<p>Parenting has been associated with emerging-adult children’s outcomes in the extent to which the emerging adults recognize that their parents still have legitimate authority in exerting parental control over their lives. The current study posited a mediated moderation model to examine the moderating role of legitimate authority between ethnicity, and the relation between perception of psychological control and emerging-adult self-esteem. The study recruited 684 undergraduate students (474 women, 208 men, 1 transgender, 1 other) of Asian-American or European-American backgrounds. Responses inquiring about emerging-adults’ perception of parental legitimate authority and parental psychological control as well as emerging-adults’ self-reported self-esteem were subsequently taken. Results suggested that (a) Asian-American emerging adults reported higher levels of perceived parental psychological control and perceived legitimate authority than did European-American emerging adults, (b) European-American emerging adults reported higher levels of self-reported self-worth than did Asian-American emerging adults, and (c) perceived parental psychological control was negatively associated with self-reported self-worth. Further, findings from a mediated moderation analysis provided partial support of the hypotheses. As predicted, the negative association between perceived parental psychological control and self-reported self-worth was stronger for European-Americans compared to Asian-Americans. However, perceived legitimate authority moderated the relation between emerging-adults’ perceived parental psychological control and self-reported self-worth in the opposite direction of effect from <i>what was predicted.</i> Implications and future directions are discussed.</p>