Perceived Parental Academic Expectations, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms in University Students: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Abstract

One of the major contributors to academic stress in adolescence and young adulthood is parental expectation, which is consistently identified as a potential contributor to mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and self-harm, across adolescent populations internationally (Steare et al., 2023). Previous evidence underscores the profound influence that parental expectations have on students’ academic paths, self-perceptions, and mental health outcomes (Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010; Pinquart & Ebeling, 2019). However, the nature and consequences of these expectations are not culturally uniform; they are deeply embedded in the personality, family structures, and societal values that differ significantly across national and ethnic contexts (Lansford et al., 2021; Hofmann & Hinton, 2014). A study shows that students from East Asian cultures (e.g., China, South Korea, and Japan), which emphasize fulfilling parental academic expectations grounded in Confucian heritage, often experience high levels of academic expectations and display more signs of anxiety and depressive symptoms (Tan & Yates, 2010). Existing studies on the influence of parental academic expectations mainly focused on younger populations, often overlooking the university students' demographic (Hangen et al., 2024). This study aims to offer a more comprehensive comparison of how perceived parental academic expectations affect anxiety and depressive symptoms among university students from collectivistic and individualistic cultures.