Perceived Helicopter Parenting and Korean Emerging Adults' Psychological Adjustment: The Mediational Role of Parent-Child Affection and Pressure from Parental Career Expectations

Abstract

Examining helicopter parenting in a Confucian culture that values parental authority and involvement can extend previous helicopter parenting research that has mostly focused on a U.S. college student context. In this study, we aim to help clarify the mixed results in the literature regarding the psychological outcomes of helicopter parenting in emerging adulthood by examining the processes underlying the relationship between helicopter parenting and psychological adjustment in the Korean context. Using a diverse sample of Korean emerging adults, we investigated the relationships among perceived helicopter parenting, parent-child affection, pressure from parental career expectations, and psychological adjustment (depressive symptoms and life satisfaction). The data came from 562 Korean emerging adults (269 women and 293 men) aged 19-34 years who were either full-time students or unemployed and unmarried and had at least one living parent. The structural equation modeling used in this study revealed that higher levels of helicopter parenting were directly associated with greater depressive symptoms. Higher levels of helicopter parenting also had an indirect relationship with greater depressive symptoms through higher levels of pressure from parental career expectations. However, higher levels of helicopter parenting were indirectly linked to better psychological adjustment (fewer depressive symptoms, greater satisfaction with life) through higher levels of parent-child affection. Our results indicate that in the East Asian context, helicopter parenting could be related to both negative and positive psychological outcomes depending on the mediating factors.

Keywords: Depressive symptoms; Helicopter parenting; Korean emerging adults; Life satisfaction; Parent–child relationships.

Fig. 1

Measurement model: Standardized coefficients. Note: χ² (195) = 549.266, p < 0.001; TLI = 0.954; CFI = 0.961; RMSEA = 0.051. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001

Fig. 2

Structural model: Standardized coefficients and standard errors. Note. Standard errors are in parentheses. Dotted lines indicate non-significant paths. Controlling for children’s characteristics (gender, age, college student status, living with at least one parent) and parents’ characteristics (education, income) are not shown. χ² (297) = 685.85, p < 0.001; TLI = 0.949; CFI = 0.958; RMSEA = 0.048. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001