Rules in Context

Abstract

Mann, Mitsui, Beswick, and Harmoni (1994) reported a study in which Australian and Japanese children's perceptions of interpersonal rules were compared. In this article, a secondary analysis of Mann et al.'s data was conducted with three-mode principal component analysis to examine both common and culture-specific patterns of interpersonal rules, which were only touched on in the earlier study. A large cultural similarity across samples was found with social status and social distance as the major dimensions that structure children's social world. The sizable cross-cultural differences could be understood as deviations from the common structure. Some of these deviations are explicable in terms of the general variables of individualism and collectivism.