Attributions and Attitudes of Mothers and Fathers in China

SYNOPSIS

Objective. The present study examined mothers' and fathers' attributions and attitudes related to parenting in China. Design. Interviews were conducted with 241 pairs of parents to obtain maternal and paternal reports of attributions regarding successes and failures in parent–child interactions and on progressive versus authoritarian attitudes about parenting. Results. Mothers' mean levels of attributions and attitudes did not differ significantly from fathers' mean levels of attributions and attitudes. The authors found significant correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding uncontrollable success, authoritarian attitudes, and modernity of attitudes. Conclusions. Supporting the cultural evolutionary view that drastic social changes bring about nonconforming and individualistic behavioral tendencies, these findings rectify and expand the existing literature portraying Chinese parenting as uniformly Confucian and traditional.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant RO1-HD054805.