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{
    "pk": 50026,
    "title": "Agency vs. Guan: The role of parental beliefs in shaping children's agency",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Agency is an important yet elusive concept in cognitive development. In China, parents commonly hold the traditional belief of Guan, which literally means control but aims to cultivate agency—being self-disciplined and proactive in learning. To understand how these two opposite notions coexist, Study 1 developed a questionnaire to assess both in parents and revealed a U-shaped relationship: moderate Guan beliefs align with lowest agency beliefs, while high and low Guan beliefs are associated with greater agency beliefs. Study 2 used a vignette-based task to test how these beliefs shape children's perceived agency in decision-making. In learning contexts, control-oriented Guan belief negatively predicts children's perceived agency, while agency beliefs positively predict it. Additionally, children's perception of agency in low-agency scenario predicts their strategic responses to maternal control. These findings highlight children's active meaning-making role and suggest that shifting from control to agency beliefs may better support children's agency development.\n\nKeywords: children's agency; Guan beliefs; agency beliefs;\nChinese parenting; daily decision-making",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "Psychology; Decision making; Social cognition; Qualitative Analysis; Survey"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Abstracts with Poster Presentation (accepted as Abstracts)",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/85m3r2fd",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Weiwei",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Fan",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Child Cognition Center",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2025-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/50026/galley/37988/download/"
        }
    ]
}