A Correlation Study Between Conception Of Authority And Autonomy Of 5-year-old Children

Autonomy is the desire and ability to choose one' s goal by oneself, which consists of self-relianc, self-control and self-assertion. The relationship between social cognition and autonomy was one of the subjects which people were interested in. According to research abroad, children' s conception of authority had an effect on development of autonomy. There was little research on it in China This study examined the relations between the conception of authority and autonomy based on 120 5-year-old children. First, we examined the level of the authority cognitioa Based on the result, we chose the high level and low level teams. After that, we examined the development of these two teams through lab observation. Our results:(1)The 5-year-old children's autonomy was significantly different from their conception of authority. Children with high level conception of authority developed high level autonomy, children with low level conception of authority developed low level autonomy;(2)Significant correlation was found between the conception of authority and the three dimensions of autonomy. Children with high level conception of authority developed high level self-reliance, self-control and self-assertion; children with low level conception of authority developed low level self-reliance , self-control and self-assertion;(3)There was no significant gender differences for children' s autonomy.