Comparative study of adolescent views on their parents and their self-reliance in japan and the united states

Abstract

Differences between Japanese adolescent's (127 males and 227 females) and American adolescent's views on their relationships with their parents were studied. Japanese male students showed the lowest scores on both the father-child and mother child emotional tie scales, but indicated the highest scores on both the paternal and maternal control scales. It was found that the Japanese students who showed strong emotional ties to their mothers also showed high scores in the scale of attachment to their fathers. American students tended to have stronger emotional ties to their fathers than did Japanese students. In both countries, female students tended to have stronger mother-child emotional ties than male students. In addition, Japanese female students tended to show low scores on the self-reliant scale. © 1993, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.