The Development of Korean Children’s and Adolescents’ Concepts of Social Convention

Abstract

Previous research in the United States has revealed that children’s and adolescents’ understandings of social convention go through a developmental trajectory that includes an early adolescent phase “negating” the importance of convention. This study examined whether this developmental pattern would generalize to children and adolescents from the more traditional East Asian culture of Korea. Specifically, among U.S. samples, children in middle childhood have an understanding of conventions based on a concrete understanding of social hierarchy; early adolescents “negate” their prior understandings and view conventions as “merely” the dictates of authority; and in middle adolescence, U.S. samples establish an affirmation of convention as constituent elements of a social system structured by shared norms. Our hypotheses were that Korean children would not exhibit the negation phase associated with early adolescence and might develop an understanding of the societal function of convention earlier than U.S. samples. To examine this, interviews were conducted using culturally appropriate situations with 64 Korean children and adolescents in three age groups of 10 to 11 years ( Mage = 10.1 years), 12 to 13 years ( Mage = 13.2 years), and 15 to 16 years ( Mage = 15.8 years). Findings revealed that, contrary to our expectations, Korean children go through the same developmental sequence of concepts about convention as observed with children in the United States. This implies that the developmental trajectories of understandings of the functions of social convention can be generalized to children in traditional East Asian cultural settings.