Japanese cultural influence on the development of competence from early-childhood to adulthood-A study of developmental social psychology based on the longitudinal and cross-sectional approach-

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The purpose of the present investigation is to clarify the developmental processes of the perceived competence in Japanese culture. Based on Harter (1987)'s theory and measurement scales on the competence, on Markus & Kitayayama(1991)'s theory of the cultural view of self, and on Takata(2000)'s scale measuring the independent/interdependent self, four investigations three cross-sectional studies on adolescence, adulthood and senescence and a longitudinal study from childhood to adolescence, were conducted.The summary of these investigations is as follows. (1)The sub-categories of the perceived competence were almost identical with those of constitute original Harter's scale in each developmental stage. (2)It was shown from longitudinal data that the perceived competence generally decline from childhood to middle-adolescence then rise slightly in late-adolescence, and that self-evaluation on the global self-worth keeps nearly same level during these period, however. Cross-sectional studies represent that either perceived competence of many domains or global self-worth were higher in the middle-aged than in the adolescent, and higher in the elderly than in the middle-aged. (3)The differences of the independence and interdependence among each developmental stage were almost same with past findings except for some self-evaluations on the adolescent and the elderly probably derived from the sample biases. The analyses regarding the relationship between perceived competence, global self-worth, independence, and interdependence suggest that the developmental processes of perceived competence are undermined by the acquisition process of the cultural construal of self, although Harter's scale is applicable in Japanese culture.