Abstract: For an insight into the psychological characteristics of junior middle school students’ concept of filial piety in the period of social transition, 420 students in two middle schools in Jiangsu Province were investigated by adopting Ye Guanghui’s Dual Scale on Filial Piety. The results show that (1) Their reciprocal concept weighs much more than the authoritative one; the former is relatively stable and has a high score, while the latter is declining. (2) Those concepts bear significant differences in gender, grade, economic status, and has disparity between only-child and non-only-child. Specifically, for girls, the score, on reciprocal concept, is significantly higher than for boys, while for boys, the score, on authoritative concept, is significantly higher. Secondly, about reciprocal concept, the score of grade-three students is significantly higher than that of their juniors. But about the authoritative concept, the scores of the first grade students are significantly higher than their seniors. Thirdly, with respect to reciprocal concept, the score of the only child is significantly lower than that of the non-only child, but there is no significant difference between the two concerning the authoritative concept. Finally, as to the reciprocal concept, the scores of the students with large and average family income are significantly higher than that of the students with small family income, while to authoritative concept, students from poor families scored significantly higher than students from rich families.

Key words: period of social transition, junior middle school students, reciprocal filial piety, authoritative filial piety