Using the theoretical framework of productive aging, this presentation describes various kinds of social engagement as well as their health implications among Chinese older adults residing in different cultural contexts. Findings from several empirical studies conducted in Honolulu, Wuhan, and Taichung will be introduced, compared, and discussed.
Wei Zhang is Professor and Chair of Sociology. Trained as a medical sociologist, her primary research interest is to examine health disparities among Asian Americans and older adults in China, the U.S. and Hawaii. Her population-based studies appear in top tier journals including The Gerontologist, Social Science & Medicine, Health & Place, Journal of the American Geriatric Society, and Aging and Mental Health. Many of her published works focused on older adults.
Yiyuan Xu researches variations in children’s social development using a goodness of fit theoretical framework, or fit between the behavioral expression of their biological predisposition and expectations of significant others such as parents or peers, and the limits of their tolerance for deviance from the behavioral norms. He has applied this framework to investigate shyness across cultural contexts, and identified and distinguished a regulated form of shyness/withdrawal from anxious shyness in Asian and Asian American children.
UH Department of Sociology
UH Department of Psychology
