Lei Chang, Department of Educational Psychology and Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, leichang@cuhk.edu.hk . Bin-Bin Chen is also at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lin Qin Ji is at Shandong Normal University.
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. Significant correlations were found 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 non-conforming and individualistic behavioral tendencies, these findings rectify and expand the existing literature portraying Chinese parenting as uniformly Confucian and traditional.