Parental Cultural Values, Qualities of Parenting, and Diurnal Cortisol Patterns in Middle Childhood: Differences in White and Hispanic Families?

It is widely understood that qualities of the home environment greatly influence child health outcomes (Nancy, 1999; Simons et al., 2010). While there has been much research regarding the role of direct parenting behaviors, there remains little research regarding how other qualities of the parent, such as cultural values, may affect child physiological outcomes. Furthermore, research has also suggested that the way in which parenting and culture may be associated with child outcomes may differ based on race/ethnicity (Pinquart & Kauser, 2018). In this thesis, I examined the direct associations between parental cultural values (i.e., mainstream, traditional) and child diurnal cortisol outcomes as well as other qualities of parenting (parental warmth, authoritarianism) and child diurnal cortisol outcomes in Hispanic and White identifying primary caregivers. A moderating model was then used to investigate the racial/ethnic differences which may exist in these associations through mixed model regressions.

Participants were 475 twins and their primary caregivers (mean age=8.48; Primary caregivers: 64% White, 36% Hispanic; 53.8% middle class or above). I found no main effects between parental cultural values and child cortisol outcomes and no main effects between parenting behaviors and child cortisol outcomes. However, when exploring the moderating role of race/ethnicity, it was found that, as compared to children of White primary caregivers, children of Hispanic primary caregivers who had higher levels of parental authoritarianism had steeper PM slopes, indicating more adaptive cortisol outcomes. This suggests that the adaptiveness of certain parenting behaviors may differ across racial/ethnic groups such that what is considered to be “good parenting” may not translate across differing racial/ethnic groups. Ultimately, further research should be conducted in order to further explore the impact of race/ethnicity in the outcomes of our children.