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Rejection and family harmony in Chinese culture
Author(s)
Date Issued
2017
Citation
Chik, S. W., & Zhou, D. (2017). Rejection and family harmony in Chinese culture. SCAP 2017, Singapore.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Studies showed that rejection is a learnt process in daily social communication. It is believed
that rejection may bring negative influence in interpersonal relationship. However, Chinese
people may sometime use rejection in a functional way to show politeness and respect. The
terminology functional rejection is coined to describe this phenomenon. It is interesting to
examine how the Chinese pattern of rejection behavior (functional rejection) on relationship.
In this study, both the influence of Chinese factual rejection behaviors and functional
rejection behaviors were studied in a context family relationship. Altogether 100 young Hong Kong adult participants have participated this study and complete a questionnaire with rejection behavior questionnaire and the Brief Family Relationship Scale (BFRS). The
statistical results show that the factual rejection behaviors undermine the family harmony but the functional rejection behaviours has a statistically positive relationship with good family relationship. The regression analysis further showed that functional rejection behaviors that are consistent with the traditional Chinese value filial piety can positively predict cohesion and expressiveness in family harmony.
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