JAPANESE AND UNITED-STATES PRESCHOOL CHILDRENS RESPONSES TO CONFLICT AND DISTRESS

Japanese and U.S. preschool children's responses to hypothetical inter personal dilemmas were examined as a function of culture, gender, and maternal child-rearing values. U.S. children showed more anger, more a ggressive behavior and language, and underregulation of emotion than J apanese children, across different contexts of assessment. Children fr om the 2 cultures appeared more similar on prosocial and avoidant patt erns, though in some contexts U.S. children also showed more prosocial themes. Girls from both cultures expressed more prosocial themes and sometimes more anger than boys. Maternal encouragement of children's e motional expressivity was correlated with anger and aggression in chil dren. It was more characteristic of U.S. than Japanese mothers, while emphasis on psychological discipline (reasoning; guilt and anxiety ind uction) was more characteristic of Japanese than U.S. mothers. The rel evance of a conceptual framework that focuses on differences in Easter n and Western cultures in self-construals regarding independence and i nterdependence is considered.