American and Chinese college students (N = 256) reported their earliest childhood memory on a memory questionnaire and provided self-descriptions on a shortened 20 Statements Test (M. H. Kuhn & T. S. McPartland, 1954). The average age at earliest memory of Americans was almost 6 months earlier than that of Chinese. Americans reported lengthy, specific, self-focused, and emotionally elaborate memories; they also placed emphasis on individual attributes in describing themselves. Chinese provided brief accounts of childhood memories centering on collective activities, general routines, and emotionally neutral events; they also included a great number of social roles in their self-descriptions. Across the entire sample, individuals who described themselves in more self-focused and positive terms provided more specific and self-focused memories. Findings are discussed in light of the interactive relation between autobiographical memory and cultural self-construal. When asked to think of her earliest childhood memory, a Harvard undergraduate wrote down the following episode that happened when she was about 3 years old: I remember standing in my aunt's spacious blue bedroom and looking up at the ceiling. Then something caught my eye-it was the white wainscoting that bordered the top of the wall with the ceiling. I remember staring, fixated with its intricate design. And while I was doing this, all of sudden, I had an epiphany, a sort [of] realization. It was almost my first realization of a sense of "self." Because, as I was staring at the ceiling, I realized that no one else was around. I remember being taken aback by the ability to amuse myself without any toys. This memory presents us with a vivid picture: At the moment of the episode, a child shows the capability of being consciously aware of herself as a physical and psychological being independent from the environment, and of the existence of the self both as subject with active agency and as object that can be acted on or influenced by the surroundings. This emerging sense of conscious self-identity is a cornerstone to many cognitive advances that emerge during this early period of life, including the onset of autobiographical memory, which is built around conscious episodic reflection (Foulkes, 1999). This research was supported by grants from the Department of Psychology, Harvard University. I thank Michelle D. Leichtman and Sheldon H. White for their comments on an earlier version of this article. I am deeply grateful to Mike Ross for his generous help during the revision process. Special thanks go to the participants from Beijing University and Harvard University, who made this study possible.

This study examined the emergence of cultural self-constructs as reflected in children's remembered and conceptual aspects of the self. European American and Chinese children in preschool through 2nd grade participated (N=180). Children each recounted 4 autobiographical events and described themselves in response to open-ended questions. American children often provided elaborate and detailed memories focusing on their own roles, preferences, and feelings; they also frequently described themselves in terms of personal attributes, abstract dispositions, and inner traits in a positive light. Chinese children provided relatively skeletal accounts of past experiences that centered on social interactions and daily routines, and they often described themselves in terms of social roles, context-specific characteristics, and oven behaviors in a neutral or modest tone. Findings are discussed in light of the self as a constructed meaning system of culture that emerges early in life.

This study explores the functional variations in mother-child conversations of emotionally salient events in European-American and Chinese families. Thirty Chinese and 31 European-American 3-year-old children and their mothers participated.Mothers were asked to discuss with their children at home two specific one-point-intime events in which they both participated. One event was extremely positive to the child, one extremely stressful. American mothers initiated more interactive and elaborative conversations that focused on the child's roles and predilections in the story, and they employed a 'cognitive approach' to emotional regulation by providing explanations for the cause of children's feeling states. Chinese mothers took a directive role in posing and repeating memory questions and focusing on social interaction, and they used a 'behavioral approach' to emotional regulation by emphasizing discipline and proper conduct to their children. Findings are discussed in light of cultural influences on the functions of emotional reminiscing for self and relationship construction and emotional regulation.

One hundred and eight European American and Chinese adults, aged between 38 and 60, participated in this questionnaire study. They each recalled 20 memories from any period of their lives. Memory content was analyzed as a function of culture (U.S. and China), life period (childhood, youth, early midlife, and peak midlife), and gender (female and male). Across the four life periods, Americans provided more memories of individual experiences and unique, one-time events and focused on their own roles and emotions. In contrast, Chinese were more inclined to recall memories of social and historical events and placed a great emphasis on social interactions and significant others in their memory narratives. Chinese also more frequently drew upon past events to convey moral messages than did Americans. In addition, memory content evidenced age-related increases in both autonomous and social orientations. Findings are discussed in light of the self-definitional and directive functions of Autobiographical memory in the context of culture.

This research examined the relations of social media addiction to college students' mental health and academic performance, investigated the role of self-esteem as a mediator for the relations, and further tested the effectiveness of an intervention in reducing social media addiction and its potential adverse outcomes. In Study 1, we used a survey method with a sample of college students (N = 232) and found that social media addiction was negatively associated with the students' mental health and academic performance and that the relation between social media addiction and mental health was mediated by self-esteem. In Study 2, we developed and tested a two-stage self-help intervention program. We recruited a sample of college students (N = 38) who met criteria for social media addiction to receive the intervention. Results showed that the intervention was effective in reducing the students’ social media addiction and improving their mental health and academic efficiency. The current studies yielded original findings that contribute to the empirical database on social media addiction and that have important theoretical and practical implications.

Wang, Q., & Song, Q. (2014). "Did you apologize?" Moral talk in European American and Chinese immigrant mother-child conversations of peer experiences. In C. Wainryb & H. Recchia (Eds.), Talking about right and wrong: Parent-child conversations as contexts for moral development (pp. 217-241

American and Chinese mothers were asked to talk with their 3-year-old children at home about two shared past events and a story (41 mother-child dyads). Results revealed between-culture variation in the content and style of mother-child conversations when sharing memories and telling stories. American mothers and children showed a high-elaborative, independently oriented conversational style in which they co-constructed their memories and stories by elaborating on each other's responses and focusing on the child's personal predilections and opinions. In contrast, Chinese Mother-child dyads employed a low-elaborative, interdependently oriented conversational style where mothers frequently posed and repeated factual questions and showed great concern with moral rules and behavioural standards with their children. Findings suggest that children's early social-linguistic environments shape autobiographical remembering and contribute to cultural differences in the age and content of earliest childhood memories.

This study examined in a cross-cultural context mothers' discussions of mental states and external behaviors in a story-telling task with their 3-year-old children and the relations of such discussions to children's emotion situation knowledge (ESK). The participants were 71 European American and 60 Chinese immigrant mother-child pairs in the U.S. Mothers and children read a storybook together at home, and children's ESK was assessed. Results showed that European American mothers made more references to thoughts and emotions during storytelling than did Chinese mothers, who commented more frequently on behaviors. Regardless of culture, mothers' use of mental states language predicted children's ESK, whereas their references to behaviors were negatively related to children's ESK. Finally, mothers' emphasis on mental states over behaviors partially mediated cultural effects on children's ESK.Children's understanding of emotions has emerged as an important foundation for a range of adaptive behaviors related to social competence and school readiness (Denham, 2006;Izard et al., 2001). The development of the abilities to grasp the causes and consequences of one's own as well as others' emotions begins early. Children start to use basic emotional terms at about 20 months (Bretherton, McNew, & Beeghly-Smith, 1981), and are able to match emotional terms with facial expressions at age 2 (Russell & Bullock, 1986). During the preschool years, children come to be increasingly adept at understanding the situational antecedents of feeling states and can identify individual emotions and the situations that provoke them (Denham, 1986;Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991;Harris, Olthof, Terwogt, & Hardman, 1987). Furthermore, preschoolers have come to understand how perception, desire, and emotion are related in a causal way (Wellman, Phillips, & Rodriguez, 2000), and how thinking about past situations can influence current emotions (Lagattuta & Wellman, 2001).A burgeoning field of research has focused on early socialization as playing a critical role in children's developing emotional understanding (Denham, 1993;Dunn, Bretherton, & Munn, 1987;Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991;Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Specifically, parent-child conversations about emotions and mental states have been shown to be pivotal in predicting children's later understanding of emotion (Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991;Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008. Most of these studies, however, have focused on children of European descent. Less is known about the socialization of emotional understanding in different cultural contexts and its implications for developmental outcomes. In this study, we examined early narrative practices in European American and Chinese immigrant families in the U.S. and the impact of these practices on children's developing emotion situation knowledge. Socialization of Emotional UnderstandingIn general, collaborative conversations rich in mentalistic terms with adults, peers and siblings may aid children...