Journal of Counseling Psychology

Journal of Counseling Psychology Transitions in Young Adulthood: Exploring Trajectories of Parent–Child Conflict During College Sarah C. Nelson, Nazneen F. Bahrassa, Moin Syed, and Richard M. Lee Online First Publication, May 18, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cou0000078

CITATION Nelson, S. C., Bahrassa, N. F., Syed, M., & Lee, R. M. (2015, May 18). Transitions in Young Adulthood: Exploring Trajectories of Parent–Child Conflict During College. Journal of Counseling Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cou0000078

Journal of Counseling Psychology 2015, Vol. 62, No. 2, 000

© 2015 American Psychological Association 0022-0167/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cou0000078

BRIEF REPORT

Transitions in Young Adulthood: Exploring Trajectories of Parent–Child Conflict During College Sarah C. Nelson, Nazneen F. Bahrassa, Moin Syed, and Richard M. Lee

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities This longitudinal study examined trajectories of parent– child conflict from the perspective of young adults during their college years. Using group-based trajectory modeling, self-report data from 3 time points were analyzed and 4 conflict trajectories emerged. The largest group of students (65%) had low, stable levels of parent– child conflict. Ten percent of the sample reported increases in parent– child conflict, and the remainder (25%) reported 1 of 2 patterns of decreasing parent– child conflict. Students with at least 1 immigrant parent were more likely to experience changes in parent– child conflict in contrast to peers with no immigrant parents. Contrary to our hypotheses, individuals in the groups in which conflict was decreasing were more likely to experience psychological distress. Results are discussed in terms of implications for the heterogeneity of conflict trajectories over time, particularly considering the contextual influence of immigrant family status. Keywords: young adulthood, parent– child conflict, college, group-based trajectory modeling

ences in parent– child relationship trajectories throughout the life span. Accordingly, we adopted a longitudinal person-centered approach to understand how subgroups of young adults change over time (Wang & Bodner, 2007). Moreover, we investigated how these heterogeneous patterns of change and stability varied in relation to social background factors (e.g., race, immigrant status) and psychological distress.

Parent– child conflict during young adulthood is a significant source of psychological distress, correlates with risk behavior in young adulthood, and adversely impacts well-being (Lee & Liu, 2001; Lui, 2015). However, little is known about the changes in parent– child conflict as individuals enter young adulthood (Galambos & Kotylak, 2012). Conflict with parents is a common source of distress among college students, including students seeking services at counseling centers (Arria et al., 2009; Locke et al., 2011). Understanding individual differences in how parent– child relationships change over time may provide important insights for practitioners working with young adults. For example, parent– child conflict may be continuous over the course of college for some students, whereas conflict with parents may decrease or increase for other students. Most past studies on parent– child conflict have relied upon variable-centered and cross-sectional approaches that make it difficult to understand individual differ-

Parent–Child Conflict in Young Adulthood Past meta-analytic studies have suggested that adolescents’ conflicts with their parents decrease in frequency from early to midadolescence and then plateau through late adolescence (Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998). Although enrollment in college presents a host of new opportunities for self-exploration and autonomy seeking, parent– child conflict continues to play an important role in the lives of college students (see Laursen & Collins, 2009). For example, college students asked to share self-defining memories commonly report stories of conflict with parents (McLean & Thorne, 2003). To our knowledge, little longitudinal work on parent– child conflict beyond late adolescence has been undertaken. The small number of longitudinal studies that do exist show conflict decreasing in frequency and parent– child relationships improving from adolescence to young adulthood (Parra, Oliva, & Reina, 2013; Thornton, Orbuch, & Axinn, 1995; Whiteman, McHale, & Crouter, 2011). However, prospective and retrospective studies have found that levels of closeness and conflict in parent– child relationships in adolescence are predictive of those relationship qualities in young adulthood (Aquilino, 1997, 2006; Lefkowitz, 2005; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). These contrasting findings of change and stability suggest that individual differences may be contributing to dissimilarities in the trajectories of conflict with parents during young adulthood.

Sarah C. Nelson, Nazneen F. Bahrassa, Moin Syed, and Richard M. Lee, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The first two authors (Sarah C. Nelson and Nazneen F. Bahrassa) contributed equally to the manuscript. The manuscript is based in part on the doctoral dissertation of the second author, Nazneen F. Bahrassa, under the supervision of the last author, Richard M. Lee. Nazneen F. Bahrassa is currently affiliated with the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco, California. This research was funded in part by the University of Minnesota Tools for Discovery grant. Special thanks to Colin DeLong and the College of Liberal Arts Student Services for the support they provided in developing this project. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sarah C. Nelson, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: [email protected] 1

NELSON, BAHRASSA, SYED, AND LEE

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Although little is known about changes in parent– child conflict in young adulthood over time, the outcomes associated with this conflict have been well documented. Researchers have demonstrated an association between parent– child conflict and reduced feelings of support from and attachment to parents (Hannum & Dvorak, 2004). In addition, conflict with parents has been associated with elevated distress and lower academic performance in college students (Bahrassa, Syed, Su, & Lee, 2011; Lee & Liu, 2001). The reduction of such conflict though, has been associated with increases in parent– child relationship satisfaction and individual wellbeing (Orrego & Rodriguez, 2001; Sillars, Canary, & Tafoya, 2004).

Present Study Given the importance that changes in parent– child conflict may play in the lives of young adults, the first aim of the study was to examine different trajectories of parent– child conflict over the college years using a person-centered approach. Self-report data from three time points during college were analyzed with groupbased trajectory modeling (GBTM) to determine trajectories of parent– child conflict (Nagin & Odgers, 2010). Based on the past research that suggested continuity and change in the parent– child relationship, we hypothesized that both of these accounts would be supported and that we would observe trajectory groups representing both stability in conflict, which would represent the majority of students, and smaller groups of change, both increases and decreases in conflict. Drawing from recent meta-analytic work (Lui, 2015), the second aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between the observed trajectory groups and gender, race, and immigrant status. The research on the association between gender and parent– child conflict is equivocal. Some studies have suggested no gender differences in parent– child conflict (e.g., Lee, Choe, Kim, & Ngo, 2000; Lefkowitz, 2005). Other studies find gender differences in family relationships and adolescent outcomes (Gutman & Eccles, 2007). Lui (2015) found a stronger positive relationship for women than for men between parent– child conflict and acculturation mismatch (that is, cultural discrepancies between immigrant parents and their children). Given these equivocal findings, we included gender in the analysis, but made no specific hypotheses about how gender would be related to conflict trajectories. Children of immigrants live within two distinct cultural contexts—family home and society. Home generally reflects the cultural context of parental heritage, whereas society reflects the broader cultural context of the majority population. Children from immigrant families tend to report higher levels of family conflict due to acculturation mismatch (Lee et al., 2000; Lui, 2015). This conflict is conceptually and empirically distinct from the everyday conflict typically experienced by nonimmigrant peers (Juang, Syed, & Cookston, 2012). We expected that the contradictory contexts young adults experience in immigrant families would lead to more change in the parent– child relationship, especially as young adults develop greater autonomy in college. We hypothesized that young adults with immigrant parents would experience more change in the levels of conflict they experience than young adults with no immigrant parents. Most research on conflict with parents during college has been conducted with White samples (Aquilino, 1997; Lefkowitz, 2005;

Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Extant research has found that Asian American students report more family conflict than White and Latino students (Dennis, Basañez, & Farahmand, 2010; Lee & Liu, 2001). Meta-analytic results has also suggested that Asian American groups may experience more parent– child conflict than Mexican Americans (Lui, 2015). These mean-level differences, however, do not shed light on how conflict with parents may change over time for these racial groups. Moreover, race and immigrant status are often conflated, as it is in this study sample. Due to this conflation, we expected differences in immigrant status would account for the influence of race when both variables are examined concurrently. Thus, we hypothesized that, controlling for race, participants that were from immigrant families would be more likely to fall into trajectory groups reflecting change rather than stability of conflict. Finally, the third aim of the study was to examine relations between conflict trajectories and psychological distress. Parent– child conflict in young adulthood is clearly associated with greater individual distress (Bahrassa et al., 2011; Sillars et al., 2004). It was our hypothesis that higher levels of conflict at each time point would be associated with greater levels of reported distress. Given this, we hypothesized that individuals reporting increasing levels of conflict would report greater distress than individuals reporting decreasing or stable levels of parent– child conflict.

Method Participants The initial sample at Wave 1 (W1) included 245 undergraduate students; however, 15 students were excluded from the analyses because they did not indicate immigrant status or identified as an adoptee, resulting in a final sample size of 230 (66% women; Mage at W1 ⫽ 20.6, SD ⫽ 2.0, range ⫽ 18 –29). At W1, class standings were as follows: 80 first-year, 62 second-, 47 third-, 29 fourth-, and 12 beyond fourth-year students. Racial background, based on data from the university registrar, was as follows: 56% White, 28% Asian American, 7% Black, 6% Hispanic/Latino, 2% Native American/American Indian, and 1% another race/ethnicity. Due to their small sample sizes, participants identifying as Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American/American Indian, or another race/ ethnicity were collapsed into a combined students-of-color group (16%). We elected to retain this aggregate group of students of color for data analyses because many colleges and universities continue to use this designation to describe student outcomes. Finally, 27% of participants came from immigrant families (i.e., at least one parent born outside the U.S.).

Procedure Participants were drawn from a larger multiyear study of lives of liberal arts undergraduate students at a large, public Midwestern university. Only full-time current students were invited to complete an online survey in April, 2008 (W1). Approximately 22% (N ⫽ 2,848) filled out the survey after two e-mail reminders were sent. A subset (n ⫽ 245, 22% ultimately reduced to 230) was randomly selected to concurrently complete a supplemental survey that included measures of family relationships and psychological well-being to be used in this study. In April, 2009, Wave 2 (W2) commenced with 172 of the W1 supplemental-survey students still


YOUNG ADULTHOOD AND PARENT–CHILD CONFLICT

enrolled in the college and invited to participate in W2. Of the 172 participants from W1, 105 students consented to participate (61% retention). In November 2009 (Wave 3; W3), 113 of the W1 supplemental-survey students were still enrolled in the college and invited to participate in the third data collection and 65 students consented to participate (58% retention). All participants from W1 were invited to participate in subsequent waves, and thus attrition did not necessarily proceed linearly, although in the majority of cases it did. Students received $20 gift cards as compensation for their participation in each supplemental survey. Data were initially analyzed using Little’s (1988) test for data missing completely at random (MCAR). The results of this test, ␹2(8) ⫽ 10.85, p ⫽ .21 suggested that the data were either MCAR or missing at random (MAR). Moreover, comparing participants with complete and incomplete data did not reveal any differences in our psychological or demographic variables. Following current best practices in handling MCAR/MAR data in longitudinal analyses (Widaman, 2006), we retained the full W1 sample of 230 participants in all analyses and used full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) to fit models using all available data. Analyses were conducted using the MPlus 7 software package, in which FIML is the default estimator (Muthén & Muthén, 1998 –2012).

Measures Family Conflict Scale–Short Form (FCS). The FCS (Bahrassa et al., 2011) is a five-item self-report measure examining the frequency of parent– child conflict (Lee et al., 2000). Items such as, “Your parent(s)/guardian(s) want you to sacrifice personal interests for the sake of the family, but you feel this is unfair,” are rated on a 5-point Likert scale according to the frequency of occurrence (1 ⫽ Almost never; 5 ⫽ Almost always). Higher ratings indicated greater conflict with parents or guardians. Scores on the short-form version of the scale have demonstrated good internal reliability with diverse undergraduate students and validity with related parent– child measures (see Bahrassa et al., 2011; Lee & Liu, 2001). For this sample, the 5-item FCS demonstrated good internal reliability for all three waves (␣ ⫽ .79 –.90). Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). The K10 (Kessler et al., 2002) is a 10-item measure capturing depressive and anxiety symptoms within the past month. Items such as feeling “tired out for no good reason” are rated on a 5-point Likert scale according to the frequency of occurrence (1 ⫽ None of the time; 5 ⫽ All of the time). The K10 has been used in worldwide epidemiological studies and has demonstrated good internal reliability (see Furukawa, Kessler, Slade, & Andrews, 2003). For this sample, the K10 demonstrated good internal reliability for all three time points (␣ ⫽ .86⫺.91).

3 Results

Data Analysis Plan We tested our hypotheses using GBTM, a method for identifying subgroups of individuals who share similarities in their patterns of change over time (Nagin & Odgers, 2010). As indicated previously, we used FIML to estimate trajectories based on the full W1 sample. To examine the potential impact of the missing data on the findings, all models were estimated using both the full sample (n ⫽ 230) and a smaller sample that included only participants with at least two waves of data (n ⫽ 120). The results from the analyses of both samples were not meaningfully different from each other, thus we have only presented the results based on the full sample. The decision was made to retain students who did not return to college (i.e., graduated, transferred, or dropped out) because parent– child conflict is an ongoing process that does not end after students leave college.

Construction of Trajectory Groups Using GBTM For the GBTM analyses, we examined solutions ranging from one- to five-group models of parent– child conflict over time. Time as a variable was scaled so the intercept in all equations represeneds the participants’ initial levels of parent– child conflict at W1. Model fit statistics were chosen based on criteria for small sample sizes (Nylund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007). A four-group model was selected as the optimal result based on the fit statistics and the hypothesized trajectories (see Table 1 for fit indices). The entropy for the four-group model was slightly lower, but still good (i.e., above .80), relative to the three-group model (see Muthén, 2004). In addition, the bootstrap likelihood ratio test (BLRT) indicated better model fit for the four-class model over the threeclass model. The five-group model also demonstrated good fit; however, the number of individuals in two of the groups decreased to under 20 (i.e., 6% and 8% of the sample), and the additional group did not have apparent substantive value (i.e., one of the groups in the four-group model split into two in the five-group model, demonstrating similar patterns of change). The four-group model was the final preferred model, as it captured different trajectories in a meaningful way and was consistent with past research (Aquilino, 1997; Lefkowitz, 2005). As seen in Figure 1, the final model revealed four distinct parent-conflict trajectory groups. The groups were named in accordance with their respective model-implied intercepts (M) and rates of change over time (slope): (a) Stable (n ⫽ 150, 65% of sample), characterized by the lowest conflict starting point (M ⫽ 1.19, SE ⫽ .02) and stable parent– child conflict over time

Table 1 Fit Indices for Two- to Five-Class Trajectories for Parent–Child Conflict Index

Two-group

Three-group

Four-group

Five-group

ssBIC Entropy Posterior probabilities % Count in class BLRT

796.19 .91 .95, .98 76, 24 ⬍.001

738.88 .97 .99, .98, .99 72, 22, 6 ⬍.001

708.26 .88 .96, .84, .92, .96 64, 12, 14, 11 ⬍.001

664.42 .89 .83, .84, .98, .82, .97 13, 11, 6, 8, 63 ⬍.001

Note.

ssBIC ⫽ sample size adjusted Bayesian information criterion; BLRT ⫽ bootstrap likelihood ratio test.


4 Stable (65%)

Increase (10%)

Large Decrease(14%)

Moderate Decrease (11%)

5

Frequency of Parent-Child Conflict

4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1


Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Figure 1. Four-group model of parent– child conflict trajectories for college students (N ⫽ 230).

(slope ⫽ ⫺0.03, SE ⫽ .04, ns); (b) Increased (n ⫽ 23, 10% of sample), characterized by a low-conflict starting point (M ⫽ 1.72, SE ⫽ .23) and a pattern of significantly increasing growth in conflict over time (slope ⫽ 0.45, SE ⫽ .13, p ⬍ .001); (c) Large decrease (n ⫽ 33, 14% of sample), characterized by a moderateconflict starting point (M ⫽ 2.81, SE ⫽ .08) and significantly decreasing growth over time of conflict (slope ⫽ ⫺1.07, SE ⫽ .07, p ⬍ .001); and finally (d) Moderate decrease (n ⫽ 24, 11% of sample), characterized by the highest conflict starting point (M ⫽ 3.75, SE ⫽ .21) and a pattern of significantly decreasing growth over time (slope ⫽ ⫺0.65, SE ⫽ .19, p ⬍ .001). These four groups were largely consistent with our hypothesis that there would be evidence for stable, increasing, and decreasing patterns of change in conflict.

Demographic and Psychological Differences in Trajectory Groups We next conducted a series of multinomial logistic regressions to test for variations in participants’ most likely trajectory groups. We first tested for whether age and year in school were related to the trajectory groups, but found that neither was statistically significant. This finding is consistent with the zero-order correlations between W1 family conflict and age (r ⫽ ⫺.08) and year in school (r ⫽ ⫺.02). Next, we conducted a multinomial logistic regression in which gender, race, and immigrant status were entered as predictors of the four trajectory groups. The analysis was conducted four times, rotating the reference group so that all possible comparisons could be explored, and odd ratios (OR) were used as the estimate of the effect size. Gender was not associated with trajectory-group membership. Contrary to our hypothesis, the results indicated that both race, ␹2(6) ⫽ 14.32, p ⫽ .03 and immigrant status, ␹2(3) ⫽ 25.63, p ⬍ .001 were independently associated with group membership. The only difference for race was that Asian Americans were much more likely, relative to Whites, to be classified in the Increased rather than the Stable groups (b ⫽ 1.72, SE ⫽ 0.85, OR ⫽ 5.56, p ⫽ .04). There were no observed differences between either Asian Americans or Whites and other students of color. For immigrant status, all of the observed differences were with respect to the stable group. That is, participants from immigrant families were more likely than those from nonimmigrant families to be in the increased (b ⫽ 1.90, SE ⫽ 0.67, OR ⫽ 6.66,

p ⫽ .004), moderate-decrease (b ⫽ 3.17, SE ⫽ 0.78, OR ⫽ 23.85, p ⬍ .001), or large-decrease (b ⫽ 1.65, SE ⫽ 0.60, OR ⫽ 5.18, p ⫽ .006) groups relative to the stable group. Finally, we tested for trajectory-group differences in psychological distress using one-way ANOVAs. To test for differences at W2 and W3, which contained missing data, we used a multiple imputation procedure in which we created five new imputed datasets and used the pooled estimates. The pooled estimates indicated significant differences among the four groups at all three waves: F(3, 226) ⫽ 7.14, p ⬍ .001; F(3, 226) ⫽ 2.86, p ⫽ .04; and F(3, 226) ⫽ 4.41, p ⫽ .005, respectively. Post hoc tests using the Games–Howell method, which is appropriate for unequal samples sizes, revealed a somewhat different picture. At W1, consistent with their levels of family conflict at W1, the increased group had lower distress than both the large-decrease (Mdiff ⫽ ⫺.60, SE ⫽ .15, p ⬍ .05) and moderate-decrease (Mdiff ⫽ ⫺.41, SE ⫽ .14, p ⬍ .05) groups, and the stable group had lower distress than the large-decrease group (Mdiff ⫽ ⫺.42, SE ⫽ .11, p ⬍ .05). At W2, none of the groups differed significantly from one another, although the direction of the differences and the rank order of the four groups were the same as in W1. Finally, at W3 there was only one difference, with the increased group reporting lower distress than the large-decrease group (Mdiff ⫽ ⫺.64, SE ⫽ .19, p ⬍ .05), although as with W2, the same general pattern of results held. Taken together, these findings are the opposite of what we hypothesized: It was the groups that showed decreases in conflict, rather than increases, that reported greater distress.

Discussion The purpose of the present study was to investigate how the frequency of parent– child conflict changes over time for young adults in college. Using GBTM, we took into account individual variability by exploring different trajectories of conflict. Ultimately, four trajectories emerged, illustrating the heterogeneity of students’ experience with parent– child conflict. All four trajectories had significantly different initial levels and rates of change of parent– child conflict. The largest group of students (65%) demonstrated a stable trajectory with maintained low levels of parent– child conflict over the course of the study. Given that the majority of students fell in this trajectory, this finding suggests that many parent– child relationships may be relatively unchanging over time (Rossi & Rossi, 1990). The remainder of the students, however, demonstrated patterns of change in parent– child conflict. In fact, almost 10% of the sample reported significant increases in parent– child conflict, and the remainder (25%) reported decreases in conflict. The second aim of the study was to explore how individual differences were related to the parent– child conflict trajectories. Similar to past studies exploring mean-level gender differences, we found no gender differences in trajectory-group membership (Lee et al., 2000; Lefkowitz, 2005). It is possible that no gender differences were found due to the specific measure of parent– child conflict used in this study. The FSF–Short Form (Bahrassa et al., 2011) taps into lifestyle and value differences between parents and children, whereas other parent– child conflict measures assess more everyday conflict (Juang et al., 2012). Lifestyle and value differences may be less gendered types of conflict than conflicts over dating and marriage expectations, for instance (Chung, 2001).



Although past research has indicated that both race and immigrant status are related to family conflict, these two social position factors are often conflated. Given the nature of value-based conflicts between parents and their children, we hypothesized that variations by immigrant status would account for any observed racial differences. In contrast, our findings indicated that both race and immigrant status were independently associated with trajectory-group membership, although the results for immigrant status were more robust. In terms of race, the finding that Asian Americans were more likely to be in the increased versus stable group relative to Whites is largely consistent with past research. Thus, regardless of immigrant-generational status, Asian Americans seem to have more changing parental relationships during college than do Whites. A much stronger finding is that individuals with one or more immigrant parents were more likely to experience change in the parent– child relationship than those with no immigrant parents. This is the first study to our knowledge that has demonstrated that the trajectory of parent– child conflict may be different for students with immigrant parents. Some researchers have suggested that U.S.-born children grow up with an expectation of greater autonomy than their immigrant parents, who often maintain more hierarchical family structures (Fuligni, 1998; Lui, 2015). The differences in initial levels of conflict correspond with cross-sectional research demonstrating that children in these families face more parent– child conflict, possibly because of acculturation mismatch (Chen, Greenberger, Lester, Dong & Guo, 1998; Lui, 2015). This study’s findings also support the idea that life transitions present the opportunity for change in important relationships (Grotevant & Cooper, 1986). It may be that the new opportunities for autonomy and self-development during college promotes greater reexamination of the parent– child relationship for the children of immigrants as they attempt to reconcile the culture at home and the culture in college. The third aim of the study was to understand how the trajectory groups were related to psychological distress. Our hypotheses followed from a basic understanding of how conflict and distress seem to interact: that less conflict would be related to less distress (Lui, 2015). Our results, however, suggest a much more complex association between trajectories and distress. The increasedconflict group, which began at low levels of conflict, also reported low levels of distress. Rather than distress increasing along with family conflict, levels of distress remained essentially stable. Likewise, for those groups whose levels of conflict decreased, there was no concomitant decrease in distress; rather, their levels of distress remained significantly higher. Although this finding was unexpected, past longitudinal work on family-conflict trajectories in adolescence has revealed evidence for complex, reciprocal relations between conflict and psychological functioning (Juang et al., 2012). It is quite possible that conflict and functioning do not operate in lock-step with one another. It may be the case that the impact of parent– child conflict on mental health is delayed rather than immediate. Similarly, the reduction of conflict does not necessarily indicate that the individual is no longer bothered by the events of the past. These are intriguing findings and hypotheses that point to the importance of continued longitudinal work on parent– child conflict, and in particular, studies that span a longer time frame. Past research on parent– child conflict clearly demonstrates its impact on health, well-being, and academic success (Bahrassa et al., 2011; Juang et al., 2012; Lee & Liu, 2001; Lui,

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2015), but how these relations play out over time remains largely unknown.

Limitations, Future Directions, and Conclusion This study is one of the few studies to our knowledge with longitudinal data examining parent– child conflict during the years in college. This study is strengthened by its data-driven approach to developing conflict trajectories using GBTM. It is important to note, there was missing data in this study due to attrition (58%), a common issue in longitudinal data collection. Attrition was addressed in this study by using full maximum likelihood functions to fit models based on the available data. In addition, no differences were found when we conducted analyses with the full sample, the sample without attrition, which we consider an important finding. In terms of other limitations, data for this study were collected only from college students and therefore may not generalize to the experiences of other young adults. This study used only the child’s perspective of conflict; incorporating the parent’s perspective into analyses may provide additional information about this relational experience. Though past research has suggested that moving out of the family home can relieve family relational tension, we were unable to differentiate between these students in our sample and did not collect information on frequency of contact with parents (Grotevant & Cooper, 1986). In addition, we were able to compare Asian American and White students but did not have sufficient sampling to disaggregate the other student-of-color populations. Other individual and social context variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, getting married, or becoming a parent) might also play a role in the trajectories of parent– child relationships during the young adult years (Mayseless & Hai, 1998). Given our definition of time as uncorrelated with year in school or age, we made no attempt in this study to describe developmental changes in parent– child conflict, which is important to note. Because young adulthood represents a time ripe with opportunities for the examination of the self and the parent– child relationship (e.g., romantic relationships, career exploration, leaving home, etc.), developmental changes in conflict are an important area of future exploration. Nevertheless, this study’s most important finding is the identification of differing conflict trajectories for the children of immigrants and suggests that future research is necessary to uncover the mechanisms of these differences. In summary, most young adults in college experience low levels of conflict with parents and this conflict is relatively stable over time. However, there is an important subset of students who experience change in frequency of conflict with their parents during these years. This change appears to be more common in immigrant than in nonimmigrant families, perhaps as a result of greater discontinuity between home and college contexts. Counseling professionals may find that focusing on the changes in the parent– child relationship during the college years for clients from immigrant families is particularly helpful. Encouraging children of immigrant parents to explore and integrate the home and college context may be a vital intervention in promoting positive change in the parent– child relationship.


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Received November 20, 2014 Revision received March 12, 2015 Accepted March 12, 2015 䡲