As a first-generation college student grown up in poverty and an international student, I experienced many of the challenges facing low-income, immigrant, and minority families, such as discrimination, economic stress, to name a few. I am fortunate to have the “prize” of supportive parents and caring teachers that lead to my academic success and happiness. I want to help others from marginalized groups to receive their “prize” to flourish. Thus, my research aims to comprehensively understand how environmental (e.g., sociocultural, family, community, school, and peer) and biological factors (e.g., diseases) influence child and adolescent development, focusing on underrepresented populations, including ethnic minorities, immigrants, low-income families, and families with genetic disorders. My ultimate goal is to evaluate and develop community-based intervention programs personalized to these marginalized groups to promote their wellbeing. Currently, I have three primary lines of research.
My first research line aims to understand how contextual stressors (e.g., discrimination) influence adolescent development among ethnic minority and low-income families. My work demonstrates that family processes (e.g., marital relationship, parent-child relationship, parenting, racial socialization) play important roles in mediating or moderating the link between contextual stressors and adolescent adjustment (Hou, Kim, Hazen, & Benner, 2017; Hou, Kim, & Wang, 2016; Kim, Hou, & Gonzalez, 2017; Varner et al., 2018). My work also highlights the importance of considering the family as an interdependent unit and including multiple family members in studying family processes as family members can influence each other through family processes (Hou et al., 2017; Hou, Neff, & Kim, 2018). For example, fathers who experienced more discrimination exhibited more depressive symptoms, which were related to greater maternal hostility toward adolescents, which in turn related to higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms and delinquent behaviors (Hou et al., 2017).
A common and challenging methodological issue in studying family processes is that different family members often report discordant information on the same family aspect. My second research line sheds light on this issue by examining the patterns, antecedents, and consequences of parent-adolescent discordance in their reports of family processes (e.g., parenting, parent-child relationships, racial socialization). My work suggests that parent-adolescent discordance in perceptions of family processes can be systematically predicted and have significant implications for adolescent outcomes (Chen et al., 2021; Hou et al., 2020; Hou, Kim, & Benner, 2018). For example, in my meta-analytic study receiving the Early Career Outstanding Paper Award (Hou et al., 2020, American Psychologistopens in new window), I found that the levels of parent-adolescent discordance in reports of parenting were higher for younger adolescents, males, those in more individualistic societies, and those from ethnic minority groups, low-socioeconomic status families, or non-intact families; I also identified main findings regarding how parenting discordance related to adolescent outcomes and compared the limitations and strengths of main methodological approaches in studying this issue. This line of research highlights that parent-adolescent discordance in reports of parenting should not be discarded as merely measurement error; instead, such discordance has substantive meaning. The findings have broad implications for social science methodology concerning how to interpret and handle informant discordance. The results also have clinical applications as family therapists and clinicians can use the information to better decide how to use parent and adolescent reports and to target families with higher levels of parent-adolescent discordance for preventive interventions.
My third research line aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of neurobehavioral development (i.e., cognitive, academic, socio-emotional, and behavioral development) in children and adolescents with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) by applying innovative methodologies. My project, recently funded by the Department of Defense, uses integrative data analysis to combine over ten neuropsychological datasets collected with performance-based and observer-reported standardized assessments in children with NF1 (ages 2-18). I will use innovative statistical approaches (e.g., time-varying effect modeling, latent profile analysis) to analyze the combined dataset to provide much-needed information, such as 1) neurobehavioral trajectories across age, 2) phenotypic subpopulations with various neurobehavioral profiles, and 3) demographic (e.g., race, SES), environmental (e.g., family coping strategies), and biological (e.g., tumors) predictors of neurobehavioral functions. Knowledge from this line of work will be critical for guiding future patient management and informing future intervention studies and policies related to the NF1 population.”
References
Chen, S., Jelsma, E., Hou, Y., Benner, A., & Kim, S. Y. (2021). Antecedents and consequences of discrepant perceptions of racial socialization between parents and adolescents within Mexican-origin families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 50(12), 2412-2426.
Hou, Y., Benner, A. D., Kim, S. Y., Chen, S., Spitz, S., Shi, Y., & Beretvas, T. (2020). Discordance in parents’ and adolescents’ reports of parenting: A meta-analysis and qualitative review. American Psychologist, 75(3), 329-348.
Hou, Y., Kim, S. Y., & Benner, A. D. (2018). Parent-adolescent discrepancies in reports of parenting and adolescent outcomes in Mexican immigrant families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(2), 430-444.
Hou, Y., Kim, S. Y., Hazen, N., & Benner, A. D. (2017). Parents' perceived discrimination and adolescent adjustment in Chinese American families: Mediating family processes. Child Development, 88(1), 317-331.
Hou, Y., Kim, S. Y., & Wang, Y. (2016). Parental acculturative stressors and adolescent adjustment through interparental and parent-child relationships in Chinese American families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(7), 1466-1481.
Hou, Y., Neff, L. A., & Kim, S. Y. (2018). Language Acculturation, Acculturation‐Related Stress, and Marital Quality in Chinese American Couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(2), 555-568.
Kim, S. Y., Hou, Y., & Gonzalez, Y. (2017). Language brokering and depressive symptoms in Mexican‐American adolescents: Parent-child alienation and resilience as moderators. Child Development, 88(3), 867-881.
Varner, F. A., Hou, Y., Hodzic, T., Hurd, N. M., Butler-Barnes, S. T., & Rowley, S. J. (2018). Racial discrimination experiences and African American youth adjustment: The role of parenting profiles based on racial socialization and involved-vigilant parenting. Cultural Diversity Ethnic Minority Psychology, 24(2), 173.