systems may yield long-term consequences. Manzo
(2002) reported that one college instructor was troubled, in the comparison with
American students, that Japanese “students seem helpless in the face of challenges that
require them to think for themselves,” and another instructor frets that Japanese
“students are not resourceful, that they tend to seek the one "right" answer, and that
they look for guidance in solving relatively simple, everyday problems.” These
claims reflect the Japanese society where parents and teachers routinely tell children
what the children need to do, and where there is no need for children to subjectively
think what they should do or want to do. Underneath these differences in educational
attitudes may lie the differences in parental perceptions between Japan and the United
States.

The Japanese people, who are in a collectivist culture, establish the self in
relation to others. They feel an extremely close connection toward the members of
intimate relationships, such as a family and close friends. The self is considered as a
part of a total group, and all members in a group are frequently treated as one. In the
same way, Japanese parents are assumed to have a feeling of psychological unity with
their child. Lebra (1978) suggested that collectivism involves “cooperation and
solidarity, and sentimental desire for the warm feeling of ittaikan (“feeling of

oneness”) with fellow members of one’s group” and this principle dominates Japanese

15

society. Japanese parents perceive their children as part of themselves and observe
their children subjectively.

Since Japanese parents believe that their children’s values are identical to
their own values, parents are quite confident about their children’s thought and values.
Parents usually maintain a low uncertaintyl level about their children’s day-to-day
thoughts. There are fewer information seeking behaviors among Japanese parents
because they are unnecessary. Information about their children is already known for
parents since child—related information is actually their own information (Berger &
Calabrese, 1975).

On the other hand, Americans, who are in an individualistic culture, are
inclined to value individual characteristics, rather than harmony with other persons.
Sillars (1995) described the American Family as “a constellation of separate
personalities kept in dynamic equilibrium through continual (verbal) negotiation of
relationships” (p.390). American parents are assumed to perceive their children as a
unique individual or discrete person from the self and to observe their children
objectively.

American parents are in moderate to high uncertainty levels about their
children’s day-to-day thoughts. Parents are not always confident about their
children’s thoughts and values. Parents think that their children have their unique
values which are not always identical to the parents’ own values. Also, compared to
Japanese parents, more information seeking behavior is detected among American
parents. Parents are eager to seek information about their child to understand their

children. Information about their child is usually unknown for the parents. Parents

 

1 Uncertainty is a psychological state where people lack information that is relevant to
the situation. Berger and Calabrese (1975) developed Uncertainty Reduction Theory
to explain communication in initial interaction.

16

believe that child-related information is under the surface and needs to be detected
consciously (Berger & Calabrese, 1975).

5) Understanding

 

The last topic in this chapter is “understanding,” “Understanding” is defined
by Sillars (1984) as the congruence between a person’s inference of the partner’s
perspective and the partner’s direct perspective. In a parent-child relationship,
"parental understanding" is the degree to which a parent's perception of a child's
perspective matches that child's actual perspective. “Agreement” is often confounded
with “understanding” (Sillars, 1984). “Agreement” is congruence between a person’s
direct perspective and the partner’s direct perspective about an issue. In child-parent
relationships, “agreement” is the congruence between what a parent thinks and what a
child thinks about certain issues.

To measure the accuracy in understanding amongst married relationships,
Sillars (1984) suggested the following four measurement factors:

1) Actual agreement--- congruence between a person’s direct perspective and the
partner’s direct perspective.

2) Perceived agreement--- congruence between a person’s direct perspective and a
person’s inference of the partner’s perspective.

3) Raw understanding--- congruence between a person’s inference of the partner’s
perspective and the partner’s direct perspective.

4) Actual understanding--- congruence between a person’s inference of the partner’s
perspective and the partner’s direct perspective, removing the effect of projection
(described below).

According to Sillars (1984), a person projects his/her own thoughts to infer
the other’s thoughts, even in a close relationship. Typically, a person is unconscious

of himself/herself projecting, and SIM believes himself/herself considering the other’s

17

thought, independent from his/her own thought about the issue. However, it is quite
common that s/he actually makes use of his/her own thoughts as a primary reference to
infer another ’5 thoughts. The cognitive process works as follows, “1 (wife) think that
fidelity is incredibly important for us (wife and husband). So, my husband would feel
the same way as myself; he must hold fidelity in high regard, just like me.”

It is prevailingly believed that closer relationships yield better understanding
of each other. Indeed, there are some articles suggesting that close friends can
understand more accurately than strangers (Colvin, Vogt, & Ickes, 1997; Ickes &
Stinson, 1997). However, there are contradicting experimental findings about
understanding. Sillars (1989) and Sillars, Folwell, Hill, Maki, Hurst, and Casano
(1994) found that spouses perceive more agreement between one another than actually
exists. Spouses rating of perceived agreement also were much higher than
understanding; in fact, actual understanding scores (controlling for projection) were
close to what one might expect by chance. Sillars (1998) suggested some features
that contribute to misunderstanding. The features include (a) “the biasing effects of
familiarity and intimacy” and 0)) “the tendency to regard ambiguous inferences with
certainty” (p.9).

As people develop their relationship, they construct inter-subjective meanings,
which make unique sense within the relationship (Colvin et al., 1997). People in
intimate relationships, such as couples or friends, have complex, sophisticated, and
organized cognitive structures to understand their partners. Information about the
partner is accumulated in a person’s long-term memory as a schema. This set of
stored previous information, a schema, is activated whenever a person processes
information about the partner. A schema allows a person to have some idea about the
partner’s thoughts and behaviors and to deal with new information about the partner

with little effort. Close relationships enable a person to construct sophisticated and

18

organized inference processes for the partner (Thomas & Fletcher, 1997). Sillars
(1998) suggested that closeness in a relationship brings insensitivity to new
information about the partner, which disturbs accurate understanding. A schema
prevents a person from examining new information about the partner carefully and
deliberately. Rather, a person selectively listens to the partner. By using schemas, a
person can deal with new information so that it fits the information in the schema.
Through this organized process, the original information is distorted in the inference
process within a close relationship. It is quite routine for people to make inferences
with little information or knowledge. In close relationships, predictability and
understanding are expected, and a person tends to be excessively certain about their

partner.

19

Chapter 3
RATIONALE & HYPOTHESES

People in Japan and those in the United States live in societies that have very
different cultural values. Numerous researchers have conducted cross-cultural
studies and classified Japan as a collectivistic and high-context culture and the United
States as an individualistic/low context culture, respectively. Japanese define the self
in terms of the relationship with others and value dependence, harmony, connectedness,
and indirect expression. In comparison, Americans’ self-definition does not include
others, and they emphasize independence, autonomy, differentiation, and direct
expression.

Among the variety of social interpersonal relationships, it is widely agreed
that the child-parent relationship is the primary bond for human beings. Hence,
culturally distinct values should be manifested in parenting behaviors. As
predominant cultural perceptions are reflected in the parent-child relationship,
Japanese parents are likely to feel connectedness, or psychological oneness, between
themselves and their children, whereas American parents perceive their children as
discrete, independent selves. Formally stated,

H1: Japanese parents will have a higher connectedness in terms of the parent-child
relationship than will American parents.

Based upon the literature review in chapter two, I would also expect several
cultural differences related to understanding.

First, there should be differences related to actual agreement. Within
Japanese culture, children and parents traditionally share a great amount of time in the
same environment. It is quite common in Japanese society that infants spend almost
24 hours a day with their parents (Kim, 1997). Hence, they often exchange values

and thoughts and influence each other. The consequence is that Japanese parents and

20

children should have quite similar values. On the other hand, American parents may
not spend much time with their children. At least 70% of American families consist
of children and two working parents or by an unmarried working parent (Kombluh,
2003). Accordingly, American children spend relatively large amounts of time away
from their parents, in daycare centers or at home with a television. Because of less
time to share, American parents and children may not have enough chance to exchange
their thoughts with each other.

H2: Japanese parents have a higher agreement with their children on major issues for
the parent-child relationship than do American parents.

Third, if the hypothesis that Japanese parents possess stronger feelings of
connectedness to their children compared to American parents (H1) is true, Japanese
parents should become more inclined to believe that their children must feel and think
in the same way as they do. In other words, due to a stronger sense of connectedness,
Japanese parents are more likely to project their thoughts onto their children in order to
infer their children’s thoughts. Japanese parents’ belief in connectedness to their
children induces the parents to project their own opinions onto their children. On the
other hand, if the hypothesis that American parents have weaker connectedness than
Japanese parents is true, American parents are more likely to understand that their
children have their own, unique opinions and thoughts. Thus, projecting their
thoughts onto their children is not likely to be a tendency for American parents.

H3: Overall, parents who have higher connectedness would have higher perceived
agreement with their children regarding major issues for the parent-child relationship

Because Japanese parents have higher connectedness than American parents
(H1), I also would expect:

H4: Japanese parents have a higher perceived agreement with their children regarding

major issues for the parent-child relationship compared to American parents.

21

Japanese parents, compared to American parents, are more likely to believe
that their children’s thoughts are identical to their own thoughts. If children have
their own thoughts that are different from their parents’ thoughts, the possibility of
parents’ misunderstanding of their children exists. The projection process can lead to
misunderstanding. This misunderstanding process may be seen more often in
Japanese parents. Since Japanese parents possess a stronger feeling of connectedness
to their children than do American parents (H1), Japanese parents expect that they and
their children share the same feelings, thoughts, and emotions compared to American
parents (H4). Subsequently, Japanese parents are more in danger of failing to observe,
listen, and treat their children as unique individuals. As a result, Japanese parents are
more likely to misunderstand about their children than American parents.

H5: Japanese parents have lower understanding about their children regarding major
issues for the parent-child relationship than do American parents.

Thus far, due to different cultural backgrounds, differential levels of
connectedness and understanding of Japanese and American parents with the
relationship with their children have been hypothesized. In concluding this chapter,
an additional variable, “amount of communication,” is discussed as it may affect
parental understanding. Does the degree to which the parents communicate with their
children influence the degree of parental understanding of their children? If so, are
there any cultural differences between Japanese parents and American parents?

Sillars’s (1984) studies included the examination of the role of verbal and
nonverbal communication in understanding the spouse among American married
couples. The results suggested that 1) nonverbal communication contributed more to
understanding the spouses’ feelings than verbal communication, 2) aggressive or
competitive verbal messages were positively related to understanding, and 3)

communication was associated with understanding both positively and negatively

22

depending on gender and issues. The results suggested that couples’ communication
related with their understanding in some ways. Whether the similar tendencies would
be found between a parent and child is worth testing. Also, in terms of the first
findings, Sillars (1984) commented that verbal cues may be more influential than
nonverbal cues for those couples who largely value verbal disclosures or who speak
relatively frankly with each other. Considering this at the cultural level, Americans in
a low context culture tend to count on verbal communication and prefer frank or direct
communication, compared to Japanese parents, in a high context culture.

In the high context communication, communicators’ attention is focused on
social settings, word choices, gestures, tone of voice, relational history, status and
posture to understand the meanings of utterances, in while a low context
communication, words themselves contain the meaning of utterances. Hence, in the
United States, the understanding of others largely comes from the words used in
communication. If the assumption that the words exchanged in communication play
a major role for Americans to understand others is true, American parents’
understanding of their children should be positively related to the amount of
parent-child communication.

In Japanese society the virtue of silence predominates. Not talking too much is
regarded as proper and symbolized as adulthood in Japanese society. Tujimura
(1987) argued that “ishin-denshin,” meaning tacit agreement, is a main character of
Japanese communication. This “ishin-denshin” is a traditional mental telepathy, and
its ultimate meaning is “understanding without talking.” Also, this silence connotes
the meaning of truthfulness, which is fulfilled only between in-group members. On
behalf of discouragement of verbal communication, it is natural that nonverbal
communication plays a more important role in Japanese society. Japanese people

may not be aware, but social settings, word choices, gestures, tone of voice, relational

23

history, status and posture are vital factors for Japanese to understand others.
Accordingly, the understanding of others would not be predicted by the amount of
communication in Japanese culture.

H6: The relationship between amount of parent-child communication and parental
understanding is moderated by culture, such that American parents who communicate
more with their children understand better about their children while the amount of

parent-child communication does not affect Japanese parents’ understanding of their

children.

24

Chapter 4
METHOD & PROCEDURE

1 1 Overview

The purpose of this study is to find out the cross-cultural differences in
parental understanding of their children between Japanese and American parents. In
particular, the focus of this study is on 1) how cultural values influence parental
feelings of connectedness toward their children, 2) how parents’ connectedness level
interacts with understanding of their children, and 3) how amount of communication
contributes to parental understanding of children. In order to study these questions,
the study was divided into two primary phases. In the first phase, data on the major
issues for the parent-child relationships that are salient both in Japanese and American
cultures were gathered. In the second phase, parents’ understanding of their children
was tested.

2) Phase 1

The purpose of the first phase was to find the major issues for parent-child
relationships that are routinely sources of concern between parents and children among
both Japanese and American families. Sillars et al. (1984), in their study on
understanding of married couples, came up with ten potential conflicts, on which the
understanding of the couples was measured. In my study, I asked both Japanese and
American children to describe the major issues for their parent-child relationships.
This step was inevitable; the issues about which parental understanding will be
measured in the second phase should be meaningful issues both for Japanese and
American parents. It was a big challenge to find issues that would be seen as
important for parent-child relationship across two very different cultures.

The data were collected from two different samples: American and Japanese.

American subjects included 123 freshmen in a communication class in Michigan State

25

University. For the American subjects, the questionnaires were distributed in a class,
and students were asked, for credit, to complete them at home and return them after a
week. Japanese data were collected through electronic mail. F orty-nine Japanese
subjects, who were either university students or were in their age 18 to 29, participated
voluntarily. Both American and Japanese subjects were asked to raise five issues of
conflict, potential conflict, concern, and/or disagreement between them and their
parents. The questionnaire was originally developed in English and was translated
into Japanese for Japanese subjects.

The dozens of topics that subjects raised were classified into 21 base issues:
job-related, religion, drinking, grade at school/ education, money, time management,
parental control, health and safety, personality, dating relationship/ sex, marriage/
raising children, smoking, future plan, family relationship, housework, friends, politics
and economy, races, succession, no conflict! no talk with parents, and others. Two
separate coders conducted this coding process, and coding agreement was 100%.

In terms of each issue, the percentage of subjects who raised the issue was
calculated for Japanese and American separately. The issue that Americans answered
most was money; 76% of American subjects raised money as a salient topic in their
parent-child relationship. The second to the fifth most major issues for Americans
were school grades/education (41%), parental control (3 7%), family relationship
(32%), and job-related (28%) issues. In contrast, the most salient topics for Japanese
were job-related (35%), family relationship (35%), parental control (33%), future plan
(29%), and marriage (16%) issues.

Interestedly, there was surprisingly larger degree of commonality between
Japanese and American data. In order to measure the degree to which Japanese and
Americans shared the similar issues, Pearson’s correlation was calculated between

Japanese and American data over all 21 issues. The result suggested that Japanese

26

and American university students share some common issues that are discussed with
their parents, r=. 524 (p= .015), n= .27.

These results suggest that parental control, family relationship, and
job-related issues are three major issues that are in common between Japanese and

American families (table 2).

Table 2: Means for top 3 common major issues between Japanese and Americans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(%) Japanese (N=49) American (N=123)
Issues 1: Parental control* 33 37
Issues 2: Family relationship* 35 32
Issues 3: Jobcrelated“ 35 28
Issues 4: Future plan 29 17
Issues 5: Money 16 76
Issues 6: Family relationship 35 32
Issues 7: Marriage/ Raising children ~ 16 1
Issues 8: Dating relationship 12 20
Issues 9: Religion 1 15
Issues 10: Time management 1 17
Issues 11: Personality l 17
Issues 12:Housework l 1
Issues 13: Politics and economy 1 11
Issues 14: Succession 1 0
Issues 15: No conflict/ No talk with parents 1 0
Issues 16:Drinking 0 15
Issues 17: Health and Safety 0 1
Issues 18: Smoking 0 l

 

 

 

* three major issues for the parent-child relationship

Based upon this analysis, I decided to use these three issues as the major

issues for the parent-child relationship in my study.

2) Phase 2

In the second phase, parents’ understanding of their children in terms of the

three major issues for the parent-child relationship was tested.

27

 

Participants

In this thesis, university students and their parents were chosen as subjects in
order to examine their parent-child relationships. The reason why university students
were chosen as “children” is that their age group was considered to be old enough to
have developed their own opinions. Typically, children younger than ten years old
assimilate their parents’ opinions and attitudes. Thus, university students were
regarded as proper “children” subjects in terms of their age range for this thesis to
examine parental understanding of children’s opinions.

Participants included 71 pairs of American parents and children and 52 pairs
of Japanese parents and children. American children consisted of 14 male (19.7% of
total American children) and 57 female (80.3% of total American children) students in
a communication class at Michigan State University. Age range was from 18 to 23
years old (SD = 1.23), and 79.0% participants fell between 19 to 21 in their age.
Japanese children consisted of 13 males (25.0% of total Japanese children) and 39
females (75.0% of total Japanese children) who studied at a university in Japan. Age
range was from 18 to 32 years old (SD = 2.64), and 73.2% participants fell between 19
to 21 in their age.

The university students were asked to choose the parent with whom they
thought they had the most communication. American parents consisted of 14 fathers
(19.7% of total American parents) and 57 mothers (80.3% of total American parents).
Age range was from 39 to 62 years old (SD = 4.58), and 81.6% participants fell
between 44 to 54 in their age. Japanese parents consisted of 9 fathers (17.3% of total
Japanese parents) and 43 mothers (82.7% of total Japanese parents). Age range was
from 43 to 65 years old (SD = 4.76), and 86.7% participants fell between 44 to 54 in

their age.

28

Questionnaires

Two sets of questionnaires were prepared; one for students the other for their
parents. These two types of questionnaires were almost identical except for the step
two, which involved the questions regarding the parental connectedness, and part of
step three, which involved the questions asking about the parental perceptions of their
children. At step one in the questionnaires (both for parents and students), the basic
demographic questions (age and sex) were asked. At step two, only parents were
asked their general feelings toward their children. This step two was missing in the
questionnaires for students.

At step three, both students and parents were asked to recall the moments
when they discussed each of the three major issues for the parent-child relationship
and to describe the encounter and parental messages. Three issues reflected the result
of phase one, which were 1) parental control over personal behaviors, 2) parental
disapproval of job and/or career, and 3) parental concern regarding family issues.
Subsequently, both students and parents answered the questions related to l) the
frequency of the communication over each issue and 2) the degree to which they
themselves thought the issue was important. In addition, only parents answered the
questions regarding 3) the degree to which a parent thinks the child thinks the issue is
important). The answers were marked by 7-point Likert type scales.

The questionnaires were written in English and translated into Japanese by a
J apanese-English bilingual translator. The translated Japanese versions of
questionnaires were converted back into English again by another Japanese-English
bilingual translator. The inconsistencies between the original and the translated

questionnaires were solved through the discussion between two translators.

29

Variables
C onnectedness Scale

The connectedness scale was developed to measure how much parents feel
psychological union with their children. This scale consisted of ten statements that
described parents’ possible feelings towards their children. The parents were asked to
answer how much they agreed with or disagreed with each statement, using 7-point
Likert scale from 1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree.

Amount of Communication

Amount of communication was measured through both parents’ and
children’s subjective ratings of frequency of communication. Both parents and
children answered the frequencies of communication over each of three major issues
for the parent-child relationship by 7-point Likert scale.

In line with Sillars et al.’s (l984)’s study, the four variables, agreement,
perceived agreement, raw understanding, and actual understanding, were calculated in
the following way.

Ageement

Agreement was calculated by comparing the children’s and the parents’ direct
perceptions about the issues. That is, agreement is the correlation between the
parents’ direct and their children’s direct opinions about the issues.

Perceived Agreement

Parental perceived agreement was calculated by comparing the parents’ direct

opinions and parents’ perceptions of their children’s opinions about the issues.

Raw Understanding

 

Parental raw understanding was calculated by comparing the students’ direct

opinions and the parents’ perceptions of their children’s opinions about the issues.

30

Actual Understanding

Parental actual understanding was calculated by correlating the students’
direct opinions with the parents’ perceptions of their children’s opinions, controlling
for the parents’ direct opinions about the issues.
Procedure

Each student was given 1) one questionnaire for students 2) one questionnaire
for parents, and 3) an envelope. The questionnaires were completed at home. First
of all, each student was required to choose either his/her father or mother with whom
the student generally communicates more. Then, a student asked one of the selected
parents to fill out the questionnaire prepared for parents. The students filled out the
questionnaires prepared for students. The students’ questionnaires were directly
collected in a class. The parents’ questionnaires were placed in sealed envelopes and
collected indirectly through the students, so that the parents’ answers would not be
accessed by the students.

Japanese and American data were collected by similar procedures. The only
difference is that Japanese questionnaires were sent to a university in Japan by mail

and returned by mail.

31

Chapter 5
RESULTS

1) Test of Hypothesis 1 (Connectedness)

The connectedness scale, which was used to measure the degree of parental
psychological closeness with the children, consisted of ten items. Among these ten
items, unidimensionality was tested by the confirmatory factor analysis. The errors
between the expected and the obtained correlations were calculated. The errors were
small enough (.01 < e < .14) for the items to be considered as valid when the number
of the items was reduced to five. The correlations between these five retained items
were high; the correlations ranged from .33 to .77 for American parents and from .42
to .73 for Japanese parents. The remaining five items were discarded because of their
invalidity. The final scale is found in Appendix A

Hypothesis one, which predicted that Japanese parents would score higher on
connectedness than American parents, was rejected. Parents’ perceptions of
connectedness were submitted to a two independent samples t-test. The mean
connectedness level of American parents was significantly higher than that of Japanese
parents, t (119) = 5.10, p < .01, two-tailed.

Generally, the average connectedness level of the American parents (M = 4.85,
s = 1.39) was more than 4 (the mid-point of the 7-point Likert scale); whereas, that of
Japanese parents (M = 3.49, s = 1.52) was less than 4. American parents feel
relatively high psychological connectedness with their children, while Japanese
parents feel only weak psychological connectedness.

2) Test of Hypothesis 2 (Agreement)

Agreement was the correlation between children’s direct opinions and

parents’ direct opinions about an issue. Hypothesis two, which predicted that there

would be a higher degree of agreement between Japanese parents and children than

32

between American parents and children in terms of the major issues for the
parent-child relationship also was rejected. Parent-child agreement was submitted to
Fisher’s Z test. There was no significant difference between Japanese (1 = .13) and
American (r = .34) in terms of parent-child agreement overall, 2 = 1.19, p = n.s.,
two-tailed. Regarding each issue, American parents and children agreed with each
other (I = .52) significantly more than Japanese parents and children (r = .13) about the
parental control issues, g = 2.38, p < .01, two-tailed. There was no significant cultural
difference in agreement on the occupational, _z_ = .11, p = n.s., or on the family related
issues g = .29, p_ = n.s., two-tailed.

Japanese parents (M = 5.06, _s = .98) and children (M = 4.43, s = 1.00) did not
agree with each other overall (1 = .13, p = us.) or over the parental control issue(r = .13,
p = us), the occupational issue (1 = .09, p = n.s.), or the family related issue (I = .24, p
= n.s.). On the other hand, across the three issues, American parents (M = 3.72, _s_ =
1.83) and students (M = 4.05, _s = 1.42) agreed with each other (I = .34, p < .05).
Specifically, they agreed with each other over the parental control issue(r = .52, p
< .01) and the family related issue (r = .29, p < .05), but not over the occupational issue
(r = .11, p = n.s.).

3) Test of Hypothesis 3 (Connectedness - Perceived Agreement)

Perceived agreement was the correlation between parents’ direct opinions and
parents’ perceptions of children’s opinions about an issue. Hypothesis three, which
predicted the positive relationship between connectedness and perceived agreement,
was partially supported.

American and Japanese parents were all together divided into two groups
depending on their connectedness levels. Those with average connectedness scores
of more than 4.0 in 7-point Likert scale were categorized as the high connectedness

group (n = 72), while those with average connectedness under 4.0 were categorized as

33

the low connectedness group (n = 49).

Fisher’s Z test indicated that, overall, there was no significant difference
between the high connectedness group (r = .89) and the low connectedness group (I
= .82) in terms of the perceived agreement level, ; = 1.36, p = n.s., two-tailed. The
high connectedness group (r = .72) had significantly higher perceived agreement than
the low connectedness group (r = .52), over the parental control issues, g = 1.74, p <.05,
two-tailed. No significant difference was found in the occupational issues between
the high connectedness group (r = .74) and the low connectedness group (I = .81) in
terms of the perceived agreement level, g = .91, p = n.s., two-tailed. The high
connectedness group (r = .89) had significantly higher perceived agreement than the
low connectedness group (I = .74), over the family related issues, 2 = 2.44, p<. 05,
two-tailed. Parents who had higher connectedness were likely to believe that their
children had the same opinions as themselves in terms of the parental control issues
and the family related issues. However, for the occupational issue connectedness
level did not relate to the perceived agreement level.

4) Test of Hypothesis 4 (Perceived Agreement)

Hypothesis four, which predicted Japanese parents’ higher perceived
agreement level than American parents, was not supported. Perceived agreement was
submitted to the Fisher’s Z test to measure cross-cultural differences. The results
indicated that American parents (r = .90; r = .74; r = .79; r= .88), compared to Japanese
parents (r = .82; r = .54; r = .79; r= .88), were more likely to project their opinions to
deduce their children’s opinions, across the issues (; = 2.78, p < .01) of parental
control (g = 2.14, p < .05), occupational (g = 2.26, p < .05), and family (g = 2.50, p
< .05).

Japanese parents perceived very similar opinions about the issues with their

children across the three issues (r = .74, p < .01), over the parental control issue (1

34

= .50, p < .01), over the occupational issue (5 = .57, p < .01), and over the family
related issue (r = .72, p < .01). American parents also perceived to have very similar
opinions about the issues with their children overall (5 = .90, p < .01), over the parental
control issue (r = .74, p < .01), over the occupational issue (r = .79, p < .01), and over
the family related issue (r = .88, p < .01).

5) Test of Hypothesis 5 (Understanding)

Hypothesis five, which predicted Japanese parents’ lower understanding than
American parents, was partially supported. This hypothesis was tested in two ways.
Raw Understanding

Raw understanding was the correlation between children’s direct opinions and
parents’ perceptions of children’s opinions about an issue. Japanese parents did not
understand their children over the three issues (r = .19, p = n.s.), over the parental
control issue (r = .09, p = n.s.), over the occupational issue (_r_ = .09, p = n.s.), or over
the family related issue (r = .24, p = n.s.). On the other hand, American parents
understand their children overall, (r = .34, p < .05), over the parental control issue (I
= .47, p_ < .01) and over the family related issue (I = .42, p_ < .01), but not over the
occupational issue (I = .13, p = n.s.). However, American parents’ higher score on
raw understanding might be due to their higher agreement, compared to Japanese
parents.

Actual Understanding

Actual understanding was the correlation between children’s direct opinions
and parents’ perceptions of children’s opinions about an issue controlling for parents’
direct opinions. Predictably from the result for raw understanding, Japanese parents
did not understand their children across the issues overall, or (r = .14, p = n.s.), the
parental control issue (1 = .03, p = n.s.), the occupational issue (r = .14, p = n.s.), or the

family related issue (r = -.11, p = n.s.). Interestingly, American parents did not

35

understand their children overall (r = .09, p = n.s.), over the parental control issue (r
= .16, p = n.s.), or the occupational issue (_r = .07, p = n.s.). However, they did
understand their children restrictedly over the family related issue (r_= .36, p_ < .01).

After all, both Japanese and American parents generally did not understand
their children; however, this tendency was issue specific. Regarding the parental
control issue and the occupational issue, both Japanese and American parents failed to
understand their children. Limited to the family related issue, American parents had a
higher actual understanding level than Japanese parents, which was partly consistent
with my original prediction.

Nevertheless, it is essential to claim that the parents understanding level may
not be originated from their connectedness level. Originally, American parents were
predicted to have a higher understanding level of their children than Japanese parents,
led by American parents’ lower connectedness level compared to Japanese parents.
Actually, the result suggested that American parents have a higher connectedness level
than Japanese parents.

6) Test of Hypothesis 6 (Amount of Communication — Understanding)
Amount of Communication

Amount of communication was submitted to a two independent samples t-test.
The mean perceived communication frequency level of Japanese parents (M = 3.81, s
= 1.27) was significantly higher than that of Japanese children (M = 3.08, _s_ = 1.09), t
(94) = 3.00, p < .01, two-tailed. There was a perceptional gap between Japanese
parents and their children on amount of communication.

This finding in Japanese subjects was issue specific. Japanese parents (M =
4.32, s = 1.66; M = 3.89, s = 1.55) perceived the amount of communication
significantly higher than their children (M = 3.13, s = 1.54; M = 3.13, s = 1.60) over

the parental control, 1 (101) = 3.77, p < .01, and occupational issues, t (96) = 2.38, p

36

< .05, two-tailed. However, there was no difference between Japanese parents (M =
3.27, s = 1.76) and their children (M = 3.07, _s_ = 1.72) in their mean communication
frequency over the family related issue, t (98) = .52, p = n.s., two-tailed. There was
perceptual agreement only for the family related issue, not for the parental control and
occupational issues.

On the other hand, there was no statistical difference between American
parents (M = 3.85, s = 1.23) and their children (M = 3.82, s = 1.16) in their mean
perceived communication frequencies, 1(138) = .16, p = n.s., two-tailed. Generally,
American parents and their children perceived the same amount of communication.
This finding was not issue specific. There was no statistical gap between the parents
(M = 3.23, M = 4.19, M = 4.18) and children (M = 3.18, M = 4.15, M = 4.13) on the
amount of communication related to all three issues: parental control, occupational,
and family related issues, {1 (139) = .18, p = n.s.; t (139) = .11, p = n.s.; t (140) = .17, p
= n.s.}, two-tailed.

In cross-cultural comparison, there was no difference between Japanese
parents (M = 3.81, s = 1.27) and either American parents, {M = 3.85, s = 1.23, t (114)
= .20, p = n.s.}, or American children, {M = 3.82, s = 1.16, t (116) = .07, p = n.s.}, in
their mean communication frequency, two-tailed. The mean communication
frequency level of Japanese children (M = 3.08, s = 1.09) was significantly lower than
that ofboth American parents {M = 3.85, s = 1.23, t (116) = 3.51, p < .01 }, and
American children {M = 3.82, s = 1.16, t (118) = 3.52, p < .01}, two-tailed. Japanese
children perceived the amount of their parent-child communication significantly lower
than all Japanese parents, American parents, and American children.

Relationship Between the Amount of Communication and Actual Understanding

Both American and Japanese parents were all together divided into two

groups depending on their amount of communication. The parents who perceived

37

their communication frequency level as more than 4 in the 7-point Likert scale were
classified into the high frequency group. Those whose communication frequencies
were under 4 were classified into the low frequency group.

The relationship between the parents’ perceived amount of communication
and their actual understandings was found to be issue specific; no relationship was
detected across the three issues. The significant relationship was found only among
the high frequency group in terms of the family related issues (I = .33, p < .01).
Those parents who perceived frequent communication with their children regarding
the family related issues tend to understand their children.

Test of Hypothesis 6

Hypothesis six, which predicted that amount of communication and
understanding are related to each other positively for American and are not related to
each other for Japanese, was partially supported. As predicted, the general tendency
of positive relationships between amount of communication and understanding was
qualified only among American parents but only limited to the family related issues.
The American parents who perceived more amount of communication tended to
understand their children better about the family related issues(r = .39, p< .01).

Among Japanese parents, none of the relationships were found to be
significant between amount of communication and understanding, even on the family
related issues (r = .21, p = n.s.). In line with my predictions, the amount of

communication would not predict understanding in Japanese culture.

38

Table 3: Means and Standard Deviations regarding Amount of Parent-Child

 

 

 

 

 

Communication
Mean All 3 Parental Occupati Family
(SD) Issues Control -onal Related
American Parents 3.85 3.23 4.19 4.18
(N=71) (1.23) (1.71) (1.76) (1.69)
Children 3.82 3.18 4.15 4.13
(N=71) (1.16) (1.60) (1.58) (1.79)
Japanese Parents 3.81 * 4.23* 3.89* 3.27
(N=52) (1.27) (1.66) (1.55) (1.76)
Children 308* 3.13* 3.13* 3.07
(N=52) (1.09) (1.54) (1.60) (1 .72)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7-point Likert scale (1 = the issue is not discussed in parent-child relationships at all; 7
= the issue is discussed very often in parent-child relationships)

* Significant difference between parents and children

7) Secondary Analysis of Hypothesis 5 (Test of Relationship between Connectedness
and Actual Understanding)

The tests of five hypotheses showed that American parents, who have higher
connectedness level than Japanese parents, understand their children better regarding
the family related issue, compared to Japanese parents. The hypothesized, underlying
negative relationship between connectedness and actual understanding was rejected.
This result led to the further examination of how parental connectedness level
influences the parents’ actual understanding. American and Japanese parents were
respectively divided into two groups depending on their connectedness levels. Those
whose average connectedness was more than 4.0 in 7-point Likert scale were
categorized as the high connectedness group, while those whose average
connectedness was under 4.0 were categorized as the low connectedness group.

None of the American high connectedness (n = 17), American low

connectedness (n = 54), Japanese high connectedness (n = 32), and Japanese low

connectedness (n = 18), groups had actual understanding across the three issues.

39

However, the results for American subjects were issue specific. The American high
connectedness group had actual understanding over the parental control issue (I = .28,
p < .05) and the family related issue (r = .49, p < .01), two-tailed. Regarding
American parents, those who felt high connectedness to their children understood their
children over the parental control and the family related issues. American parents did
not understand their children over the occupational issue, independent from how much
the parents felt connectedness to their children. Japanese parents did not understand
their children over either the parental control, occupational, or the family related issues,
independent from the degree of their connectedness level to their children.

The influence of parental connectedness level on the parents’ actual
understanding was examined beyond cultures. The two high connectedness groups
(American high connectedness group and Japanese high connectedness group) were
combined into the high connectedness group (n = 49), and the two low connectedness
groups (American low connectedness group and Japanese low connectedness group)
were combined into the low connectedness group (n = 72). Overall, the high
connectedness group had actual understanding (I = .25, p < .05). Issue specifically,
the high connectedness group had actual understanding on parental control issue (r
= .25, p < .05) and the family related issue (r = .42, p < .01), not on the occupational
issue. The low connectedness group did not show any actual understanding at all.
This result indicated that those parents who feel higher connectedness to their children
understand their children generally, especially on the parental control issue and on

family related issue, among American and Japanese cultures.

40

Table 4: Means and Standard Deviations regarding Parents’ Direct Opinions,
Parents’ Perceptions of Children’s Opinions, and Children’s Opinions in terms of

Three Issues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mean All 3 Parental Occupati- Family
(SD) Issues Control onal Related
American PD* 3.72 3.58 3.66 3.84
(N=71) (1.83) (2.10) (2.21) (2.23)
PP 3.83 3.84 3.65 3.94
(1.74) (1.94) (2.13) (2.05)
CD 4.05 4.03 3.80 4.36
(1.42) (1.70) (1.94) (1.80)
Japanese PD 5.06 5.60 4.94 4.75
(N=52) (.98) (1.12) (1.26) (1.57)
PP 4.53 4.30 4.89 4.39
(1.14) (1.58) (1.37) (1.57)
CD 4.43 4.52 4.52 4.25
(1.00) (1.47) (1.44) (1.67)
High PD 5.79 6.13 5.50 5.75
Connected (1.00) (.18) (2.12) (.71 )
(American + PP 5.42 6.00 5.25 5.00
Japanese) (.71) (1.41) (1.77) (1.77)
(N=72) CD 4.48 3.50 4.75 5.15
(.79) (1.04) (.61) (2.33)
Low PD 4.07 4.45 3.90 4.00
Connected (1.53) (1.82) (1.77) (1.97)
(American + PP 3.67 3.56 3.83 3.67
Japanese) (1.41) (1.65) (1.90) (1 .42)
(N=49) CD 4.38 4.52 4.36 4.24
(1.31) (1.58) (1.88) (1.84)

 

 

7—point Likert scale (1 = the issue is not important for parent-child relationships at all;
7 = the issue is very important for parent—child relationships)
* PD = Parents’ Direct Opinions
PP = Parents’ perceptions of children’s opinion
CD = Children’s Direct Opinions

41

Table 5-1: Correlations depending on Nationality and Issues (Agreement)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All 3 Parental Occupatio Family

Issues Control nal Related
American .34 ** ** .ll .29 **
Japanese . 13 .09 .24

 

 

*p<.05; **p< .01
-: significant cultural difference (Japanese vs. Americans)
: significant connectedness level (High Connectedness vs. Low
Connectedness)

Table 5-2: Correlations depending on Nationality and Issues (Perceived

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agreement)
All 3 Parental Occupatio Family
Issues Control nal Related
American um l74_*i 12:1 @fil
Japanese m 50 * I W E
High Connected .89** ** .74“: En
(American +
Japanese)
Low Connected .82** .** .81** ”an
(American +
Japanese)

 

 

 

 

 

 

*p<.05; **p<.01
-: significant cultural difference (Japanese vs. Americans)
: significant connectedness level (High Connectedness vs. Low
Connectedness)

Table 5-3: Correlations depending on Nationality and Issues (Raw

 

 

 

 

Understanding)
All 3 Parental Occupatio Family
Issues Control -nal Related
American .34 ** .47 ** .13 .42 **
Japanese .19 .09 .17 .09

 

 

 

 

 

*p<.05;**p<.01

 

Table 5-4: Correlations depending on Nationality and Issues (Actual

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding)
All 3 Parental Occupatio Family
Issues Control -nal Related
American .09 .16 .07 .36 **
American High .21 .28 * .13 .49 **
Connected
American Low -.03 .04 .06 .15
Connected
Japanese High .47 .09 .39 .08
Connected
Japanese Low .03 -.03 .12 -.31
Connected
High Connected .25 * .25 * .15 .42 **
(American +
Japanese)
Low Connected .02 .02 .08 .12
(American +
Japanese)

 

 

 

 

 

 

*p<.05;**p<.01

8) Secondary Analysis of Hypothesis 6 (Influences of Nationality and Connectedness
on Amount of Communication)

The parental perceived amount of communication was analyzed in a
Nationality (American vs. Japanese) x Connectedness (High Connectedness vs. Low
Connectedness) between subjects factorial analysis of variance. Across the three
issues, there were no significant effects for nationality, connectedness, and no
significant interaction.

Limited to the parental control issue, there was a main effect of nationality, F
(1, 113)= 7.15, p< .01, eta-square= .06. Independent from the level of connectedness,
Japanese parents (High Connected: M=4.35; Low Connected: M=4.16) perceived
more frequent communication regarding the parental control with their children than

American parents (High Connected: M=3.12, Low Connected; M=3.57). There were

43

no significant effects for the occupational issue. Limited to the family related issue,
there were main effects for both nationality, F (1, 111)= 3.94, p< .05, eta-square= .03
and connectedness level, F(1, 111)= 3.94, p< .05, eta-square= .03. American parents
(High Connected: M=4.38, Low Connected; M=3.53) perceived more frequent
communication regarding the family related issues with their children than Japanese
parents (High Connected: M=3.50; Low Connected: M=2.98). At the same time,
independent from nationality, the parents in high connectedness level (Americans:
M=4.38; Japanese: M=3.50) perceived more frequent communication over the family
related issues with their children than the parents in low connectedness level
(Americans: M=3.53, Japanese; M=2.98).

In sum, the influences of nationality and connectedness on perceived amount
of communication were issue specific. There Were cultural differences in the parents’
perceived amount of communication specifically about the parental control and the
family related issues. It was Japanese parents who perceived more communication
with their children about parental control, while it was American parents who
perceived more communication about the family related issue. Limited to the family
related issue, parents who have high connectedness level toward their children tended
to perceive more amount of communication with their children than those who have
lower connectedness level, regardless of their nationalities.

9) Subjects

There were no cultural differences in terms of parents’ age, t (121) = -.67, p =
n.s., parents’ sex, t (121) = -.34, p = n.s., children’s age, 1 (121) = -.01, p = n.s., or
children’s sex, 1(121) = .70, p = n.s.. Thus, cultural differences suggested in this
thesis cannot be attributed to differences in age or sex differences between Japanese

and American subjects.

44

 

Chapter 6
DISCUSSION

These results suggest that the relationship among 1) connectedness, 2)
parental perception, and 3) the amount of communication is influenced by cultures and
issues. Overall, a link among these three constructs was seen in the case of American
parents, limited to the family-related issues. Specifically, American parents who felt
higher connectedness to their children perceived more amount of communication and
understood their children better regarding the family related issues. Although the
other connections among the three constructs diverged, the three primary findings
were as follows.

1) Cultural Differences

First, the cultural differences findings were extremely complicated. The
findings were the exact opposite of predicted higher connectedness for Japanese
parents and lower connectedness level for American parents. While American
parents felt relatively high psychological connection with their children, Japanese
parents felt lower psychological connection. The connectedness scale was created
such that the higher connectedness level indicates more collectivism and the lower
connectedness level indicates more individualism. American parents’ higher
connectedness level suggests their collectivistic attitudes toward their children;
whereas, Japanese parents’ lower connectedness level suggests their individualistic
attitudes toward their children.

This phenomenon may be explained by the assumption that people are quite
sensitive to contexts. In other words, people behave differently depending on
contexts, such as when, where, with whom, and why they are talking. The contexts of
this parent-child communication study included 1) the parental role: the parents

responded to the questionnaires as a “parent” and 2) status of the communication

45

partner: the communication partner for the parents was their children. After all, the
parents in this study, while responding to the questionnaires, deemed about
communication with their children specifically as a role of parent and in the
relationship with their children. The result would be totally different if the parents
were asked to think about communication with their employers as a role of employee.

The connectedness scale was developed particularly for parent—child
relationships. Given people’s sensitivity to contexts, Japanese and American parents’
connectedness levels are meaningful only in parent-child communication contexts.
This parental connectedness to their children does not necessarily work for other
relationships, such as friendships or work relationships.

The individualism-collectivism (I-C) scale has broadly been accepted as a
reflection of cultural differences. If people’s behaviors and attitudes change
depending on the contexts, a person may behave in a more individualistic way in
certain contexts and the same person may behave in more collectivistic way in other
contexts. In other words, whether a person is more toward individualism or
collectivism would not be stable within a person; rather it would change depending on
contexts.

Agreement, perceived agreement, and understanding also were influenced by
culture. First, American parents, compared to Japanese parents, overall were more
likely to 1) agree with their children, 2) believe that their children had the same
opinions as themselves, and 3) understand their children, although the results were
mediated by issues.

The American parents’ stronger tendency of projection may be explained by
their higher connectedness, compared to Japanese parents. Actually, the positive
relationship between connectedness and perceived agreement was supported for

American parents, restricted to the parental control and family related issues. What is

46

interesting is that, American parents, despite their strong projection tendency,
understood their children, while Japanese parents strong projection effect prevented
them from understanding their children. This result suggests that Japanese parents’
understanding of their children largely came from the projection of their opinions to
their children. American parents understood their children independent from the
projection effect.

Second, the parents both in the US. and Japan generally tended to project
their opinions to speculate their children’s opinions even though this inclination was
more significant among American parents than Japanese parents. It was true that
there was a cultural difference in parental projections; nevertheless, this projection
effect existed across two cultures. This projection effect may be universal for all
parents although the degree of projection may: vary by cultures.

One of the limitations regarding cross-cultural effects is that the
Individual-Collectivistic characteristic was not directly measured. Instead, the
Japanese tendency of being collectivistic and Americans’ tendency of being
individualistic were assumed from previous research. Another limitation is the
inclusion of double and triple barrels in the questionnaire. The questions for the
connectedness scale “I think of my child as being a physical, psychological, and
emotional extension of myself,” should have been three separate questions, such that
“I think of my child as being a physical extension of myself,” “I think of my child as
being a psychological extension of myself,” and “I think of my child as being a
emotional extension of myself.” Similarly, “I feel a psychological and emotional
oneness between my child and myself,” should have been the two separate questions,
such that “I feel a psychological oneness between my child and myself,” and “I feel a
emotional oneness between my child and myself.”

2) Large Influence of Issues

47

Second, the cultural differences in parent-child agreement, perceived
agreement, understanding, and the amount of communication were very issue specific.
These results warn against the danger of generalization. Since parental understanding
of children was different depending on issues, it is very dangerous to apply the
findings for parental understanding of children regarding one topic into other topics.

Among the three issues, the family related issues, followed by the parental
control issues, were the ones about which American parents understood and agreed
with their children best. Judging from the positive relationship between
understanding and the amount of communication in terms of the family related issues,
American parents’ better understanding of the family related issues came from the
frequency of communication. However, this claim, “the more communication, the
more understanding” did not apply for other topics. American parents-children
communicated about the occupational issues as much as they did for the family related
issues. However, American parents did not understand their children about
occupational issues as much as they did for the family related issues. The family
related issues may be inherently accessible for American parents regarding their
children’s opinions, compared to the parental control or occupational issues.

Regarding the family related issues, Japanese parents communicated least,
agreed with their children most, projected their opinions most, and understood children
least. For Japanese parents, the amount of communication was found not to
contribute to parents’ agreement or understanding. Their understanding was found to
be highly damaged by their projections. Japanese parents understood most about the
occupational issues, but reported even relatively low levels of understanding compared
to American parents. The occupational issues were the ones about which Japanese
parents agreed least with their children. Thus, Japanese parents may be better at

understanding their children regarding the issues on which the parents and their

48

children have different opinions.
3) High Agreement

There was unexpectedly high agreement between parents and children. At
least in the last two decades both in Japan and the United States, less and less time has
been shared between parents and children as the numbers of double-income families
has increased. With this social tendency, parents and children were expected to have
relatively poor agreements by lacking enough chances to exchange opinions.
However, American parent-child pairs highly agreed with each other about the parental
control issues and the family related issues, while Japanese highly agreed with each
other about the family related issues. This high agreement may be related to the fact
that the subjects were university students. In a future study, I would like to examine
the influence of age and generation on the degree of agreement.
4) Amount of Communication

While American parents and children perceived almost identical amounts of
communication, there was a perceptional gap between Japanese parents and their
children on amount of communication. Three possible explanations for the Japanese
perceptual gap would be 1) the parents’ overestimation of the amount of
communication, 2) their children’s underestimation of the amount of communication,
and 3) a mutual existence of l) and 2). Unless the explanation of the gap is
exclusively attributed to 2) children’s underestimation, the result regarding the amount
of communication was in line with that regarding parental understanding of children in
the three issues. That is, Japanese parents misunderstood children in terms of the
amount of parent-child communication as well as parental control, occupational,
family related issues.

One of the limitations of this study is absence of actual data on the amount of

communication. This study relied on the subjective evaluation to find out the amount

49

of communication. Japanese children perceived the amount of their parent-child
communication significantly lower than all Japanese parents, American parents, and
American children. Without any additional data, it cannot be concluded that either
American or Japanese parent-child actually communicate more than the other.
Observations or tape recordings would be necessary to calculate the actual data.
Future studies could be done with varieties of other issues and cultures. It is
interesting to examine parents from other cultures than the US. or Japan and to see if
the parental projection behavior is universal. Also, other issues than three issues
would be examined for better knowledge on the interactions among issues, cultures,
and parental understanding of their children. More broadly, people’s behaviors and
feelings that are salient for family communication contexts will be examined in my

future study.

50

APPENDIX A
Connectedness Scale

Retained Items:
I feel that my child is a part of myself.
I feel that my child and I are soul mates.
I think of my child as being a physical, psychological, and emotional extension of
myself.
I feel a psychological and emotional oneness between my child and myself.
I feel that my child's heart and mine are totally connected.

Discarded Items:
I find it easy to differentiate my child from myself.
I feel that all that happens to my child happens to myself.
I think of my child as being fundamentally different from me.
I feel that, psychologically and emotionally, a part of my child will always exist
inside of me.
I feel that my child and I share the same destiny.

51

APPENDIX B
Questionnaire for Parents

Family Communication Survey
Parent Questionnaire

This purpose of this survey is to examine perceptions of important issues of concern
and conflict that exist between parents and children.

In a previous study, American and Japanese college students were asked to report the
biggest issues of concern and conflict that existed in their relationships with their
parents. Results from that study suggested that across the two cultures, the most
common issues of parent/child conflict are (1) parent control over student's personal
behavior, (2) parent disapproval of student's chosen career or job, and (3) family
disputes involving other siblings or relatives.

In this study, we're going to ask you (as a parent) to answer a number of questions
about your communication with your child and your perceptions of interpersonal
issues of concern. Importantly, PLEASE DO NOT WRITE YOUR NAME OR ANY
IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ON THE OUESTIONNAIRES. All responses will
be kept strictly anonymous and confidential. For this reason, we ask that you
answer the questions as honestly as you can.

Step 1

1. Please tell us a couple of things about yourself.

What is your sex? Male Female

How old are you? (years)

 

52

Star);

Take a minute and think about your relationship with your child. Then, answer
the questions below, by circling the number that best represents your feelings
toward your child. YOUR CHILD WILL NOT SEE THESE ANSWERS: THEY
WILL BE COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS AND CONFIDENTIAL. For this
reason, please be as honest as you can in how you answer them.

1. I feel that my child is a part of myself.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

2. I feel that my child and I are soul mates.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

3. I find it easy to differentiate my child from myself.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

4. I feel that all that happens to my child happens to myself.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

5. I think of my child as being a physical, psychological, and emotional extension

of myself.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

53

6. I think of my child as being fundamentally different from me.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

7. I feel a psychological and emotional oneness between my child and myself.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

8. I feel that my child's heart and mine are totally connected.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

9. I feel that, psychologically and emotionally, a part of my child will always exist

inside of me.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree

10. I feel that my child and I share the same destiny.

Completely Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely Agree.

54

Step 3 Now we would like you to answer a number of questions about your
communication with your child, related to three different topics.

Topic # I .' Parent Control over Personal Behaviors
One topic college students report as a source of tension and conflict in their
parent-child relationships is control-related concerns: attempts by parents to control
and/or change the personal behaviors of their college-aged children. This includes
things such as parental disapproval of clothing, disapproval of appearance, attempts to
change eating and sleeping habits, disapproval of tattoos, and attempts to enforce

unreasonable curfews.

Take a moment, and think carefully about your son/daughter, and communication
you've had with her/him regarding your control of her/his personal behaviors. Then,
please answer the following questions:

1. Can you think of an instance in which you and your child had a serious
conversation, argument, and/or conflict regarding your control of her/his personal
behaviors? '

__ Yes _ No

2. If your answer to #1 above was "No," then go ahead and move on to Question #3
on the next page. If your answer to question #1 was "Yes," then please answer the
following question:

During the encounter you had with your child regarding your control of her/his
personal behaviors, what was the single most important message you were trying to
convey to your child? Please describe the encounter and your message as specifically
as possible, including exactly what was said (to the best of your memory).

 

 

 

 

55

 

3. Now, think about how often you and your child discuss your control of her/his
personal behaviors in general. Using the scales below, please rate the frequency of
your communication with your child related to control issues:

My child and I discuis my control of her/his personal behaviors...
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Often

Rarely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Commonly
Infrequently 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Frequently
Not at All 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 All the time

4. Now, think about how important the issue of your control of your child's personal
behaviors is as a source of tension/conflict in your relationship with your child. Is
this issue a large source of tension and conflict in your relationship, or is it
insignificant? Using the scales below, rate how important this issue is as a source of
tension/conflict in your relationship with your child:

Within my relationship with my child, the issue of my control of her/hispersonal

behaviors is . ..

Unimportant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant
Trivia] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

5. Now, think for a moment about your child 's perception of this issue. How
important do you think they think this issue is, as a source of conflict/tension in your
relationship? Would they say it's a large problem, or insignificant? Using the scales
below rate your child 's perceptions of the importance of this issue within your
relationship.

My child thinks the issue of my control of her/his personal behaviors is...
Unimportant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant

TYivial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

56

Topic # 2: Parent Disapproval of Job and/or Career
A second topic people report as source of tension, conflict, and concern in their
relationships with their parents is job-related concerns. This includes things such as
parental pressure to find a job, parental disapproval of current job, and/or parental

disapproval of career choice.

Take a moment, and think carefully about your child, and communication you've had
with her/him regarding your concerns about her/his job and/or career. Then, please

answer the following questions:

1. Can you think of an instance in which you and your child had a serious
conversation, argument, and/or conflict regarding your concerns about her/his job or
career?

__ Yes __ No

2. If your answer to #1 above was "No," then go ahead and move on to Question #3
on the next page. If your answer to question #1 was "Yes," then please answer the

following question:

During the encounter you had with your child regarding her/his job/career, what was
the single most important message you were trying to convey to your child? Please
describe the encounter and your message as specifically as possible, including exactly

what was said (to the best of your memory).

 

 

 

 

57

3. Now, think about how often you and your child discuss your concerns regarding
her/his job and/or career in general. Using the scales below, please rate the
frequency of your communication with your child related to job issues:

My child and I discuss my concerns about her/his job/career...
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Often

Rarely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Commonly
Infrequently 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Frequently
Not at All 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 All the time

4. Now, think about how important the issue of your concerns about her/his
job/career is as a source of tension/conflict in your relationship with your child. Is
this issue a large source of tension and conflict in your relationship, or is it
insignificant? Using the scales below, rate how important this issue is as a source of
tension/conflict in your relationship with your child:

Within my relationship with my child, the issue (imy child 's job/career is...
Unimportant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant

Trivial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

5. Now, think for a moment about your child 's perception of this issue. How
important do you think they think this issue is, as a source of conflict/tension in your
relationship? Would they say it's a large problem, or insignificant? Using the scales
below rate your child 's perceptions of the importance of this issue within your
relationship.

My child thinks the issue of my concerns about her/his job/career is...
Unimportant l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant
Trivial l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

58

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Topic # 3: Pmt Concern regfling Family Issues
A final topic people report as a source of tension, conflict, and concern in their
parent-child relationships is family-related conflicts. These include things like
post-divorce conflicts between parents, difficulty in dealing with one parent, and

disputes with siblings and/or relatives.

Take a moment, and think carefully about your child, and communication you've had
with her/him regarding family conflicts. Then, please answer the following
questions:

1. Can you think of an instance in which you and your child had a serious
conversation, argument, and/or conflict regarding family conflicts?

_ Yes _ No

2. If your answer to #1 above was "No," then go ahead and move on to Question #3
on the next page. If your answer to question #1 was "Yes," then please answer the
following question:

During the encounter you had with your child regarding family conflicts, what was the
single most important message you were trying to convey to your child? Please
describe the encounter and your message as specifically as possible, including exactly
what was said (to the best of your memory).

 

 

 

 

59

 

3. Now, think about how oflen you and your child discuss family conflicts in general.
Using the scales below, please rate the fi'equency of your communication with your

child related to family conflicts:

My child and I discuss family conflicts...

Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Often
Rarely l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Commonly
Infrequently l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Frequently
Not at All 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 All the time

4. Now, think about how important the issue of family conflicts is as a source of
tension/conflict in your relationship with your child. Is this issue a large source of
tension and conflict in your relationship, or is it insignificant? Using the scales below,
rate how important this issue is as a source of tension/conflict in your relationship with
your child:

Within my relationship with my child, the issue of family conflicts is...
Unimportant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant
Trivial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

5. Now, think for a moment about your child 's perception of this issue. How
important do you think they think this issue is, as a source of conflict/tension in your
relationship? Would they say it's a large problem, or insignificant? Using the scales
below rate your child 's perceptions of the importance of this issue within your

relationship.

My child thinks the issue of family corjlicts is...

Unimportant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Important
Inconsequential 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Consequential
Insignificant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Significant
TYivial l 2 3 4 5 6 7 Substantial

60

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