Stereotypes Of Chinese Only Children: Constructions, Causes And Consequences

Stereotype has been a central concept in cognitive psychology for one century. In the last 20 years, psychologists of this area have witnessed an important shift from context to mechanism and then back to context again. This dissertation uses Daniel Bar-Tal's Integrated Model of stereotyping for reference to carry out studies on Chinese only-children comprehensively. From the context and transition level, the author analyzed the contents, structures, factors and developmental consequences of Chinese only-children stereotypes.Based on literatures of only-children and stereotype, this dissertation proposes questions, framework, and organized studies step by step. Using various methods including Survey, IAT technology, IEC and Fuzzy Scenario testing, the whole dissertation includes three parts:Part one:A review on only-children studies. This part analyses the contributions and weaknesses of past studies at first. Only-children was defined as the outcome of family-plan policy in Chinese given social and historical period. This paper tries to discuss the only children development from a subjective aspect through a multi-quantitative way. Also this part traces the theoretical origin and methodology, especially IAT-a hottest technology concerned by many cognitive psychologists.Part two:The empirical analysis on the stereotype of Chinese only-children. This part includs 7 chapters:Chapter 1:Based on literatures, this chapter explores the traits and strength of only-children stereotype by direct measurement. Through free association, K-B & Garder measure, adjective method, survey, the author tries to find the key contents of Chinese only-children stereotype, identifies 5 commendatory and 5 derogatory stereotype traits, and develops an adjective measure tool for survey. This charper also prepares the exemplar words for the next Charpter-IAT test.Chapter 2:IAT experiments- participants were divided into 3 groups and taken experiments under the design of a multi-factors.Chapter 3 focuses on the construction of implicit and explicit stereotypes. Based on IEC technology, the studies discuss the relationship between the implicit - explicit stereotypes and the possible interaction mechanism.Chapter 4 analyzes the relationship among stereotypes, attitudes and behavior by IEC, fuzzy stories, etc..Chapter 5:Using SCM theory to analyze Chinese only-child stereotype and its mechanism of social structure.Chapter 6 discusses other factors influencing only-children stereotypes. At the macro-level, the paper analyzes the influence of attitudes to fertility policy. At the meso-level, factors such as the role of the media, was studied in quasi-experiment way.Chapter 7:Discussion of developmental consequences of Chinese only-children stereotypes. First, a cross-sectional method was used to study different cohort groups, secondly, this charpter studies the influence of only-children stereotyping on parents' education behavior, self-esteem and children development.Third Part: General discussion and conclusion. Based on a series of studies on the contents, constructions and consequences of the only-children stereotype, the paper analyzes the structural meaning, cognitive meaning and symbolic significance, concludes the main finds and prospects for future research.