PERSONALITY development is a complex process because of the many factors involved. One given definition of personality is, this is the distinctive way a person thinks, feels, and behaves. It sounds simple and easy to digest but it becomes intricate once one realizes that each one has a distinct personality. There are almost eight billion people in the world today and somehow, each single individual possesses something different from the others. A significant stage of the development of personality, or of how people become unique from the others is the way they were raised. We call this the child-rearing factor. Cultural differences play a big role in various child-rearing patterns.
Child-rearing is the process of how parents, including the other members of the family and community, introduces the infant/child to the world. This involves how the child is raised and disciplined. Each culture presents a diverse way of bringing up children but the apparent contradiction of child-rearing can be seen between Western countries and Asian or Africa countries.
Pearson and Rao (2003) in their study "Socialization Goals, Parenting and Practices, and Peer Competence in Chinese and English Preschoolers," examined the parent socialization goals and child-rearing practices, as well as their impact upon peer competence during early childhood.
The participants included Hong Kong-Chinese and English mothers and their four-year-old children. In order to minimize confusion between culture and socio-economic status, participants were recruited from Hong Kong and the UK, all catering to children of comparative economic backgrounds (Pearson and Rao,2003). The choice of the participants was based on the popular knowledge of the contrasting child-rearing style of the two groups. The participants are from cultures that vary in the relative importance they attach to personal interests (individualistic) versus group interests (collectivistic). Given that the attributes valued by mature members of individualistic societies (e.g., European-American societies) and collectivistic societies (Asian and African societies-Philippines) are quite different (Triandis, 1990), it maybe expected that socialization towards these distinct endpoints to begin during early childhood.
According to the study, child-rearing occurs in a series of contexts including micro-systems (activities and relationships within a child's immediate environment), meso-systems, exo-systems and macro-systems (overarching ideology, values and customs of particular cultures). Thus, studies of childhood socialization need to examine not only parenting practices, which reflect parent-child relationships within micro-systems, but also the perceptions, or ideas, about socialization processes that stem from parents' macro-environments. It is interesting to note the economic status of the participants in their study.
Results of the study reveals that Hong Kong parents were found to be more likely to attach importance to both Academic Achievement and Filial Piety than their English counterparts. These findings support the notion that Chinese parents regard performance at school and compliance at home as important socialization objectives. This means that when raising a child, Hong Kong mothers and most mothers in the region think on how the child can excel in school and how they can raise the child to conform to the norms and values adhered by the family. This can make a lot of difference in the personality of Hong Kong children. In the country, most parents emphasize the importance of strong family orientation. Parents also take pride in the school achievement of their children. In the parenting practices, the study indicated that Chinese mothers were more likely than English mothers to report use of authoritarian practices than authoritative practices while on peer competence, the findings reveal similarity on the level of competence. One notable finding is the possibility that ideologies may be more salient among Chinese families than among English families in relation to child-rearing outcomes.
This study provides an idea on the effect and significance of child-rearing to the personality development of people. There was a considerable change among the societies today because of the strong influence of Western culture but it does not totally alter the values, goals, and practices of other countries which held on to these practices for long. Through studies like this one, we get the idea why in the Asian region, including the Philippines, people put high regard on school and family while Westerners value individualistic attitudes like personal achievement.