The roles of self-, mother-, and stranger-determined choice in memory in 5- to 10-year-old Chinese children

Studies have revealed that self-determined choices are empowering and can enhance memory even for preschool children. However, previous studies have only examined the role of choice by comparing self-determined choice and unrelated others-determined choice, leaving it unknown how choices made by mothers affect memory. This study investigated the role of choice in memory by comparing memory performance in self-determined, mother-determined, and stranger-determined choice scenarios. Two independent samples of Chinese children aged 5–10 (n = 67 for Exp. 1 and 62 for Exp. 2) performed a choice encoding task and a recognition test, the latter of which was conducted either immediately (Exp. 1) or one day later (Exp. 2). Results on recognition accuracy showed that self-determined choices significantly enhanced both immediate and delayed recognition compared to mother- or stranger-determined choices, with no differences between the latter two. These effects were independent of age. Exploratory analyses of recognition reaction times suggested that younger children (approximately under age 6) tended to respond faster under self or mother-determined conditions compared to stranger-determined ones. Together, these findings support self-determination theory, and provide preliminary evidence for interdependent self-construal in Chinese children.