The Emergence of Cultural Self-Constructs: Autobiographical Memory and Self-Description in European American and Chinese Children.

Abstract

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 oven 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.

Life's little (and big) lessons: Identity statuses and meaning-making in the turning point narratives of emerging adults.

“…McAdams (2004) has proposed that the redemptive self is a culturally based phenomenon. Thus, this finding may have more to do with the value of different kinds of stories in cultural communities, rather than the objective emotional sequence, which may have different meanings among other groups (e.g., Wang, 2004).…”

Imagining the future: A cross-cultural perspective on possible selves

“…In spite of the large body of cross-cultural work comparing self-construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991;Wang, 2001;Wang, 2004), autobiographical memories (Wang, 2006;Wang & Conway, 2004) and life scripts (e.g., Ottsen & Berntsen, 2014;Rubin, Berntsen & Hutson, 2009) to our knowledge, no work has directly compared the possible selves of people living in different countries. Previous research has focused on the possible selves of participants from a range of specific cultures including aboriginals (Senior & Chenhall, 2012) and Latinos (Yowell, 2000).…”

“…Based on previous research on the self-concept in interdependent compared to independent cultures (e.g. Markus & Kitayama, 1991;Rhee et al, 1995;Wang, 2001;2004) it was predicted that the British participants would generate possible selves that were more autonomous (e.g. referring to personal traits, possessions, or physical descriptions of themselves) rather than social (such as occupation, and family relationships and marriage), compared to the Turkish and Serbian participants.…”

“…It is commonly accepted that culture impacts on self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), influencing how we define ourselves (Rhee et al, 1995;Wang, 2001;2004) and how we remember our earliest (Wang, 2006) and most self-defining memories (Jobson & O'Kearney, 2008). In the field of autobiographical memory, it has been suggested that cultural life scripts organize the retrieval of memories across the lifespan, influencing the way people construct both their past (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004), and future (Berntsen & Bohn, 2010).…”

High point narrative structure in mother-child conversations about the past and children’s emergent literacy skills in Costa Rica

“…High-point narrative may be a preferred form of story-telling in middle-class, mainstream cultures; however, it is well established that caregivers from different cultural backgrounds engage children in talk about the past in different ways (Scheiffelin & Eisenberg, 1984), refl ecting cultural differences in parental values for child rearing and broader socialization goals for their children (Melzi, 2000;Wang 2004). Daily engagement in routines, like reminiscing, provides a pathway for learning expected behavioral norms (Zucker & Howes, 2009).…”