The Effects of Attachment Relationship and Filial Piety on Career Commitment Process of Chinese University Students.

摘要

Based on the attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) and the dual filial piety model (Yeh, 1997, 2003), this study aimed at investigating the effects of the attachment relationship and filial piety on career commitment process of Chinese university students. One thousand one hundred and seventy-twelve (N = 1172) Chinese university students from three different regional Chinese groups participated in this study. These three regional groups included the Hong Kong local students (called Hong Kong group; n = 421), Chinese mainland students studying in Hong Kong (called Hong Kong Mainland group; n = 397) and the Chinese mainland students from Beijing (called Beijing group; n = 354). The participants completed questionnaires measuring the attachment relationship towards fathers and mothers, filial piety (reciprocal and authoritarian types), and career commitment process (vocational exploration and commitment and tendency to foreclose).;Based on the MANOVA and ANOVA analyses, main effects of gender and regional group on attachment, filial piety and career commitment were found in this study. For gender differences, female scored significantly higher on the mother attachment and the reciprocal filial piety while male scored significantly higher on the tendency to foreclose. For regional group differences, the Hong Kong Mainland group and Beijing group scored significantly higher on the father attachment, mother attachment and the reciprocal filial piety than the Hong Kong group. The Hong Kong group scored significantly higher on tendency to foreclose than the Hong Kong Mainland group. The Beijing group scored significantly higher on tendency to foreclose than the Hong Kong Mainland group.;Three hypothesized models were proposed to explore the relationships among attachment relationship, filial piety and career commitment process. Structural equation modeling was conducted and found that the proposed models met the predetermined overall fit criteria and fit well across the total sample, the gender groups and the three regional subgroups (Hong Kong, Hong Kong-Mainland, and Beijing). Finding from the structural equation modeling analysis showed that only mother attachment marginally predicted the tendency to foreclose. In addition, the current findings showed that only authoritarian filial piety negatively predicted vocational exploration and commitment and positively predicted tendency to foreclose.;The theoretical, research and counseling implications of the findings, as well as future research directions are discussed.