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We sought to determine whether fathers' play participation exerted an indirect effect on young children's social-emotional development by supporting mothers' psychological parenting environments of depression, parenting stress, and parenting efficacy. We also identified differences
by family income. Mothers responded to all measures. We sampled 72 low-income and 201 higher income Korean mothers with 3- to 5-year-old children. The results showed that fathers in higher income families indirectly contributed to young children's social-emotional development through their
effect on mothers' depression and parenting stress, and fathers in low-income families indirectly contributed through their effect on mothers' depression, parenting stress, and parenting efficacy. Practical implications for improving young children's social-emotional development in each family
income group are discussed.

AbstractThe primary purpose of this research was to examine Korean children's concepts of authority. Children's judgments about commands of persons with varying age, social position, and knowledge were assessed. 48 subjects from the first, third, and fifth grades were presented with portrayals of persons giving children commands regarding two types of events: fighting and a game rule dispute. Subjects evaluated the legitimacy of commands and chose between different persons giving opposing commands. With regard to a command to stop fighting, subjects accepted the legitimacy of adult and peer authorities, as well as an adult without a position of authority. Subjects rejected commands that failed to prevent harm even when given by an adult authority. With regard to a game rule dispute, subjects most heavily weighted knowledge in evaluating the authority commands. The findings show that Korean children do not have a unitary orientation to adult authority, and have implications for an understanding of individuals' conceptions in the context of a cultural ideology emphasizing reverence for authority. A second study, with a group of fifth graders from the United States, was conducted to determine how the game event task or cultural influences accounted for some differences between previous findings in the U.S. and the findings with the Korean children. The second study showed that whereas the U.S. children mainly respond in ways similar to the Korean children, the U.S. children gave more priority to pragmatic considerations; the Korean children gave more priority to the attribute of the authority's knowledge.