Rules, legitimacy of parental authority, and obligation to obey in Chile, the Philippines, and the United States.

All cultures have a period when children learn to function autonomously and prepare to take on the roles they will have as adults (Schlegel, 1995). As they move from childhood to adulthood, adolescents demand, and parents grant them, increasing autonomy. The ability to function autonomously is a central task of adolescence, and all theoretical perspectives on adolescent socialization and development emphasize the problems associated with failure to successfully negotiate that passage (Zimmer-Gembeck and Collins, 2003). The construct of autonomy, however, is conceptually complex in that it is both multidimensional and strongly linked to other indicators of psychosocial functioning. For example, autonomy encompasses cognitive, behavioral, and emotional dimensions and includes adolescents’ behavioral self-regulation, aspects of identity development, and beliefs about parents as individuals separate from the self (Sessa and Steinberg, 1991). In addition, autonomy develops unevenly across different areas of individuals’ lives, even within specific dimensions. For example, an adolescent may be highly autonomous in sexual decision making, but be dependent on her parents in