Abstract: The purpose of the study was to investigate the social cognitive development on understanding friendship by interviewing primary school junior classchildren (7 and 9-yr-olds) with a dilemma story of promise keeping. Theresults showed: The development of social-moral thinking of children followeda regular pattern: The levels increased continually with age and characterizedwith qualitative hierarchical structures. The findings differred from R. L.Selman's and L. Kohlberg's conclusion that the dominant motivations ofchildren's behaviors in the lower levels of social moral reasonihg were not sel-fish individualism but developed more and more responsibilities and concern forothers. Those divergence may be rooted in the properties of Chinese educa-tion and the effects of traditional culture on the development of children.

Key words: social moral thinking, friendship, junior class children