American and Chinese early adolescents' inclusion of their relationships with their parents in their self-construals

Abstract

This research examined children's interdependent self-construals as manifest in their seeing their relationships with their parents as self-defining. Four times over early adolescence, 825 children (mean age = 12.73 years) in the United States and China reported on their inclusion of their relationships with their parents in their self-construals as well as other dimensions of their psychological functioning. Although there was continuity in children's inclusion of their relationships with their parents in their self-construals, American, but not Chinese, children decreased their inclusion over time. In both the United States and China, the more children defined themselves in terms of their relationships with their parents, the more their perceptions of the quality of these relationships mattered for their subsequent emotional functioning.