Abstract

Children’s development is shaped by a variety of factors, including individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender and child temperament), parenting practices, and broader environmental factors, such as culture and society. In comparison to Western cultures which emphasise more on child autonomy, Chinese culture emphasises on parental authority and children’s compliance in a more consistent and absolute manner. Chinese parents usually take on more dominant roles when interacting with their children. This cross-cultural study explores the links between parental authority, disciplinary strategies and child compliance in a sample of 89 Taiwanese, Chinese immigrant (in the UK), and English families (with 5-to-7 year-old children). Parent-child interactions were measured using systematic observational methodologies. The findings showed significant cultural differences in children’s situational compliance and mothers’ use of control and forceful/negative control: the Taiwanese children showed more situational compliance than the Chinese immigrant children, and the English mothers used less control and less forceful/negative control than the Taiwanese mothers.