Perceived Parental Cultural Conflict and the Psychosocial Adjustment of Arab American College Students

Conflicts between the old culture and the new one can profoundly affect immigrants' lives, with consequent impact on their families. Akhtar (1999) argued that immigrants may experience intrapsychic turmoil reminiscent of the individuation process of adolescence. Similarly, Grinberg and Grinberg (1984) suggested that immigration can trigger anxiety due to the failure to discriminate between the old and the new, with profound and lasting effects. Immigrants may feel inundated with chaotic messages and may suffer from cultural shock. Immigrants may also be conflicted because of their fear of loss of identity. Such cultural conflicts, when experienced by immigrant parents, may consequently affect the psychological and social functioning of their children. For example, Hyman, Yu, and Beiser (2000) noted that for immigrants to America from more collectivist Southeast Asian cultures, the incompatibility of Western values, which emphasize self-fulfillment, and the traditional pattern of subordinating the self to the interests of the family can be a source of internal conflict for immigrant youth.

This study examined a range of behaviors immigrant Arab parents adopt in relation to their cultural conflicts and how these behaviors may be related both to their control of their children and their children's subjective well-being. We used a newly constructed measure, Perceived Parental Cultural Conflict Scale (PPCCS). This measure includes two independent subscales that assess the degree to which the respondent's immigrant parents are perceived as oriented toward (a) preservation of the old culture (Preservation subscale) and (b) openness to the American culture (Openness subscale). Difference scores between these two subscales represent the degree to which parents are perceived as conflicted with, or separated from, the American culture (e.g., a negative score would indicate inclined assimilation into the American culture). We also used a measure of perceived parental contr