Young Chinese Children's Authority Concepts

Using multilevel analyses, we examined the influence of domain (moral, conventional, and personal) and the familiarity of different authority figures (mother, teacher, person in charge, and stranger) in public, school, or home settings in 123 four to seven-yearold Chinese children (M = 5.6 years) in Hong Kong. Children affirmed authority more for moral and conventional than personal events, based primarily on punishment avoidance and conventional justifications. Children judged that they should obey mothers more than all other authorities and the person-in charge in the associated setting and the teacher more than strangers. At school, teachers were seen as having more authority over moral and conventional events than mothers whereas at home, mothers had more authority than teachers over all issues. With age, children increasingly evaluated mothers’ authority as generalizable across contexts for the moral event; reflecting the importance of familiarity, mothers were seen as having more authority to extend her regulation outside the home, including for personal events, than teachers’ authority outside the school.

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