Journal
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 40, Issue 1, Pages 3-15Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.40.1.3
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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 overt 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.
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