Child-rearing attitudes and behavioral inhibition in Chinese and Canadian toddlers: A cross-cultural study.

Abstract

Behavioral inhibition data were collected from samples of 2-year-olds from the People's Republic of China and Canada. Information on child-rearing attitudes and beliefs was obtained from mothers of the children. Chinese toddlers were significantly more inhibited than their Canadian counterparts. Inhibition was associated positively with mothers' punishment orientation and negatively with mothers' acceptance and encouragement of achievement in the Canadian sample. However, the directions of the relations were opposite in the Chinese sample; child inhibition was associated positively with mothers' warm and accepting attitudes and negatively with rejection and punishment orientation. The results indicated different adaptational meanings of behavioral inhibition across cultures. Developmental researchers have reported dramatic individual differences in behavioral reactions to novel social and nonsocial situations during infancy and toddlerhood (e.g.,

Does infancy matter? predicting social behavior from infant temperament

“…That is, there may have been less heterogeneity within that group compared to the group of highly reactive yet negative children. Second, the culture within which the children in our longitudinal study develop appears biased toward sociable, high approach motivated children as would be suggested by the findings of Chen et al (1998) discussed above. Infants and young children exhibiting these traits are more likely to be reinforced by parents and the environment around them, making it more likely that continuity would be the norm.…”

“…There is evidence to support such a contention from cross-cultural work completed by Rubin and colleagues. Chen et al (1998) asked parents in Mainland China and in a large city in Canada to rate the degree to which they felt shyness or inhibition was a positive or negative aspect of a child's personality. They found that Chinese parents saw inhibition as a positive aspect of a child's personality, while Canadian parents did not.…”

Autobiographical Memory and Culture

“…In contrast, in many East Asian cultures such as Korea, China, and Japan that put a premium on social harmony and group interests, emotion is often viewed as destructive or even dangerous to ongoing relationships and therefore needs to be strictly controlled. Asian parents are not preoccupied with facilitating emotional understanding in their children but emphasizing psychological discipline and behavioral standards (Chen et al, 1998;Wang, 2001b;. Accordingly, when conversing with their 3-year-olds about shared emotional experiences, Euro-American mothers often use an emotion-explaining style, frequently discussing the causes or consequences of children's feeling states and providing elaborate explanations as to why and how children experienced the emotions.…”

Development of Emotion Regulation in Cultural Context

“…By contrast, in societies where the interdependent self is more emphasized and valued, "suppression" may be more accepted and considered a key strategy for achieving social harmony and appropriately accommodating oneself to external circumstances. Inhibition has been seen as a valid indicator of culturally adaptive behavior for Chinese children (Chen et aL, 1998), or as maturity (see Mulder, 1992, for Javanese people; Lebra, 1994;Azuma, 1986, for Japan).…”