Shuen-Wen Chen
National Taiwan University
Although many empirical studies showed that there are both changing and unchanged aspects in the Taiwanese family values, no theoretical explanation for such phenomenon has been provided. Those empirical findings will be unintelligible until they can be interpreted in terms of theoretical frameworks. Based on the social representation theory and the conceptual framework of three-fold rationales for action proposed by Yeh (1995), this article explicates the change of social values that are formalized by cultural norms and social discourses. Two core concepts of Confucian ethics for ordinary people (Hwang, 1995), jen (benevolence) and li (propriety), and their implications on Chinese familism are discussed. Study I re-analyzes parts of data collected in Taiwan Social Change Survey (1994), results show that (1) the two factors of Taiwanese family values can be viewed as Confucian ethics of jen and li, and (2) there are opposite trends of cohort differences on these two family values. Study II deduces the relationships between these two family values and the attitudes toward work. The results of analyzing the same data indicate that (1) the attitude of hardworking is positively correlated with family values, (2) there is no correlation between the attitude toward leisure and family values, and (3) there is no correlation between the attitude of working for oneself and family values.
Keywords：family values, social representation theory, Confucian ethics