Cultural socialization attitudes and behaviors: Examining mothers' centrality, discrimination experiences, and children's effortful control as moderators

Objectives: The current study examined whether mothers' cultural socialization attitudes predicted cultural socialization behaviors. In addition, we tested whether this association was moderated by children's effortful control, mothers' ethnic-racial centrality, and mothers' experiences of ethnic discrimination. Method: Mexican-origin young mothers (N = 181; M_age = 20.97 years) completed the Cultural Socialization Attitudes Measure, a revised version of the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity, the Child Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form, and the Perceived Discrimination Scale during an interview and then completed the Cultural Socialization Behaviors Measure a year later. Results: Findings indicated that mothers' cultural socialization attitudes when their children were 4 years of age positively predicted their cultural socialization behaviors 1 year later. Furthermore, experiencing higher ethnic discrimination strengthened the association between mothers' cultural socialization attitudes and behaviors. In addition, mothers' ethnic-racial centrality and children's effortful control were positively associated with mothers' cultural socialization behaviors. Conclusions: These findings contribute to the literature by underscoring the role of individual characteristics and context in cultural socialization efforts with young children over time.