Parental behavioral control has been described as attempts to control a child's behavior through monitoring, limit setting, and creating rules that help the child learn to regulate his or her own behavior. Alternatively, parental psychological control has been described as attempts to control the child's psychological processes in order to control the child's behavior through love withdrawal, guilt induction, and attempts at controlling the child' s thoughts and feelings. Research investigating the impact of maternal behavioral control on adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms among African-American youth has resulted in conflicting findings, with some studies suggesting behavioral control may protect youth against depressive and disruptive symptoms and others showing no support for this notion. However, the relationship between maternal behavioral control and adolescent disruptive and depressive symptomatology may be moderated by several factors. Specifically, gender, ethnic identification of the adolescent, and the neighborhood context in which the adolescent is raised may moderate the impact of maternal behavioral control strategies. It continues to be unclear how psychological control is associated with adolescent symptomatology in African Americans and what impact these moderating variables might have on this relationship. Utilizing a cross-sectional design in a sample of 100 African American mother/child dyads recruited through pediatric facilities, local churches, and teen groups, this study will attempt 1) to examine the association between parental use of control (behavioral and psychological) and adolescent symptomatology (internalizing and externalizing) and 2) to investigate how gender, adolescent ethnic identity, and neighborhood environment moderate the relationship between maternal control and adolescent symptomatology.
