Professor Ng received a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education (CRCDE) of New York University and the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is currently an Associate Director of the CUHK Brain and Mind Institute and an Associate Editor of the journal Child Development.

Research interests include parenting, motivation and achievement, culture and socialization, and early childhood development.

My research focuses on the following questions:

1. What roles do parents play in children’s learning and achievement in school? How may parental academic socialization contribute to children’s beliefs about learning? How may parenting practices such as parental involvement and responses to children’s performance shape children’s academic functioning and performance?
   
2. What are the factors that underlie parenting practices in the academic realm? How may these practices be guided by parenting cognitions, such as parents’ socialization goals and beliefs about their role in children’s learning? How may parents’ ego-involvement in children’s learning and performance shape their parenting practices and their own emotional functioning?
   
3. In what ways do parenting cognitions and practices as well as their implications for children vary according to children’s characteristics, such as gender and achievement level? How do these parenting processes change as children grow older and why?
   
4. How may parenting cognitions and practices differ among parents who come from different backgrounds? For example, how may dominant values of a country or an ethnic group shape parents’ socialization goals and practices? How may socioeconomic status and immigrant status influence parents’ attitudes toward children’s learning and their expectations for children’s achievement?

1. Zhang, M., Ng, F. F., Hong, Y. Y., Wei, J., & Liu, R.-D. (in press). My child and I: Self- and child-reference effects among parents with self-worth contingent on children’s performance. Memory.
2. Wei, J., Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, F. F., Yu, Y., Wang, M., & Wang, Q. (2022). Do the effects of parents’ involvement on youth’s academic adjustment vary with youth’s developmental phase? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 71, 102118.
3. Zhang, M. & Ng, F. F. (2022). Chinese adolescents’ perceptions of parental socialization goals: Variations by ethnicity and gender. Journal of Early Adolescence, 42, 995 - 1025.
4. Ng, J., Ng, F. F., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2021). Mothers’ goals influence their responses to children’s performance: An experimental study in the United States and Hong Kong. Child Development, 92, 2317 - 2334.
5. Qu. Y., Rompilla, D., Wang, Q., & Ng, F. F. (2020). Youth’s negative stereotypes of teen emotionality: Reciprocal relations with emotional functioning in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49, 2003 - 2019.
6. Ng, F. F. (2021). Is it love or maltreatment? Parenting from a cultural lens. In M. Wong, L. Weiner, J. Cerniak, & L. T. S. Yee (Eds.), Incorporating diversity in classroom settings: Real and engaging examples for various psychology courses. (Vol. 1, pp. 126-131). Society for the Teaching of Psychology.
7. Wei, J., Sze., I., Ng, F. F., & Pomerantz, E. M. (2020). Parents’ responses to their children’s performance: A process examination in the United States and China. Developmental Psychology, 56, 2331 - 2344.
8. Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, J., & Ng, F. F. (2020). The role of culture in parents’ responses to children’s performance: the case of the West and East Asia. In E. Brummelman (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on praise. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
9. Xu, C., Ellefson, M., Ng, F. F., Wang, Q., & Hughes, C. (2020). An East-West contrast in executive function: Measurement invariance of computerized tasks in school-aged children and adolescents. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 199, 104929.
10. Ellefson, M. R., Zachariou, A., Ng, F. F., Wang, Q., & Hughes, C. (2020). Do executive functions mediate the link between socioeconomic status and numeracy skills? A cross-site comparison of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 194, 104734.
11. Ng, F. F., & Wei, J. (2020). Delving into the minds of Chinese parents: What beliefs motivate their learning-related practices? Child Development Perspectives, 14, 61-67.
12. Qu, Y., Pomerantz, E. M., Wang, Q., & Ng, F. F. (2020). Early adolescents’ stereotypes about teens in Hong Kong and Chongqing: Reciprocal pathways with problem behavior. Developmental Psychology, 56, 1092-1106.
13. Gutierrez, B. C., Halim, M. L. D., Ng, F. F., Kwak, K., Ortiz-Cubias, S., Cheng, G. Y.-L., & Sze, I. (2020). Gendered appearances among young children and in the media: An East-West cultural comparison. Sex Roles, 82, 306-320.
14. Ng, J., Xiong, Y., Qu, Y., Cheung, C., Ng, F. F., Wang, M. & Pomerantz, E. M. (2019). Implications of Chinese and American mothers' goals for children’s emotional distress. Developmental Psychology, 55, 2616 - 2629.
15. Suh, D., Liang, E., Ng, F. F., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2019). Children’s block-building skills and mother-child block-building interactions across four U.S. ethnic groups. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1626.
16. Wei, J., Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, F. F., Yu, Y., Wang, M., & Wang, Q. (2019). Why does parents’ involvement in youth’s learning vary across elementary, middle, and high school? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 56, 262-274.
17. Ng, F. F. & Wang, Q. (2019). Asian and Asian American parenting. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of Parenting. Vol. 4. Special Conditions and Applied Parenting (3rd ed., pp. 108-169). New York: Routledge, 2019. doi:https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429398995/chapters/10.4324/9780429398995-4
18. Ng, F. F., Pomerantz, E. M., Lam, S. F., & Deng, C. (2019). The role of mothers’ child-based worth in their affective responses to children’s performance. Child Development, 90, e165-181.
19. Ng, F. F., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Sze, I. (2018). Parenting among mainland Chinese immigrant mothers in Hong Kong. In S. S. Chuang & C. Costigan (Eds.), Advances in Immigrant Family Research: An International Approach to Parenting and Parent-Child Relationships in Immigrant Families. New York: Springer.
20. Ng, F. F., Sze, I., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Ruble, D. (2017). Immigrant Chinese mothers’ socialization of achievement in children: A strategic adaptation to the host society. Child Development, 88, 979-995.
21. Ellefson, M. R., Ng, F. F., Wang, Q., & Hughes, C. (2017). Efficiency of executive function: A two-generation cross-cultural comparison of samples from Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Psychological Science, 28, 555-566.
22. Ng, F. F., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Yoshikawa, H., & Sze, I. (2015). Inhibitory control in preschool as a predictor of early math skills in first grade: Evidence from an ethnically diverse and immigrant sample. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39, 139-149.
23. Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, F. F., Cheung, C. S., & Qu, Y. (2014). Raising happy children who succeed in school: Lessons from China and the United States. Child Development Perspective, 8, 71-76.
24. Ng, F. F., Pomerantz, E. M., & Deng, C. (2014). Why are Chinese parents more psychologically controlling than American parents? “My child is my report card.” Child Development, 85, 355-369.
25. Ng, F. F., Pomerantz, E. M., & Lam, S. F. (2013). Mothers’ beliefs about children’s learning in Hong Kong and the United States: Implications for mothers’ child-based worth. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37, 387-394.
26. Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, F. F., & Wang, Q. (2008). Culture, parenting, and motivation: The case of East Asia and the United States. In M. L. Maehr, S. A. Karabenick, & T. C. Urdan (Eds.), Advances in Motivation and Achievement: Social Psychological Perspectives (Vol. 15, pp. 209-240). Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing.
27. Ng, F. F., Pomerantz, E. M., & Lam, S. F. (2007). European American and Chinese Parents’ Responses to Children’s Success and Failure: Implications for Children’s Responses. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1239-1255.