2025 Theses Doctoral

Parent-Child Language Gaps and Empathic Accuracy in Conflict Discussions: A Mixed Methods Study of Bilingual Chinese Immigrant Parent-Child Dyads

Huang, Cindy J.

Chinese immigrant families in the United States are often bilingual, defined as having the knowledge of two languages (e.g., English and a heritage language such as Chinese) and using those languages in everyday life with varying proficiency levels for each language. These varying proficiency levels in both languages, otherwise termed language gaps (i.e., language matches or mismatches), have been shown to impact parent-child relationships. Language gaps may contribute to communication difficulties and increased family conflict during middle childhood (roughly ages 6-12), which places school-age children at increased risk for poorer psychological outcomes.

Some of these communication challenges may be due to differences in empathic accuracy, defined as the degree to which a person accurately infers another person’s thoughts and feelings. Chinese immigrant parents and children who misinterpret one another’s emotions and demonstrate lower empathic accuracy may experience increased family conflict. Observations of conflict discussions are necessary to explore these constructs in real time, but many existing studies have not been able to examine parent-child conflict discussions as they occur due to the sensitive nature of these conversations, and especially not in bilingual Chinese immigrant families.

Utilizing multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks and multi-informant perspectives, this dissertation study used a convergent mixed methods design to examine how English and Chinese language proficiency gaps (i.e., match/mismatch) among Chinese immigrant parents and their school-age children are associated with parent-child empathic accuracy and evaluations of their conflict discussion. This study had two aims: 1) examine how parent-child language proficiency gaps in English and Chinese are associated with parent and child empathic accuracy and conflict evaluations, and 2) identify examples and patterns of conversational practices used between parents and children during the conflict discussions to corroborate the aforementioned relationships.

Participants in the quantitative portion of the study were the full sample of 169 children between the ages of 7-11 (M = 9.16 years, SD = 1.05) and one of their parents (Mage = 40.93 years, SD = 4.88). Parents completed self-report questionnaires and interviews indicating their demographic information as well as parent and child language proficiency, and both parents and children self-reported their empathic accuracy and conflict evaluation ratings. Participants in the qualitative portion of the study (n = 9) were identified from the full sample using random sampling based on the parent-child language match (i.e., match in low Chinese proficiency, match in high Chinese proficiency, match in low English proficiency, match in high English proficiency).

To examine how parent-child language proficiency gaps in English and Chinese are associated with parent and child empathic accuracy and conflict evaluations, Response Surface Analysis (RSA) plots were utilized to examine the nonlinear relationships between parent-child language proficiency on the outcomes of interest. Path analyses using structural equation modeling examined the mediating role of parent-child empathic accuracy on the associations between parent-child language proficiency in English and Chinese and their conflict evaluations. To identify examples of conversational practices used between parents and children in conflict discussions, Conversation Analysis, an applied linguistics methodology, was used to identify themes of conversational practices that helped to explain the quantitative results.

Results through Response Surface Analysis (RSA) plots indicated that 1) compared to parent-child dyads with match in low English proficiency, parents in parent-child dyads who matched at higher levels of English proficiency exhibited higher levels of empathic accuracy, 2) compared to parent-child dyads in which parent English proficiency is higher than the child’s English proficiency, parents in parent-child dyads in which child English proficiency was higher than parent English proficiency exhibited higher levels of empathic accuracy, and 3) among parent-child dyads who matched at higher levels of English proficiency, children exhibited higher levels of empathic accuracy than among parent-child dyads who matched at lower levels of English proficiency. Path analyses results indicated that children with higher English proficiency reported a more positive conflict evaluation when their parents exhibited greater empathic accuracy. Conversation Analysis (CA) was used to identify the conversational practices that parents and children used during the conflict discussions that corroborated the quantitative findings. The integration of quantitative and qualitative findings identified domains and themes of conversational practices that help to explain parents’ greater empathic accuracy and children’s more positive conflict evaluations.

These findings have implications for future research and interventions addressing parent-child relationships and communication in bilingual Chinese immigrant families. Attention to the language gap and use among bilingual Chinese immigrant parents and their school-age children may generate more insight into immigrant family dynamics and culturally relevant ways to strengthen parent-child relationship quality within these families.