Parent-child relationship and the relational self in East Asia: A challenge to Western conceptualizations of child development and attachment.

초록

This presentation reviews the existing developmental theories focusing child development, attachment, separation, and individuation. These theories are based on individualistic assumptions and they are limited in explaining parent-child relationship and development trajectories of East Asian children. Even the conceptualization of interdependent contrual of self is fraught with conceptual and empirical contradictions. In Confucian culture, the basic unit of analysis is not the individual but a relationship. The parent-child relationship is the basis and shape the development of future relationships with sibling, friends, teachers and colleagues. The goal of socialization is not to individuate or separate, but to expand an ever increasing social network of relationships (guanxi). Results from Korea and Japan will be provided to documented the development, maintenance and expansion of relational self