Filial Piety and Psychosocial Adjustment in Hong Kong Chinese Early Adolescents

Abstract

Is the Confucian concept of filial piety relevant for understanding contemporary Chinese children’s psychological well-being? This study of 231 Hong Kong Chinese fifth and sixth graders demonstrated that parental warmth and two facets of children’s filial piety belief were uniquely associated with life satisfaction, self-esteem, and social competence. Following the dual filial piety model, results distinguished children’s reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety beliefs. In particular, there were significant positive associations of reciprocal filial piety with life satisfaction and social competence and significant negative associations of authoritarian reciprocal filial piety with self-esteem and social competence, even statistically controlling for children’s ages, grade levels, and perceived parental warmth. Results suggested that children’s filial piety belief is a theoretically important aspect of Chinese values and beliefs that is uniquely associated with a variety of psychosocial adjustment variables and should be explored cross-culturally.

Confucian virtues and Chinese adolescent development: a conceptual review

“…The researchers further organized the 24 char acter strengths into six broad virtues as follows: [1] wisdom and knowledge (including creativity, curiosity, openmindedness, love of learning, and perspective; [2] courage (including honesty, bravery, persistence, and zest); [3] humanity (consisting of kindness, love, and social intelligence); [4] justice (including fairness, leadership, and teamwork); [5] temperance (including forgiveness, modesty, prudence, and selfregulation); and finally [6] transcendence (comprising apprecia tion of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and religiousness). Explanations about the 24 character strengths, as summarized by Park and Peterson (39), are listed in Table 2.…”

“…Nevertheless, in modern day China, Confucian ism ideas seem to have returned, at least temporarily (1). Many empirical studies demonstrate that Confucianism still exerts a huge influence on the modern lives of Chinese people, whether they have read the Analects, and whether they like Confucius (2)(3)(4)(5). Confucius' teachings have become part of a growing trend, as an increasing number of Chinese cultural scholars are invited to give public lectures in universities and on television programs on Confucian classics; for example, Yu Dan, a famous professor, inter prets the Analects in an easytounderstand way on China Central Television.…”

The Relationship Between Adolescents’ Perceived Parental Involvement, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, and Subjective Well-Being: A Multiple Mediator Model

“…Extant research, however, has identified a significant contribution of parenting behaviors to adolescent SWB (e.g., Cacioppo et al 2013;Leung et al 2010;Rasmi et al 2012;Saha et al 2010). Furthermore, internal resources such as self-efficacy, gratitude, optimism, selfesteem, hope, and resilience have been identified as psychological strengths that promote adolescent SWB (Khan 2013;Lightsey et al 2013;Merkaš and Brajša-Ž ganec 2011;SivisCetinkaya 2013;Suldo and Shaffer 2007;Sun and Shek 2012;Vecchio et al 2007).…”

Differentiating Ideals versus Practices in the Discussion of Confucian Influences on Chinese Parent–Child Relationships

“…Similarly, Leung, Wong, Wong, and McBride-Chang (2010) found that early adolescents' beliefs in the reciprocal aspect of filial piety were associated positively with self-esteem and social competence, whereas beliefs in the authoritarian aspect of filial piety were associated negatively with self-esteem and social competence. Additionally, Chen, Bond, and Tang (2007) differentiated filial attitudes from filial behaviors and found that filial attitudes did not necessarily predict filial behaviors.…”