Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: This study attempted to provide a better understanding of how two distinct aspects of intergenerational conflict - the indigenous aspect and the acculturation aspect - contribute to depression among Korean American adolescents. The indigenous aspect referred to the typical intergenerational conflict experienced by American adolescents due to their phase of development. The acculturation aspect examined unique manifestations of conflict related to the acculturation process of immigrant families. No scale that measured the acculturation aspect of intergenerational conflict existed. Thus, a new scale was developed to investigate this unique aspect. The study also investigated a direct and moderating effect of ethnic identity on the relationship between intergenerational conflict due to acculturation and depression.

Methods: The study design was cross-sectional, and employed a convenience sampling method. Participants were Korean American adolescents, 14 to18 years old. A pilot study was conducted to clarify any ambiguities or misunderstanding from the questionnaire and to psychometrically evaluate a new scale developed to measure acculturative conflict. The primary study was conducted at eleven Korean churches and one hakwon (private out-of-school studies institute) in Fairfax County, Virginia. A total of 138 cases were analyzed for the primary study. The administered self-report scales were as follow: the Intergenerational Conflict due to Development scale; the Intergenerational Conflict due to Acculturation scale; the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure; the Iowa Form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies for Depression; and the demographic measure. Age, gender, and length of residency were used as control variables.

Results: The results indicated that both aspects of intergenerational conflict, acculturation and indigenous, and also ethnic identity were significantly correlated with depression (r=.02, p<.05, r=.35, p<.01, r=-.24, p<.01, respectively). However, the results of hierarchical multiple regression after influential case deletion indicated that only acculturative conflict and ethnic identity remained strong predictors of depression (ß=.58, p<.001, and ß=-.29, p<.001, respectively). It revealed that intergenerational conflict due to acculturation, but not the indigenous aspect of intergenerational conflict, had a unique contribution to the explanation of depression. The results also showed that a strong Korean ethnic identity was associated with lower depressive symptoms. In addition, the interaction of acculturative conflict with the ethnic identity, using moderated regression analysis, was found to be statistically significant (ß=-.72, p=.02), indicating that acculturative conflict has less damaging implications for symptom occurrence when ethnic identity is high.

Implications for practice: The findings in this study suggest that intergenerational conflict, due to cultural differences within Korean immigrant families, could result in depression among Korean American adolescents. The significant interaction effect also revealed that a strong sense of ethnic identity might alleviate the negative effect of experienced conflict on depression. These findings indicate that helping minority adolescents develop positive ethnic identities may improve their mental health, suggesting that ethnic identity development might also be used as a preventive strategy. Therefore, it is important to help immigrant families develop positive parent-child relationships and also to encourage adolescents to develop a strong sense of ethnic identity through programs and interventions.