Chinese children's self‐concepts in the domains of learning and social relations

Abstract

AbstractIn both academia and pop psychology, the Chinese self is often characterized as collectivist, putting group interest above self‐interest. This account of self misconstrues the complex nature of human psychosocial functioning in cultural contexts. This account further overlooks the dynamic process in which the self is formed and sustained. In this article, we propose, from a domain‐specific perspective, to reexamine the construct of self and its development in Chinese children. By presenting others' and our own research, we analyze Chinese children's self‐concept in two distinct domains—the domain of learning and the domain of social relations. We demonstrate that Chinese children's self‐concept has a strong autonomous component in the context of learning and achievement while displaying a social orientation in the context of relationships and family. We show how these tendencies of Chinese self relate to Confucian ethics and how they are shaped by early socialization. We then discuss implications of these findings for theories of the self. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 85–101, 2003.