Filial Piety and
Psychosocial
Adjustment in
Hong Kong Chinese
Early Adolescents
Journal of Early Adolescence
30(5) 651­–667
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/0272431609341046
http://jea.sagepub.com
Angel Nga-man Leung1,
Stephanie Siu-fong Wong1,
Iris Wai-yin Wong1,
and Catherine McBride-Chang1
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.
1
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Corresponding Author:
Catherine McBride-Chang, Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
Email: [email protected]
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Journal of Early Adolescence 30(5)
Keywords
family, parenting, parent-adolescent relationships, self-esteem/self-worth,
social competence
Filial piety (xiao) prescribes the way children behave toward their parents
(Yeh & Bedford, 2003); it is a central Confucian concept within Chinese
family systems (Chao, 1994). However, it has rarely been empirically explored
in relation to children’s psychosocial adjustment beyond family functioning
itself. Based on the dual filial piety model (Yeh & Bedford, 2004), the present study focused on two focal dimensions of filial piety belief, namely,
reciprocal filial piety and authoritarian filial piety, in relation to life satisfaction, self-esteem, and perceived social competence, all of which have
been consistently positively linked in previous research to perceived parental
warmth. In Chinese cultures, the concept of filial piety is crucial to Chinese
family systems because it prescribes how Chinese children should behave
toward their parents. Given the overall importance of family relationships to
psychological adjustment in children and adolescents, it is both theoretically
and practically important to study the relationship between children’s filial
piety and their perceived psychosocial adjustment.
Filial piety traditionally involves devotion, love, respect, and obedience
for one’s parents, including preserving family honor, avoiding family disgrace,
continuing the family line, and showing care for them financially, emotionally, and physically (e.g., Ho, 1994). Under the influence of Confucianism,
Chinese families have emphasized its importance for many generations.
Indeed, it is a pillar of parent-child relationships. There is a Confucian Chinese
saying that perhaps best captures the importance of filial piety: “bai shan
xiao wei xian.” That is, of a hundred good characteristics a person might possess, filial piety is the most important. Despite the importance of filial piety
in Chinese families, however, past research on the association between filial
piety beliefs and psychological development has yielded mixed results (Yeh
& Bedford, 2003, 2004). Some studies have found that filial piety beliefs are
positively related to various family-related variables, including family cohesion (Cheung, Lee, & Chan, 1994), positive intergenerational relationships
(Lawrence, Bennett, & Markides, 1992; Sung, 1995), motivation to care for
parents (Selig, Thomlinson, & Hickey, 1991), and positive attachment to,
support for, and harmony with one’s parents (Sung, 1995). In addition, filial
piety beliefs tend to be negatively related to parent-child conflict among adolescents (Yeh & Bedford, 2004) and positively related to happiness in adults
(Liu, Ng, Westherall, & Loong, 2000) and life satisfaction in fifth graders
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Leung et al.
653
(Wong, 2004). On the other hand, however, filial piety has also been shown
to be positively correlated with authoritarian moralism and cognitive conservatism in children (Ho, 1996). Ho (1994) further demonstrated that greater
endorsement of filial piety values in children was associated with poorer verbal fluency; a passive, uncritical, and uncreative learning orientation; and
fatalistic, superstitious, and stereotypic beliefs.
To understand these mixed results in the association between filial piety
and psychological outcomes, Yeh (1997, 2003) developed a dual filial piety
model to integrate positive and negative influences of filial piety. He identified two focal filial piety factors, reciprocity and authoritarianism. The essence
of reciprocal filial piety focuses on children providing emotional, physical,
and financial support to parents in gratitude for parents’ devotion in having
raised them. Apart from the importance of familial reciprocity, this factor is
also based on the Confucian principle of favoring the intimate (Yeh, 2003) as
well as the principle of reciprocity. Favoring the intimate refers to individuals’ tendencies to show greater care toward people who are closest within
their social networks, according to which children and parents are among the
most intimate psychologically (Yeh, 2003). The principle of reciprocity implies
that children should repay their parents and ancestors by honoring them,
since they owe their parents all the nurturance, comfort, and aid received
throughout life. The second factor, authoritarian filial piety, is based on the
Confucian principle of respecting the superior (Yeh, 2003). Because parents
are at the top level of the family hierarchy, children are morally required to
obey them. Therefore, this aspect of filial piety demands children’s repression of their own desires, submission to parental will, spirit of furthering
parents’ reputations, and fulfillment of family responsibilities, for example,
continuing the family line by giving birth to sons (Yang, Yeh, & Huang, 1989;
Yeh, 2003). Thus, theoretically, authoritarian filial piety, emphasizing hierarchy and submission, may be associated with some negative aspects of adjustment in children (Yeh & Bedford, 2003).
Reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety, however, are not mutually excusive. They are two different dimensions of filial piety that coexist and are
interdependent, but they have different underlying meanings. In a test of the
validity of these two dimensions, Yeh and Bedford (2003) found that reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety are positively correlated with one another.
Among Chinese high school and college students (Yeh & Bedford, 2003), it
was found that reciprocal filial piety was positively related to openness,
agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness but negatively related to
neuroticism. In contrast, in the same study, authoritarian filial piety was positively related to neuroticism and conscientiousness but negatively related to
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openness and extroversion. Yeh and Bedford (2003) also found that reciprocal filial piety was positively related to modernity attitudes, such as egalitarianism, openness, gender quality, and affection-centrism, while authoritarian
filial piety was positively related to traditionalist attitudes, such as male dominance and submission to authority. Finally, these researchers demonstrated
that reciprocal filial piety beliefs were positively related to empathy, perspective taking, and self-disclosure, while authoritarian filial piety was negatively
related to perspective taking. Overall, then, theoretically, this study demonstrated that beliefs in reciprocal filial piety may be positively related to
children’s psychosocial adjustment, while authoritarian filial piety may be
negatively related to children’s psychosocial adjustment.
Apart from filial piety, children’s perceived parental warmth has consistently
been shown to have salient beneficial effects for children’s psychological development. Children’s perceived parental warmth reflects children’s perceptions of
parents’ psychological acceptance of them (Cournoyer, 2000). High levels of
children’s perceived warmth are correlated with children’s abilities to overcome
challenges (Peterson & Leigh, 1990) and are related to children’s emotional
adjustment (e.g., Gray & Steinberg, 1999), social and academic achievement
(Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000), and family harmony (Lau, Lew, Hau, Cheung, &
Berndt, 1990). Several studies have found that positive parent-child relationships are consistently strong correlates of life satisfaction of youth in Hong
Kong (e.g., Leung & Zhang, 2000; Leung, McBride-Chang, & Lai, 2004). Warm,
supportive relationships with parents enhance secure parent-child attachments,
which are associated with a child’s social competence and feelings of self-worth
(Laible & Thompson, 2000). Perceived parental warmth is also linked to positive adjustment across cultures (Kağitçibaşi, 2007).
Despite the important philosophical underpinnings of the concept of filial
piety involving both reciprocal and authoritarian processes, there remains
little empirical evidence for these. Previous studies of filial piety have focused
on parental attitudes, intergenerational relationships, and parent-child conflict and their effects on children’s cognitive development and personality
characteristics. However, few studies of filial piety have examined it in relation to early adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment. At the same time, however, many studies have demonstrated the importance of parental warmth to
children’s psychosocial development. The present study, thus, aimed to explore
how the model of reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety (Yeh & Bedford,
2003) might facilitate understanding of filial piety as a culturally important
dimension of values and beliefs in relation to general measures of early adolescents’ adjustment. With increasing calls for the concept of filial piety to be
understood within a modern context (e.g., Chao & Tseng, 2002; Mehta &
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Leung et al.
655
Ko, 2004), a distinction between reciprocal and authoritarian aspects of filial
piety was expected to help elucidate its importance for specific psychosocial
outcomes, beyond parental warmth.
These psychosocial outcomes included perceived life satisfaction, selfesteem, and social competence, all markers of positive youth development, in
the present study. Parental warmth was expected to be positively related to
each of these, as shown in previous research (e.g., Gray & Steinberg, 1999;
Kağitçibaşi, 2007; Leung et al., 2004). Life satisfaction is a multifaceted construct referring to an individual’s overall evaluation of life domains, such as
health, finances, and interpersonal relationships (Michalos, 1991), whereas
self-esteem encompasses one’s sense of personal worth, self-approval, and
self-respect. Previous work on Chinese parenting values and beliefs has demonstrated that guan, or training (e.g., Chao, 1994; Stewart et al., 1998), an
important facet of filial piety, was positively associated with both life satisfaction and self-esteem in Hong Kong Chinese adolescent girls. In contrast,
these researchers (Stewart et al., 1998) found that restrictive control was
negatively associated with both self-esteem and perceptions of well-being.
Thus, adopting the dual filial piety model, we hypothesized that, beyond
warmth, children’s reciprocal filial belief would positively explain self-esteem
and life satisfaction, while authoritarian filial piety would be negatively associated with each.
Social competence primarily reflects one’s peer acceptance, for example,
having lots of friends, being easy to like, and doing things with other children
(Harter, 1982). To the best of our knowledge, previous research has not explored
the role of filial piety for social competence with peers per se. However, drawing from previous work both on general psychosocial adjustment (e.g., Stewart
et al., 1998) and interpersonal relationships within the family (e.g., Lawrence
et al., 1992; Sung, 1995; Yeh & Bedford, 2004), which demonstrated that
general filial piety tends to be positively associated with social relationships,
we hypothesized that reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety would have different associations with social competence as well. Specifically, reciprocal
filial piety, with its focus on mutual respect within a family relationship, was
expected to be associated with general social competence because the spirit
of mutual respect in a relationship might logically extend from within the
parent-child relationship to other relationships as well. In contrast, authoritarian filial piety was hypothesized to be negatively associated with social
competence because of its overall emphasis on submitting to another’s will
and obeying. These ideas, perhaps natural in parent-child relationships, might
not fit well within a peer relationship context, in which status should presumably be considered similar across peer dyads.
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Method
Participants
A total of 231 Hong Kong Chinese students in Grades 5 and 6 (125 boys;
104 girls) participated in the present study. Their ages ranged from 9 to 13,
with an average age of 10.68 (SD = .75) years. These grade levels were chosen
because previous studies have suggested that children around this developmental level tend to describe their parents as the most important people in
their lives (e.g. Furman & Buhrmester, 1992). They depend on their parents
for affection, advice, enhancement of self-worth, and assistance with daily
problems. Thus, different facets of parent-child relationships were considered to be particularly salient for understanding the psychosocial development
of children in this early adolescent age range.
Measures
Participants completed all questionnaires in Chinese. All questionnaires apart
from the Filial Piety Scale, already in Chinese, were back translated from
English to Chinese. As shown in Table 1, the internal consistency reliabilities
of all the scales were satisfactory. Scales administered included the following:
Filial Piety Scale. This scale (Yeh & Bedford, 2003) consists of 16 items,
8 measuring reciprocal filial piety and the other 8 measuring authoritarian
filial piety. The scale was developed in Taiwan, and it was used in a college
population in Taiwan (Yeh & Bedford, 2003) and a junior and high school
students sample in Taiwan (Yeh & Bedford, 2004), all with satisfactory reliabilities and validity. Participants responded to each item of this scale on a
5-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Sample
items from the reciprocal filial piety subscale are “Be grateful to your parents
for raising you,” and “Take care of your parents when they are old.” Sample
items from the authoritarian filial piety scale include “Live with your parents
even after you grow up and get married” and “Listen to parents’ advice on
decisions about a future career.”
Perceived parental warmth. Greenberger and Chen’s (1996) Perceived
Parental Warmth Scale was used. It probed participants’ perceived relationships with their parents on a 6-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to
strong agree (6). A sample item is “My parent enjoys spending time with me.”
Perceived life satisfaction. The Multi-dimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) measured participants’ subjective well-being (Huebner,
1994) specifically in children. It consists of 32 items measuring children’s
satisfaction in four domains: family (9 items), friends (8 items), school (8 items),
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Leung et al.
Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Internal Consistencies of All Measured
Variables and Correlations Among Filial Piety, Warmth, Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction,
Social Competence, Gender, Grade, and Age
—
α
1. Reciprocal
filial piety
2. Authoritarian filial piety
3. Self-esteem
4. Life
satisfaction
5. Social
competence
6. Warmth
7. Gender
8. Grade
9. Age
.86 4.34 (0.62)
—
.74 3.38 (0.67)
.57**
—
.81 2.74 (0.55)
.92 2.93 (0.48)
.32**
.52**
.16**
.37**
—
.63** —
.68 2.93 (0.54)
.28**
.09
.45**
X (SD)
1
2
3
4
.53**
5
6
7
8
9
—
.79 4.18 (1.06) .60** .51** .46** .74** .35** —
—
—
.15* -.03
.05
.01
.04
.03
—
—
—
-.17** -.27** -.13* -.30** -.10 -.25** -.09 —
— 10.68 (0.75) -.09
-.17* -.08 -.23** .02 -.18** -.02 .68** —
**p < .01.*p < .05.
and self (7 items). A 4-point scale was used to measure the frequency with
which various experiences are perceived to occur, from 1 indicating never to
4 indicating always. For example, a sample item on the family domain subscale is “I enjoy being at home with my family,” and a sample item from the
friend domain is “My friends treat me very well.” A sample item from the
school subscale is “I look forward to going to school,” and a sample item
from the self domain is “I like myself.” The four subscales are significantly
and moderately to strongly correlated with one another. In the present study,
for example, the family subscale was significantly correlated with the friend
(r = .42, p < .01), school (r = .46, p < .01), and self subscales (r = .61, p < .01).
The friend subscale was also positively related to school (r = .23, p < .01) and
self (r = .51). The school subscale was relatively strongly related to self as
well (r = .51, p < .01). In view of the moderate to strong associations among
subscales, a composite score of the four was used across all analyses to represent students’ multidimensional life satisfaction.
Self-esteem. The 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965)
measured participants’ global personal self-esteem on a 4-point scale from 1,
strongly disagree to 4 strongly agree. A sample item is “On the whole, I am
satisfied with myself.”
Perceived social competence. The seven-item Social Competence subscale
of the Perceived Competence Scale for Children (Harter, 1982) assessed
participants’ self-perceived social competence. Participants chose the
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Journal of Early Adolescence 30(5)
description of the type of child he or she found to be most like him/her and
then judged whether he or she was “sort of like” or “really like” that type of
child. Items were thus scored on a 4-point scale from not very competent (1)
to very competent (4). Examples of the items are “Some children find it hard
to make friends, but for others it is pretty easy,” and “Some children have a
lot of friends.” This scale has satisfactory psychometric properties with samples of Chinese children (Stigler, Smith, & Mao, 1985).
Results
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the measured
variables. A significant difference between fifth and sixth graders for both
reciprocal filial piety (t = 2.62, p < .01) and authoritarian filial piety scores
(t = 4.18, p < .01) was indicated by t test analyses, with sixth graders scoring
significantly lower on both. In addition, girls had higher reciprocal filial piety
than boys did (t = –2.26, p < .05); no other gender differences were found.
From the first-order correlational analysis, it was found that there was a
stronger correlation between the outcome variables and reciprocal filial piety
(RFP) than for those between the outcome variables and authoritarian filial
piety (AFP). Both AFP and RFP were significantly positively associated with
one another, with warmth, and with all psychosocial variables included. Nevertheless, our main interest was to examine the extent to which filial piety
would be uniquely associated with children’s psychological adjustment beyond
warmth. To begin with, we hypothesized that children’s reciprocal filial
belief would positively explain self-esteem, life satisfaction, and social competence, while authoritarian filial piety would be negatively associated with
each. Therefore, to examine the unique contribution of both AFP and RFP
beyond children’s perceived parental warmth to all three psychosocial variables, hierarchical regressions were carried out. Students’ grade level and
age were included in the first step of the hierarchical regressions, while perceived parental warmth was included in the second step. Such an order of
entry was done based both on logic and theory. Grade and age were correlated with the dependent variables. They were entered first in order to control
these general demographic effects, allowing a clearer examination of main
effects (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). Warmth was then included in the second
step, followed by the two measures of filial piety, so as to demonstrate the
unique contributions of the filial piety variables beyond warmth, a parenting
variable that is well established in the literature cross-culturally for its importance for children’s psychosocial adjustment (Kağitçibaşi, 2007; Laible &
Thompson, 2000).
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Leung et al.
659
To examine the relative importance and directions of AFP and RFP
(i.e., the positive and negative associations of AFP and RFP on psychosocial outcomes), the regression analyses were run twice, once with AFP
included in Step 3 and RFP included in Step 4 and again when the entry of
these two variables into the equation was reversed. This procedure was carried out so that the unique variance explained by each dimension of filial
piety could be established, given that previous studies had not explicitly
compared the relative strength of each dimension for outcome measures.
Cohen, Cohen, West, and Alken (2003) suggested that in instances in which
two sets of variables may have different predictive values for the dependent
variables but there is a lack of theory on which set should be entered first into
a hierarchical regression, then both sets can be entered in different sequences
in order to report them both; thus, our entries of AFP and RFP were done
following this advice.
The results of these regression equations are shown in Table 2. In these
analyses, as expected, parental warmth explained significant variance in selfesteem, life satisfaction, and social competence. Regardless of the order in
which it was entered in the equation, reciprocal filial piety explained life
satisfaction and social competence positively in children. In contrast, authoritarian filial piety was significantly negatively associated with self-esteem
and social competence with all other variables statistically controlled. With
grade, age, warmth, and AFP controlled, RFP uniquely and positively explained
2% unique variance in life satisfaction and 3% of unique variance in social
competence, while it was positively but not significantly associated with selfesteem. In contrast, with grade, age, warmth, and RFP controlled, AFP uniquely
and negatively explained 2% of the variance each in self-esteem and social
competence, respectively, while it was negatively but not significantly associated with life satisfaction in the equation.
By testing the associations of RFP and AFP to psychosocial variables in
Steps 3 and 4, respectively, we demonstrated the unique importance of RFP
for life satisfaction and social competence and the unique importance of AFP
for self-esteem and social competence, independent of the other measure
of filial piety. At the same time, despite the fact that in the first-order correlations as presented in Table 1, AFP was positively (albeit relatively weakly)
associated with self-esteem, life satisfaction, and social competence, this measure was negatively associated with each in the regression model once all
other variables were statistically controlled. To understand this seemingly
contradictory result, and to understand the mechanism by which these variables interacted, we then used partial correlations to specifically examine correlations of AFP with each of the psychosocial outcome measures with either
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Self-Esteem
Grade
.02
.02
Age
Warmth .20
.18**
AFP
.21
.01
RFP
.22
.01
RFP
.21
.00
AFP
.22
.02*
-.09 (–1.02)
.10
.10**
.04 (0.52)
.04 (5.48**)
.55
.45**
-.17 (-2.10*) .55
.00
.13 (1.58)
.57
.02**
.13 (1.58)
.56
.01**
-.17 (-2.10*) .57
.00
Beta
(t Value)
R2
R2 Change
Beta
(t Value)
R2
R2 Change
Beta
(t Value)
-.15 (-1.63)
.19 (2.16*)
.29 (3.43**)
-.17 (-2.06*)
.22 (2.43*)
.22 (2.43*)
-.17 (-2.01*)
Social Competence
-.10 (-1.54)
.03
.03
-.05 (-0.86)
.63 (10.18**) .14
.11**
-.09 (-1.41)
.15
.01
.19 (2.93**)
.17
.03*
.19 (2.93**)
.15
.01
-.09 (-1.41)
.17
.02*
Life Satisfaction
Measures of Psychological Well-Being
Note: Standardized beta weights and t values in the final regression model are shown above. AFP = authoritarian filial piety; RFP = reciprocal filial piety.
**p < .01. *p < .05.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 3
Step 4
R2
R2 Change
Table 2. Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, and Social Competence
Leung et al.
661
warmth or both warmth and RFP statistically controlled. With warmth only
controlled, AFP was negatively, though nonsignificantly, associated with all
three outcome variables (range of r from –.01 to –.10). With both warmth and
RFP statistically controlled, correlations ranged from –.08 (life satisfaction) to
–.15 (for social competence); only the association with social competence was
significant. These results suggest some degree of suppression. Both warmth
and RFP were generally more strongly correlated with all measures of psychological adjustment than was AFP. The AFP was also relatively strongly correlated with both warmth and RFP (rs for both >.50). Therefore, regression
results likely represented the unique and less positive aspects of AFP. In other
words, with RFP and warmth statistically controlled, AFP in fact negatively
explained early adolescents’ psychological adjustment.
Discussion
Findings from the present study suggest that filial piety may be a unique dimension to consider in future studies of parenting in Chinese families. Despite a
strong association between children’s perceived parental warmth and their psychosocial adjustment, different aspects of filial piety were nevertheless uniquely
associated with several psychosocial outcomes in upper primary school Chinese
children, beyond parental warmth, an established universal parenting style
variable that is important to children’s development (Chen et al., 2000;
Kağitçibaşi, 2007; Lau et al., 1990; Peterson & Leigh, 1990).
The present study supported the dual filial piety model by demonstrating
that reciprocal filial piety had positive associations with both children’s life
satisfaction and social competence, while authoritarian filial piety had negative associations with children’s self-esteem and social competence. Children with high reciprocal filial beliefs are likely to be more motivated to
support and care for their parents in appreciation for their parents’ efforts in
bringing them up. This motivation might help them build and maintain good
parent-child relationships, promoting children’s satisfaction within the family.
Children’s reciprocal filial beliefs also significantly and positively explained
perceived peer acceptance in the present study. It is likely that children generalize their positive affective social orientation acquired from parents to
other social interactions (Putallaz & Heflin, 1987). Thus, children high in
reciprocal filial beliefs might tend to reciprocate in social interactions more
often, promoting interpersonal skills and relationships.
In contrast, authoritarian filial piety emphasizes children’s submission to
hierarchical authority and oppression of self-autonomy. Children who are
high in authoritarian filial piety have been socialized to respect but never
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Journal of Early Adolescence 30(5)
question authority. This characteristic of authoritarian filial piety may foster
suppression of children’s own will, perhaps resulting in feelings of relative
incompetence, helplessness, or frustration. This is one plausible explanation
for the fact that authoritarian filial piety negatively explained children’s selfesteem and perceived social competence in the present study. Indeed, some
previous studies have also demonstrated negative associations of filial piety,
not only with personality variables (Yeh & Bedford, 2003) but also with
cognitive skills. For example, measures of filial piety have been positively
related to cognitive conservatism in children and used to explain parents’
negligence or inhibition of children’s opinions, creativity, independence, and
all-round personal development (Ho, 1996). Correspondingly, Boey (1976)
found that filial piety beliefs may be harmful to children’s cognitive development. At the same time, authoritarian filial piety has been found to have some
beneficial effects on family relationships as well. For example, such beliefs
are credited with reducing parent-child conflict in Chinese families (Yeh &
Bedford, 2004).
Young adolescents were the participants in the present study because their
beliefs in filial piety and perception of parental warmth may be particularly
important for their psychological adjustment given that family is a core part
of their everyday lives. It is possible that these patterns might change among
older adolescents, who may have more conflicts and arguments with their
parents. Given these intriguing findings, more empirical research on the
nuances of filial piety in relation to children’s adjustment, perhaps among
different age ranges, is clearly warranted.
The present study was limited in its findings by our assessments of children’s psychological well-being, perceived filial piety, and maternal warmth
based only on self-report measures. Children’s self-reports of parenting are
relatively common and have been used by a number of past studies (e.g.,
Pomerantz, 2001; Sessa, Avenevoli, Steinberg, & Morris, 2001) that have
suggested that children’s ratings were similar to those of parents and others.
After all, children’s own subjective evaluation of parental warmth and perceived level of filial piety may be especially important for their own psychological adjustment. Yet, using a single informant approach may still limit our
interpretation of the data because we know nothing about parents’ perceptions and behaviors from them. Thus, in future studies of filial piety, parents’
reports or observations from others should also be included.
Furthermore, future research could also extend the investigation of different aspects of filial piety by looking not only at their main effects, but also at
the extent to which they moderate parent-child relationships. For example,
Wong, Leung, and McBride-Chang (in press) found that filial piety moderated
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Leung et al.
663
the association between adolescents’ perceived maternal control and both
perceived support and conflicts in mother-child relationships. However, in
that study, no distinction was made across different aspects of filial piety.
Thus, the respective moderating roles of authoritarian and reciprocal filial
piety could be included in future work.
Despite these limitations, however, the importance of this research lies in
testing age-old philosophical notions of social interactions empirically. This
research demonstrates that filial piety is potentially a multifaceted and empirically testable construct. Differences in associations of outcome variables with
reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety suggest that the notion of filial piety
requires careful attention to possible multiple dimensions of it (Yeh & Bedford,
2004). Our findings also highlight the potential practical and theoretical
importance of filial piety for Chinese children beyond parental warmth for
explaining psychological adjustment. Certain aspects of filial piety, such as
felt gratitude and responsibility to family, may be particularly helpful for
students’ overall development, whereas other aspects, such as suppression of
one’s own desires, might have more mixed effects, such as decreasing selfesteem or even social competence. Although our results are preliminary, they
confirm the ideas put forward by Yeh and Bedford (2004) that filial piety is an
important psychological construct for understanding children’s adjustment.
The problems of incorporating Western notions of parent-child relationship into understanding Chinese family dynamics have been well argued
(e.g., Chao, 1994, 2000) and continue to generate controversy (e.g., Chen
et al., 2000). The study presented here provides another way in which to
conceptualize interactions within Chinese families under the notion of filial
piety. As a traditional Confucian concept, filial piety has existed for thousands of years in Chinese families. It has been regarded as a fundamental
belief that children should understand and endorse. Nevertheless, belief in
the importance of authoritarian filial piety has diminished, while reciprocal
filial piety has gained support in contemporary Chinese society (Yeh &
Bedford, 2003). Hwang (1999) proposed that the decreasing popularity of
authoritarian filial piety is attributable to modernization and exposure to
Western influence. The concept of filial piety is also a Western one, dating
back at least to ancient Greece and the dilemmas of the treatments of fathers
and sons. However, this concept is particularly salient and dominant in Asian
cultures, so perhaps it is fitting that most studies examining this concept have
tested it, thus far, on Asian children, adolescents, and adults. We hope
that the present study goes one more step toward empirically testing the importance of filial piety in relation to other family relations variables, ultimately
across cultures.
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Journal of Early Adolescence 30(5)
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.
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Bios
Angel Nga-man Leung is now a PhD candidate in psychology in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, specializing in developmental psychology. Her major research
interests are parenting and the influences of online gaming on the social development
of early adolescents.
Stephanie Siu-fong Wong obtained her bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the
University of Hong Kong.
Iris Wai-yin Wong obtained her bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the
University of Hong Kong.
Catherine McBride-Chang is a professor in the Psychology Department of the
Chinese University of Hong Kong specializing in developmental psychology. Her
research interests are cognitive and social development in children, especially on parenting, reading and vocabulary development, and impairment in children.
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