Respect based on age and parental psychological control as risk factors for drinking among Korean middle school adolescents in Seoul

We examined whether the cultural value of respect based on age was indirectly associated with adolescents' drinking <i>via</i> parental psychological control and whether gender differences existed. Korean adolescents (<i>N</i> = 354, 13-16 years old, 207 female-identified) attending a middle school in Seoul participated in an innovative online survey. Measures included the Respect Based on Age Scale developed for this study, an established scale of parental psychological control, and drinking frequency in the past year. Structural Equation Modeling results revealed that respect based on age was positively associated with both dependency-oriented (DPC) and achievement-oriented psychological control (APC), which were in turn positively associated with drinking frequency. These results suggest that both respect based on age and parental psychological control may be risk factors for Korean adolescents' drinking. We uncovered subtlety in the common belief that respect based on age pervades Korean culture, as Korean adolescents simultaneously held two contradictory beliefs: respect should be based on age and also should not be based on age. Moreover, female-identified adolescents felt more bound by the cultural value of respect based on age than did male-identified adolescents, and female-identified adolescents also felt more controlled by primary caregivers than did male-identified adolescents. When male-identified adolescents believed that respect did not come with age, they reported less APC than female-identified adolescents. These results highlight cultural and familial risk factors for Korean adolescents' drinking and gender-based adolescent development in Korea.