PERSONALITY FACTORS AS CULTURAL SPECIFIC PREDICTORS OF ANXIETY AMONG MAINLAND CHINESE AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN

COLLEGE STUDENTS

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctoral of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Dong Xie, M.S.

* * * * *

The Ohio State University 2004

Dissertation Committee: Approved by Frederick Leong, Ph.D., Adviser __________________________________ Pamela Highlen, Ph.D. Adviser Department of Psychology Bruce Walsh, Ph.D.

ii

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the cultural specificity of a number of personality

constructs in predicting anxiety across 324 Mainland Chinese and 333 Caucasian American

college students. The dependent variables were state and trait anxiety, and social anxiety. The

personality constructs that were selected and hypothesized to be cultural-specific predictors were

(a) harmony, face, family orientation, modernization, and Ah-Q mentality (Defensiveness), (b)

membership, private, public, and identity collective self-esteem, (c) independent and

interdependent self construal, and (d) self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribe

perfectionism.

On between group comparisons, the results indicated that Chinese students scored higher

on trait anxiety and social anxiety than Caucasian American students, with the largest effect size

on social avoidance. The two groups did not differ on state anxiety. On the Chinese personality

constructs, Chinese students scored higher on harmony, family orientation, and modernity. On

collective self-esteem, Chinese students scored higher on public collective self-esteem but lower

on membership, private, and identity collective self-esteem than Caucasian students. On self-

construal, Chinese students scored higher on interdependent self-construal but lower on

independent self-construal. Chinese students also scored lower on self-oriented and other-oriented

perfectionism. With respect to within-group relationships, socially prescribed perfectionism was a

stronger predictor of trait anxiety for Caucasian students and a stronger predictor of social anxiety

for Chinese students. Self-oriented perfectionism only predicted anxiety for Caucasian students

but in a negative direction. Independent self-construal predicted anxiety better for Caucasian

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students than for Chinese students. For collective self-esteem, membership collective self-esteem

was a stronger negative predictor of anxiety for Chinese. For the selected Chinese personality

constructs, harmony only predicted social avoidance positively for Chinese students.

Interestingly, face was a strong predictor of almost all the anxiety measures for Caucasian

students, but it did not predict any of the anxiety measures for Chinese students.

These results were discussed in terms of cultural variations that reflect the influences of

general social-cultural factors on the self. A differential and dynamic perspective was

recommended for future research on cross-cultural relevance of personality constructs.

Implications regarding counseling were also discussed in terms of providing more culturally

responsive treatments of anxiety problems among college students.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Leong very much for your intellectual support and

encouragement which made this dissertation possible. He has helped me greatly starting from

generating research ideas toward the completion of this dissertation. I particularly appreciate for

his time viewing my work, correcting errors, and providing advices in completing this

dissertation at this time when you are very busy with moving to another University.

I am also grateful to my committee members, Dr. Highlen and Dr. Walsh. Both of them

also have provided strong support to me on many aspects during my study at this program,

without which it would be very difficult for me to go through from the very beginning toward the

completion of my graduate study. Thanks for all their support and patience with my dissertation.

I also thank Chongwei Wang and Amanda (Yixi) Lin for questionnaire translation and

back-translation. Thanks to Dr. Zhiyong Zhang and Dr. Yubo Hou for data collection at Peking

University. My thanks also go to Yanjun Guan and Hong Li for your help with data entry.

This research was supported by the Graduate School Alumni Grant for Dissertation from

Graduate School of the Ohio State University and the Graduate Thesis/Dissertation Traveling

Grant from the Office of International Affairs of the Ohio State University.

v

VITA November 8, 1966………………………..Born – Anhui, P.R. China 1992………………………………………M.S. Abnormal Psychology Peking University, Beijing, China 1992-1996……………………………… ...Researcher Institute of Psychology

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China 1999-2003…………………………………Graduate Teaching and Research Associate The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2003-2004…………………………………Pre-doctoral Psychology Intern Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan

PUBLICATIONS Cheung, F., Leung, K., Zhang, J., Sun, H., Gan, Y., Song, W., & Xie, D. (2001). Indigenous

Chinese personality constructs: Is the five-factor model complete?. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 397-406.

Xie, D. (1995). The relationship between Type A behavior and coronary heart disease [Chinese].

Journal of developments in Psychology, 39, 34-39. Xie, D. (1992). Affective disorders and suicide. In D.F. Wang & B.Y. Zhang (Eds.), Mental

health and counseling among college students (pp. 148-166) [in Chinese]. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Wang, D.F., & Xie, D. (1993). Psychotherapy: Theory and practice [in Chinese]. Beijing: New

Culture Press.

FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Counseling Psychology

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………. ii Acknowledgment…………………………………………………………………………... iv Vita………………………………………………………………………………………… v List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………….viii Chapters 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 1 2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………………. 9 Anxiety: A general Review………………………………………………. 9 State-Trait Anxiety ……………………………………………………….11 Personality correlates of state and trait anxiety …………………………..13 Social Anxiety…………………………………………………………….19 Chinese Personality Factors……………………………………..…..……24 Collective Self-Esteem……………………………………………………36 Self-Construal …………………………………………………………… 40 Perfectionism ……………………………………………………………..47

Summary and Hypotheses……………………………………………….. 51 3. Method…………………………………………………………………………….. 56 Participants……………………………………………………………….. 56 Instruments and Materials………………………………………………… 57 Procedure…………………………………………………………………. 64

4. Result……………………………………………………………………………… 66 Preliminary analyses……………………………………………………… 66 Between-Group Comparisons on Means of Study Variables……………. 77

Within-Group Relationships between Independent and Dependent Variables…………………………………………………….. 80

5. Discussion………………………………………………………………………….92

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Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………123 Appendix A: Introduction to the study……………………………………………. 123 Appendix B: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory………………………………………. 124 Appendix C: Social Avoid and Distress Scale…………………………………….. 126 Appendix D: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory……….……………….. 127 Appendix E: Self-Construal Scale………………………………………………… 131 Appendix F: Collective Self-Esteem……………………………………………… 133 Appendix G: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale…………………………….. 134 Appendix H: Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Brief Form)………….. 136 Appendix I: Demographic Information…………………………………………. 137 Appendix J: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Chinese)……………………………. 138 Appendix K: Social Avoid and Distress Scale (Chinese)……………………….. 140 Appendix L: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (Chinese) …………….. 142 Appendix M: Self-Construal Scale (Chinese)…………………………………… 146 Appendix N: Collective Self-Esteem (Chinese) ………………………………… 148 Appendix O: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Chinese)………………….. 150 Appendix P: Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Chinese)……………… 153 Appendix Q: Demographic Information…………………………………………... 154 Appendix R: Tables………………………………………………………………..155

References…………………………………………………………………………………. 168

viii

LIST OF TABLES Table Page

1. Demographic Characteristics of Chinese and Caucasian Students………………………156

2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Internal Consistency of Study Variables for Chinese and Caucasian Students………………………………………….. 157 3. Intercorrelations among Dependent Variables and Social Desirability for Chinese and Caucasian Students ………………………………………………….. 158 4. Intercorrelations among Independent Variables and Social Desirability for Chinese and Caucasian students ……………………………………………………… 159 5. Intercorrelations between Independent Variables (IVs) and Dependent Variables (DVs) for Chinese and Caucasian Students………………………………….. 161 6. Between-group comparisons on dependent variables for Chinese (N=324) and Caucasian (N=332) Students……………………………………………………… 162 7. Between-group comparisons on means of independent variables for Chinese (N=324) and Caucasian (N=333) Students…………………………………… 163 8. Hierarchical regression for predictors of trait anxiety and comparison of regression coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians……………………………164 9. Hierarchical regression for predictors of state anxiety and comparison of regression coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians………………………………165 10. Hierarchical regression for predictors of social avoidance and comparison of regression coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians………………………….. 166 11. Hierarchical regression for predictors of social distress and comparison of regression coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians………………………….. 167

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Anxiety might be one of the most common psychological symptoms for all human

beings, especially among the college student population. However, our understanding of anxiety

has lagged behind its prevalence. Within a cross-cultural context, a lack of knowledge exists

regarding how anxiety is developed and experienced differently across cultures. Consequently,

there has been a lack of understanding of how treatments can be more culturally responsive for

students with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Anxiety is a common problem among

both Chinese and American college students. To ensure good academic performance and a high

quality of college life, it is important to investigate the existence of culturally specific factors

predicting anxiety for Chinese and American students. Only with this knowledge of culture-

specific factors and understanding of their impact, can mental health professionals provide more

culturally responsive interventions for students under the two cultural environments.

A review of cross-cultural studies about anxiety among Chinese suggests that Chinese

subjects tend to score higher than their American counterparts on various measures of anxiety

(Chataway and Berry, 1989; C.N. Chen, 1996; Chiu, 1971; Pashal & Kuo, 1973; Shen, 1936; C.

Sun, 1968; Zhang, Butler, & Pryor, 1996). The differences have been mainly explained in terms

of general, social, cultural, and contextual factors without these factors being directly measured or

specifically identified. In general, most of the above studies have been descriptive with an

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emphasis on between-group comparisons. Therefore, they are less meaningful in explaining how

anxiety has developed and what are the common and/or specific contributing factors for the two

populations.

Few studies have been attempted to examine the relationship between anxiety and its

personality correlates among Chinese population. Among the limited existing literature of this

kind, self-esteem and social support seem to have received more attention. Both factors have been

found negatively related to anxiety (Chan & Lee, 1993; C. Cheung & Liu, 1997; S. Cheung, S.

Sun, Mak & Fung, 1997; Chou, 2000; S. Sun, Stephen, S. Cheung, Fung, & Mak, 1999).

Moreover, most of these studies only focused on one type of anxiety or did not specify what type

of anxiety was measured, resulting in a failure to compare the relative strength of the relationship

among the correlates of different types of anxiety. Most of these studies were conducted only

among Chinese samples and were not cross-cultural in nature. Consequently, they failed to

answer the question to what extent these or other variables are related to anxiety for people in

cultures other than Chinese. In other words, studies have failed to compare the relative

importance of these variables in predicting anxiety in different cultures.

For any cross-cultural study, there are usually two forms of cross-cultural comparisons,

structure-oriented comparison and level-oriented comparison (Leung & Van de Vijver, 1996). A

structure-oriented comparison mainly examines whether the relationship of a set of variables

observed in one culture can be observed in another, whereas a level-oriented comparison deals

with the differences in the magnitude of variables across cultures. Most of previous cross-cultural

studies on anxiety have been largely level-oriented, with a focus on between-group differences of

anxiety experienced rather than how these differences have developed and what factors may

account for these differences. Such direct comparisons across cultures, which are based on the

scores derived from instruments developed under one culture or the other, may not be appropriate

3

in that the observed differences yielded from such comparisons cannot be generalized without

establishment of psychometric equivalence of the measures (Leung & Vijver, 1996).

Given the difficulty in achieving psychometric equivalence, one optional research

strategy is to focus on the cultural specific components of anxiety within each culture, that is,

how people experience and express anxiety differently and what maybe the culturally relevant

factors underlying anxiety. Some good examples are studies on Taijin Kyofusho (Kirmayer, 1991;

Kirmayer, Young, & Hayton, 1995; Kleinkecht, Dinnel, Kleinknecht, Hiruma, & Harada, 1997),

a type of social phobia particular to Japanese culture. These studies showed that Taijin Kyofusho

reverses the usual definition of social phobia in DSM-IV and that typical symptoms of Taijin

Kyofusho are absent from DSM-IV. They also found that the development of this particular

syndrome is associated with the collectivistic orientation inherent in Japanese society as well as

many other Asian societies.

With the increasing importance of understanding cultural issues in psychological research

and clinical practice, research that transcends basic cross-cultural comparisons and reveals

specific contextual relationships within cultures is needed. In area of cross-cultural studies, there

has been a call for the need to examine the cross-cultural phenomena more specifically. For

example, Betancourt and Lopez (1993) argue that many cross-cultural studies used social-cultural

factors as explanatory variables for the difference of psychological phenomena observed, but did

not specifically identify and directly measure aspects of culture that were thought to influence

human behavior. Sue and Zane (1987) also advocated for using more proximal variables to

understand the role of culture in counseling of ethnic minorities, suggesting past research had

been based on distal, broad cultural factors rather than proximal specific factors that affect

therapeutic alliance and interaction.

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Previous cross-cultural studies on emotional distress have mainly focused on between-

group comparisons. Most of them had the weakness of basing their comparisons on distal and

broad cultural factors because they did not identify or measure specific psychological variables

that theoretically represent putative cultural influences (Okazaki, 1997). The call for more

proximal variables in counseling practice made by Sue and Zane (1987) is also applicable for

cross-cultural research. It is implied that fruitful areas of cross-cultural studies would be those in

which variables are more proximally related to the individual (i.e., personality) and to the impacts

of social-cultural factors.

The present study extends previous ones by comparing the relative strength of some

culturally specific personality factors in predicting anxiety among Chinese students in Mainland

China and the Caucasian college students in the United States. Moreover, it seems more

promising to conduct studies that not only measure specific variables hypothesized to have

influence on anxiety, but also examine whether these variables have different influences on

different types of anxiety across different cultures. The design of the present study not only

makes it possible to compare the between-group differences on the magnitudes of various types

of anxiety and their correlates, more importantly, this study also makes it ready to examine the

relative importance of these variables in predicting anxiety across different cultures. Accordingly,

the present study chooses three different types of anxiety: state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social

anxiety. This study purports to explore relations of some cultural specific personality factors to

these types of anxiety and their relative importance in predicting anxiety for Chinese and

Caucasian college students.

The present study intends to examine culture-specific personality factors as predictors of

anxiety among Chinese and Caucasian college students. Some of these personality factors are

taken from the Chinese personality domains measured by the Chinese Personality Assessment

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Inventory (Cheung, Leung, Fan, Song, Zhang and Zhang, 1996). These factors are Harmony,

Face, Family Orientation, Modernization, and Ah-Q mentality (Defensiveness). These personality

factors have been hypothesized to have specific influence on behaviors of Chinese people, but

there has been a lack of empirical research to validate this hypothesis. Since these factors have

not been covered in most of the personality inventories developed by Western researchers,

investigating the cross-cultural relevance of these indigenous personality factors to other cultural

contexts (e.g., Caucasian cultures) has important implications for the Western personality

theories. If these factors are cross-culturally relevant, then we may need to explore their meaning

in the Western culture and to reexamine constructs underlying the Western personality theories.

Thus, one of the purposes of the present study is to examine the cross-cultural relevance of these

Chinese personality factors in predicting anxiety in the Caucasian culture.

The second culture-specific predictor for anxiety in the present study is collective self-

esteem, which is a relatively new construct developed by Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) based on

the social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). It refers to one’s self-esteem concerning the

social groups he/she belongs to rather than him or herself. Given the collective orientation in

Chinese culture and society, collective self-esteem may have played a more important role than in

the dominant Caucasian culture characterized by individualism. However, this hypothesis needs

to be further validated, because previous literature on collective self-esteem has mainly focused

on Asian Americans, and neglected the Chinese population in Mainland China.

Independent-interdependent self-construal is the third culture-specific predictor of

anxiety. It is a self-concept formulated by Saingelis (1994) based Markus and Kitayama (1991)’s

theory of cultural variation on self. Independent self-construal is defined as a bounded, unitary,

and stable self that is separated from social context, whereas interdependent self-construal refers

to a flexible and variable self that emphasizes social contextual features such as status, role and

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interpersonal relationships. Due to its effects on individual behavior as well as its relation to the

clear and potent cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism, self-construal promises to be

an important variable in linking culture to behavior (Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, & Lai, 1999).

While this construct has been treated as a cultural relevant factor in many studies involving Asian

Americans (see Singelis, 1994, for a discussion), almost no study has been conducted with

Chinese participants living outside of the United States, and there has been no study investigating

the relative contribution of self-construal to anxiety for Chinese and Caucasians.

Finally, perfectionism is selected as another personality factor in predicting anxiety.

Perfectionism is rooted and developed in the Western cultures, and is presumably to have

universal influences across many cultures. This construct, particularly when conceptualized as a

uni-dimensional construct, can be regarded as a culture-universal factor in that theoretically and

empirically research has found a positive relationship between perfectionism and anxiety across

different cultures. However, perfectionism also bears some culture-specific connotations when it

is conceptualized on three dimensions (i.e., self-oriented, other oriented, and socially prescribed

perfectionism) (Hewitt & Flett, 1989, 1991). It is our interest to examine if this relatively recently

developed culture-specific factor can predict anxiety differently for Chinese and Caucasian

college students.

In sum, focusing on culture-specific personality factors, the present study makes the

level-oriented comparisons regarding the magnitudes of anxiety and these factors and the

structure-oriented comparisons regarding the within-group relationships between these factors

and anxiety. Specifically, the purposes of the present study are: (1) to examine differences

between Chinese and Caucasian college students on levels of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and

social anxiety and on the personality factors selected (level-oriented comparisons), (2) to examine

the within group relationships of different types of anxiety to all personality factors selected, and

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compare the similarity and difference of these relationships across cultures (structured-oriented

comparison), (3) to examine whether the relationship observed in one culture can be observed in

another, and to identify what personality factors are specific predictors of anxiety for Chinese,

and what are those for Caucasians, and (4) to examine cross-cultural relevance of the selected

Chinese personality factors in predicting anxiety within the Caucasian culture context.

The present study has important implications for personality theory, the psychotherapy,

and counseling practice. First, with respect to personality theory, this study can improve the

knowledge base of the cross-cultural relevance of the traditional Chinese personality factors in

the Caucasian culture. A recent study found that the Interpersonal Relatedness factor, a construct

typical of Chinese culture, was confirmed in a Hawaii sample involving different ethnic

backgrounds. This study suggested the existence of the cross-cultural relevance of this factor

(Cheung et al., 2001). Similarly, through exploring the cross-cultural relevance of the traditional

Chinese personality factors in the Caucasian culture, the present study may answer the question

whether these variables represent something unique to Chinese people or something that is

illusive for Western researchers because of its obscurity in Western personality theories. If these

variables are indeed relevant to the Caucasian culture, then the meaning of these characteristics

associated with what we considered indigenous to the Chinese should be explored in Western

personality theories.

Along with the theoretical implications, the present study is further important for

counseling and psychotherapy practitioners. Although anxiety might be one of the most common

psychological symptoms for all human beings, especially among college students population,

people’s understanding of anxiety has been far lagged behind its prevalence. Through examining

the specific relationship of different forms of anxiety and their possible correlates within each

culture, this study will increase knowledge particularly useful for cross-cultural counseling. The

8

counseling and psychotherapy approaches based on the Caucasian dominant culture has been

criticized for lack of cultural variations to clients from various cultural backgrounds

(LaFromboise, Foster, & James, 1996). Therefore, this study can increase practitioners’

awareness and knowledge of cultural diversity issues in their working with Chinese clients and

help them develop more cultural specific and responsive treatment plans for their anxiety. For

example, if this study suggests that those traditional Chinese personality factors have more

predictive value for Chinese students than Caucasian students, then, a counselor working with a

Chinese student may need to examine the influence of these factors in the development of his/her

anxiety, and may explore treatments other than assertive training or self-esteem building, which

have been most often used for treatment of anxiety and other psychological distress for Caucasian

patients. This is especially important for mental health practitioners in China where treatment

methods have been largely transplanted from Western approaches with very little consideration of

cultural variations.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter first presents a literature review of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social

anxiety, followed by a review of anxiety among Chinese subjects. The second part reviews the

independent variables for the present study, which are the personality factors hypothesized to be

more relevant to anxiety among Chinese and those more relevant to anxiety among Caucasians.

Finally, the third part presents hypotheses of the present study.

Anxiety: A General Review

Anxiety was initially conceptualized by Darwin (1872/1965) as an adaptive response

manifested by a series of physiological changes (e.g., increased heart palpitation, pupil dilation,

trembling, dryness of mouth, increased perspiration, changes in voice quality, and peculiar facial

expressions), but it was not until Freud that the phenomenological aspect of anxiety has been

recognized. Freud defined anxiety as “something felt”, that is, an unpleasant emotion state or

condition characterized of both experiential and physiological qualities (Freud, 1924, cited in

Spielberger, Sydeman, Owen, & Marsh, 1999), but still, it has been difficult to give anxiety an

exact and specific definition in today’s contemporary psychology. In spite of this difficulty, it is

has been generally agreed that anxiety is an emotional reaction characterized by a

psychobiological process involving experiential, physiological, and behavioral components. The

10

experiential components constitute the uncomfortable subjective emotional state with feelings of

dread and apprehension. The physiological process involves the arousal of the autonomous

nervous system, manifested as an increased heart rate, perspiring, and many other related

physiological changes. Finally, the behavioral components refer to its motivating nature in

helping the individual cope with the danger. These three components are correspondent to the

three systems in which anxiety is expressed: verbal (saying “ I am anxious”), physiological

(experiencing increased heart rate or sweat), and behavioral (avoiding or running away from the

feared situation) (Vrana, 1996).

Rather than attempting to formulate a strict definition of anxiety, many psychologists

simply make the distinction between normal anxiety and neurotic anxiety (see Gall, 1996).

Normal (sometimes called objective) anxiety is what we generally refer to as fear and occurs

when people react appropriately to the situation causing the anxiety in its intensity and duration,

whereas neurotic anxiety, or clinical anxiety, is characterized by disproportionately intense

feelings that interfere with individual’s ability to carry out normal or desired activities. Anxiety is

implicated as the dominant disturbance in a number of psychological disorders, such as

generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social phobia, panic disorder, and posttraumatic stress

disorder (PTSD). These disorders together with other disorders are described as a cluster of

anxiety disorders in the Forth Edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

(DSM-IV, APA, 1994).

More important is the distinction between state anxiety and trait anxiety by Spielberger,

Gorsuch, and Lushene (1970). They supplied a new conceptual framework of understanding

anxiety. State anxiety is a transitory emotion state (i.e., “I feel anxious”), and trait anxiety is a

more stable individual difference as an enduring personality trait (i.e., “He is an anxious person”).

Based on this conceptualization, Spielberger and colleagues developed the State-Trait Anxiety

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Inventory, STAI, Spielberger, 1983; Spielberger et al., 1970), one of the most widely used

anxiety measurements.

Social anxiety is defined as “anxiety resulting from the prospect or presence of

interpersonal evaluation in real or imagined social settings “ (Schlenker & Leary, 1982, p.642)

and is characterized with fear associated with social situations in which the individual might be

viewed or scrutinized by others. Therefore, social anxiety is of more interest of the present study

than other types of anxiety simply because social anxiety may be more likely to reflect cultural

variations under different cultural and social contexts. In other words, how people experience and

express social anxiety may be more likely to be influenced by cultural factors.

For the present study, state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social anxiety are selected as

dependent variables. The conceptual distinction between sate and trait anxiety make it possible to

examine the relationship between state anxiety and trait anxiety for Chinese subjects. Review of

Western literature suggests that state anxiety and trait anxiety are moderately to highly correlated

(see Spielberger, 1985), and under relatively non-stressful conditions, the scores of normal

subjects on state anxiety and trait anxiety, as measured by the STAI, are generally identical

(Spielberger, 1983). Will this hold true for Chinese? According to Hsu (1971a), in a collectivism

culture like Chinese, people’s behavior is more likely to be determined by situational or

contextual factors rather than personality traits. Thus, the relationship between state anxiety and

trait anxiety observed in Western subjects may not apply for Chinese who are more contextually

oriented.

State-Trait Anxiety

Conceptualization. One significant advance in research of anxiety is the differentiation of

state anxiety and trait anxiety. Cattell and Scheier (1963) identified two related, yet logically

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different anxiety constructs, an unpleasant emotional state that varies in intensity and fluctuated

over time, and the relatively stable individual differences in anxiety proneness as a personality

trait (Spielberger, Sydeman, Owen, & Marsh. 1999). Spielberger and colleagues further

developed Cattell’s theory of anxiety and developed the STAI (Spielberger, 1983; Spielberger et

al., 1970) to measure these two anxiety components, state anxiety (S-Anxiety, and trait anxiety

(T-Anxiety). According to Spielbeger and colleagues (1999), state anxiety is defined as “a

temporal cross-section in the emotional stream-of-life of a person, consisting of subjective

feelings of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry, and activation or arousal of the

autonomic nervous system” (p32). The definition also assumes that the intensity of state anxiety

can be measured at a given time and it fluctuates overtime as a function of the extent to which an

individual perceives his/her environment as dangerous or threatening. Trait anxiety is defined in

terms of relatively stable individual differences in anxiety-proneness. It is the tendency to

perceive stressful situations as dangerous or threatening, especially for situations that involve

evaluation by other people or threats to the individual’s self-esteem (Spielberger et al., 1999).

Trait anxiety reflects an individual’s disposition to responding to these situations with elevations

in state anxiety. It assumes that trait anxiety can be reflected in the frequency and the intensity

that anxiety has been experienced in the past, and in the probability that state anxiety will be

manifested in the future. While state anxiety is a transitional affective state that is more

influenced by situational and contextual factors, origins of individual differences in trait anxiety

might be from childhood experiences and early parent-child relationships involving withdrawal of

love and negative evaluation by parents, teachers, or peers (Purdue & Speilberger, 1966).

Research has shown that individuals high in trait anxiety are generally more vulnerable to

evaluations by others because they tend to be low in self-esteem and lack confidence in

themselves (Spielberger & Rickman, 1991).

13

With respect to the relationship between state anxiety and trait anxiety, research has

indicated that state anxiety and trait anxiety are moderate to highly correlated (Spielberger, 1985).

Although trait anxiety may not predict the emotional reactions to potentially painful physical

dangers, individuals high in trait anxiety generally respond with greater elevations in state anxiety

than those low in trait anxiety to psychological threats such as threats to self-esteem (Speilberger,

1972, 1977, cited in Spielberger, 1985) or under stressful conditions (Trotter & Endler, 1999), but

under relatively non-stressful conditions, the scores of normal subjects on state anxiety and trait

anxiety, as measured by the STAI, are generally quite identical (Spielberger, 1983).

Personality Correlates of State and Trait anxiety

The development of STAI made measurement of anxiety more available and operational

and has inspired many studies on state and trait anxiety in extensive areas. Some of the areas were

categorized by Spielberger (1985) and include: (a) conditioning, learning, and memory

experiments in which the T-Anxiety was used to select subjects and S-Anxiety scale was used to

measure intensity of emotional reaction to learning tasks; (b) the relationship between test

anxiety, math anxiety, and speech anxiety, where moderately high correlations have been found;

(c) psychotherapy and behavior therapy where S-Anxiety and T-Anxiety scales were used as both

process and outcome measures, and (d) psychiatric, psychosomatic, and medical patients whose

scores of state anxiety and trait anxiety were used as indices of symptoms.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to state and trait anxiety with respect to

their relationships to distress and psychological well-being. For example, research has found that

among demographical, negative life events, social support and many other personality variables,

trait anxiety is one of the strongest predictors of dispositional pessimism (Myers, & Steed, 1999),

14

substance (e.g., nicotine) dependence (e.g., Audrain, Lerman, Gomez-Caminero, Boyd, &

Orleans, 1998), and perceived stress and psychiatric symptomatology (Kohn & MacDonald,

1992).

One research area of state and trait anxiety has been the investigation of their relationship

to other psychological constructs. For example, research found that trait anxiety was related to

negative self-concept (e.g., Biaggio, Crano & Crano, 1986), private self-consciousness (e.g.,

Well, 1985), social connectedness (e.g., Lee & Robinson, 1998), and external locus of control

(e.g., Kerr & Goss, 1997). Self-esteem might be the one that has been mostly often studied and

research has consistently revealed a significant negative relationship between state and trait

anxiety and self-esteem (e.g., Kerr & Goss, 1997; Richard & Jex, 1991; Taylor, & del Pilar,

1992).

In addition, there has been research suggesting a positive relationship between

perfectionism and state and trait anxiety. For example, Flett, Hewitt, and Dyck, (1989) found

perfectionism was associated with increased levels of both state and trait anxiety, with the largest

association being between perfectionism and trait anxiety. However, in a later study on the

relationships between dimensions of perfectionism and state and trait anxiety, Flett and

colleagues found socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with higher state anxiety,

especially under high self-involvement situations, while few consistent relationships were found

between dimensions of perfectionism and trait anxiety (Flett, Hewitt, Endler, & Chiara, 1995).

However, there has been a lack of research in examining the relationship between state and

trait anxiety and other personality variables. For trait anxiety, this may be because researchers

have treated trait anxiety as a basic personality factor and as an independent variable in their

research. These studies have mainly focused on the influence of trait anxiety on other

psychological phenomena, neglecting how trait anxiety has developed and is influenced by other

15

personality factors. For state anxiety, perhaps due to its conceptualization as a transitional

emotional state that is more likely to be affected by situational factors, its relationship to other

personality factors has been largely neglected.

Cross-cultural studies on state and trait anxiety. There have been even fewer cross-

cultural studies on the different influences of culturally relevant personality factors on state and

trait anxiety across cultures. Previous studies have been largely associated with the STAI and can

be classified into three areas: (a) cross-cultural adaptation/validation of the inventory, (b) anxiety

research in different cultures with the translated versions of STAI, and (c) cross-cultural

comparisons of anxiety (Spielberger & Diaz-Guerrero, 1976, 1983, 1986; Spielberger, Diaz-

Guerrero, & Strelau, 1990). Since its introduction, STAI has been translated and adapted into 48

different languages and dialects (Spielberger, Ritterband, Sydeman, Reheiser, & Unger, 1995).

Sharma (1977) reviewed early studies of cross-cultural comparisons of anxiety levels. In

one of these studies, Cattell and Scheier (1961, cited in Sharma, 1977) used 16PF as the estimate

of anxiety and compared the anxiety levels of samples across six nations that were in good match

of gender, age, and education. Their study identified the following order of anxiety levels from

high to low: Poland, India, France, Italy, Britain, and the United States. In another study, Tsujioka

and Cattell (1965, cited in Sharma, 1977) also found that Japanese male undergraduates were

significantly anxious than their American counterparts. However, in another study, Cattell and

Warburton (1961, cited in Sharma, 1977) found American college students had higher level of

anxiety than their British counterparts. Starting early seventies, a number of cross-cultural

comparisons were made utilizing English STAI and its translated versions of different languages.

For example, Spielberger, Sharma, and Singh (1973, cited in Sharma, 1977) found that Indian

graduate students scored higher on STAI than their American counterparts. In another study of

comparing published normative data, LeCompte and Oner (1976, cited in Sharma, 1977) found

16

that for the four nations compared, the high to low order of mean scores on trait anxiety was

Turkish, Hindi, American, and Puerto Rican bilinguals, and the high to low order of mean scores

on the state anxiety was Turkish and Puerto Rican samples (no difference), American, and Hindi.

Cross-cultural comparisons have also been made with use of other measures of state and trait

anxiety. For example, Weiser, Endler, and Parker (1991) compared anxiety and coping styles of

Mexican and Canadian young adults utilizing the Multidimensional Anxiety Scales (EMAS,

Endler, Edwards, & Vitelli, 1990) and found Canadians scored higher than Mexican participants

on the trait anxiety scales of the EMAS.

All the above cross-cultural comparisons were level-oriented, that is, they all dealt with the

differences in the magnitude of anxiety across cultures. However, there is one study that is

structure-oriented. Emmite and Diaz-Guerrero (1983) examined the extent to which a set of

personality factors including trait anxiety are associated with academic criteria (GPA), and the

relative contribution of these factors to academic achievements. In this study, the sample

consisted of 432 Black American, 392 Mexican-American, and 392 Anglo-American 12-15 yr old

junior high school students. The results indicated that (a) trait anxiety was negatively associated

with students’ GPA for Black and Anglo American students, but not for Mexican American

students, (b) trait anxiety positively correlated with self-derogation and passive external control

consistently across all three groups, and (c) trait anxiety explained highest variance of GPA for

Black American students, and made no contribution for variance for the Mexican American

students. These results suggested that relationship between trait anxiety and self-derogation and

passive external control might be universal, whereas its relationship with academic achievements

tended to be more likely influenced by culture.

State and trait anxiety among Chinese. Research with a focus on specific state and/or trait

anxiety among Chinese has been very limited. Tsio, Ho, and Mak (1986) made an early Chinese

17

translation of the STAI (Form X) in Hong Kong, and with this Chinese version they found

pregnant women who did not have a normal child scored higher on the A-Trait Scale than control

group and those mothers who had already had a normal child. The reliability and validity of this

Chinese version STAI were evidenced by subsequent studies (Shek, 1988; Shek, 1991; Shek,

1993a). In a study examining the psychometric properties of a measure of hopeless, the A-Trait

scale was used as one of measures of psychological well-being among 500 Chinese

undergraduates in Hong Kong (Shek, 1993b). The results showed that life satisfaction and self-

esteem made significant contribution to trait anxiety, while hopelessness did not. In a

comparative study of anxiety among Chinese and Japanese college students, Wang, Tsujino, and

Inuihara (1999) found Chinese (Mainland) students scored lower on both A-State and A-Trait

scales of STAI. Using the STAI Chinese translation, Zhang, Hu, and Yi (1998) made a survey of

anxiety symptoms among 775 college students in 13 colleges in Mainland China. They found that

students scored significantly higher on A-Trait scale than the general non-college sample, but no

significant difference on the A-State scale.

Since research with specific state and trait anxiety is limited, cross-cultural studies on

anxiety in general for Chinese and Americans are reviewed here. Most of these studies, however,

have also been level-oriented comparisons. Early studies revealed that Chinese subjects tended to

be more anxious than Americans. For example, Shen (1936) found that Chinese high school

students were more emotionally unstable. Sun (1968), using the 16PF Test to examine American

college students and Chinese college students studying in the United States, found similar results

that Chinese students scored significantly lower on Factor C, indicating emotional instability and

high level of anxiety. The author proposed that the higher anxiety levels among Chinese students

were due to the sense of insecurity brought by change of environment. In comparing the manifest

anxiety between Chinese (Taiwan) and American school children, Chiu (1971) found that the

18

Chinese children scored significantly higher than American children, and explained the results in

terms of ecological differences both within and between cultures in that high level of anxiety was

associated with a low standard of living. In a study examining the differences on anxiety and self-

concepts between Chinese (Taiwan) and American college students, Paschal and Kuo (1973)

found Chinese students scored significantly higher than their American counterparts on manifest

anxiety. They attributed the higher anxiety levels of Chinese students to the political instability

and poverty produced by the China civil wars, excessive job competition, and high parental

pressure for youth to go abroad. Although self-concept was included in this study, its relationship

to anxiety was not examined. Thus, it is unclear whether the differences resulted from the social

contextual factors or from their interaction with more proximal personal variables such as self-

concept. A relative recent study also supported the above findings. Chataway and Berry (1989)

compared college life adjustment to a Canadian college of 42 Chinese (Hong Kong) students, 43

French-Canadian students, and 42 English-Canadian students, and found that Chinese students

experienced higher trait anxiety, more prejudice, more adaptation and communication problems,

lower English language competence, and lower perceived social support of friends than the

French and English students.

The findings that Chinese participants tended to have higher anxiety than Americans seem

to have been supported by some epidemiological surveys on mental disorders. For example,

based on a large-scale psychiatric epidemiological survey conducted in Hong Kong, Chen (1996)

found that, compared to the data obtained in the United States and Britain with similar diagnostic

instruments, the prevalence rate of anxiety disorders in Hong Kong is higher than in the Western

countries. The relative high rates of anxiety disorders were also observed in epidemiological

studies conducted in north and south Taiwan with same and different diagnostic instruments

(Chen, 1988; Yeh & Hwu, 1992). Interestingly, all these surveys observed a relatively low rate of

19

depressive disorders among Chinese societies. It seems that there exists a pattern of higher

anxiety but lower depression among Chinese relative to Westerners. This pattern was explained in

terms of cultural variation in early childhood development that predisposes individuals to

depression and anxiety response differentially (Chen, 1996). In the West as children grow up,

they maintain friendships with family members and are expected to venture outside the home.

The over-emphasis on independence and individualism in Western culture might make it difficult

to maintain a continuous unconditional family support as in the case of a Chinese family.

Therefore, one may become more prone to loneliness, helplessness, and eventually, depression.

Whereas in Chinese society, the over-emphasis on obedience to authority may make children

always watch out for their behavior, not so much for what they want to do but for what comments

others may make; this may make them over sensitive to interpersonal relationship, and at time of

crisis, more prone to anxiety disorders. However, this explanation lacks empirical support.

In sum, research on specific state and trait anxiety has been limited in the literature on

Chinese subjects. Among the limited research, state anxiety and trait anxiety were usually not

differentiated with respect to the influence of culturally relevant factors (e.g., Sun, 1968).

Moreover, state anxiety seems to receive less attention than trait anxiety. Cross-cultural studies

have suggested the between group difference that Chinese tended to be more anxious than

Americans, but their failure to examine and compare the similarity and differences of the within-

group relationship between anxiety and its correlates limits our understanding the nature of such a

between group difference.

Social Anxiety

Conceptualization. Social anxiety is defined as “ anxiety resulting from the prospect or

presence of interpersonal evaluation in real or imagined social settings “ (Schlenker & Leary,

20

1982, p.642). Though it is an emotional reaction that can be experienced as embarrassment,

shame, shyness, and/or audience anxiety (Buss, 1980), it is characterized with a fear associated

with social situations in which the individual might be viewed or scrutinized by others. This

social anxiety reaction, like all other forms of anxiety, is elicited by some form of perceived

threat to the individual, and appears to be a universal phenomenon for all human kind (Good &

Kleinman, 1985; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992). Social anxiety may exist in two: (1) generalized

social anxiety (i.e., being anxious in most of social situations) and (2) non-generalized social

anxiety (i.e., being anxious only in one or two discrete situations such as eating or performing in

presence of others) (Norton, Cox, Hewitt, & McLeod, 1997). In the present study, social anxiety

refers to generalized social anxiety.

Social anxiety differs from anxiety in general (e.g., trait anxiety) or other types of anxiety

in that it is associated with social or interpersonal situations. The distress that a socially anxious

individual experiences is directly tied to concern with the evaluation made by others about

him/herself. Social anxiety can be viewed as an interpersonal problem involving cognitive,

behavioral, and motivational components (Alden, Bieling, & Meleshko, 1995). Some theories of

social anxiety have centered on the behavioral deficiencies in social interaction and have argued

that social anxiety is a reaction to an inadequate behavioral repertoire and that skill deficits lead

to inappropriate responses to social situations, which result in aversive social consequences and

anxiety (Trower & Turland, 1984). Impacts of cognitive factors also have been emphasized in

some theories of social anxiety. Social anxiety may arise when individual’s underlying schemata

directs his/her attention to social evaluation and negative social outcomes, resulting in a biased

processing of social information (e.g., Beck & Emery, 1985, cited in Alden, et al., 1995), or when

a cycle of automatic negative thought, physiological arousal, and behavioral avoidance is formed

(Heimberg, 1991).

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The motivational components have been emphasized in the self-presentation model of

social anxiety (Schlenker & Leary, 1982, 1985; Leary & Kowalski, 1995). According to this

model, social anxiety arises in situations where the individual is highly motivated to create a

certain impression on others but doubts his/her ability of successfully doing so and fears negative

evaluation. Thus, increased motivation to convey a particular desired impression to others is

directly associated with increased social anxiety. In order to minimize the possibility of

embarrassing social blunders, socially anxious individuals often engage themselves in a modest,

and/or even withdrawal approach to social interaction, leading them to be perceived by others as

cold, aloof, and uninterested in the interaction, which in turn further confirm their fears and

reaffirm their lack of self-efficacy. This processed, being referring to as anxiety-inhibition cycle

(Leary, 1986) implies that socially anxiously individuals often begin with leaving a positive

impression on others, but end with negative self-presentations as perceived by themselves and

others.

Clinically, when meeting certain diagnostic criteria, social anxiety can be referred to as

Social Phobia, an anxiety disorder included in DSM-IV. In this case, the individual experiences

persistent fear in one or more social or performance situations and fears that he/she will do

something humiliating or embarrassing, and this fear interferes significantly with his/her normal

life and functioning (APA, 1994). This disorder is also often accompanied by avoidance behavior

and physiological symptoms, such as blushing, sweating, and muscle twitching.

Social anxiety, either as a negative emotional reaction, or a specific type of anxiety

disorder, has been extensively studied in the past several decades, especially in relation to its

etiological factors. Research has shown that a variety of factors including genetic, familial, and

personality contribute to the development of social anxiety (see Norton, Cox, Hewitt, & Mcleod,

1998). Among personality factors, some studies examined the relationship between the “Big

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Five” and social anxiety, and found that neuroticism and introversion are related to social anxiety

(see Norton et al., 1997 for a review). Studies also found a number of self-related variables are

good predictors of social anxiety, such as public self-consciousness (Darvil, Johnson, & Danko,

1992; Mikawa, Nordin, & Eyman, 1986), low self-esteem (Inderbitzen-Pisaruk, Clark, & Solano,

1992), important self-information (Darby, 1989), interdependent self-construal (Sharky & Singlis,

1995), and external locus of control (Feather & Volkmer, 1988; Mikawa et al., 1986; Schmitt &

Kurdek, 1984).

In summary, the influence of personality factors on the development of social anxiety has

received increasing attention in recent years (Norton et al., 1997), but there has been a lack of

cross-cultural literature about the different impacts of personality factors on social anxiety across

cultures. Thus, accordingly, the present study purports to make an initial attempt to explore this

issue. For the purpose of the present study, only the literature reflecting personality factors is

reviewed in this section. Among them, studies directly related to the personality variables chosen

for this study were reviewed in detail.

Social anxiety among Chinese. Literature of social anxiety particularly among Chinese has

also been very limited quantitatively with existing studies yielding inconsistent findings. In an

early study about the speaking apprehension among Chinese college students, Klopf and Cambra

(1980) compared the data of 275 Chinese students to the data of a norm of 2479 American

college students and found no significant difference in speaking apprehension. However, in a

recent study using the same measure of speaking apprehension, Zhang, Butler, and Pryor (1996)

found that Chinese college students reported significantly higher apprehension about

communication as compared to the data of American norms established in 1982. The article did

not give an explicit explanation for such difference, but did argue that speaking anxiety in

Western cultures such as the United States, may imply low self-esteem, loneliness, and

23

depression; however, this may not be the case in China where self-assertiveness and self-

expression is not emphasized. The results of this study should be taken cautiously, given the

noticeably different eras of the data obtained. It seems that Chinese college students have become

more apprehensive in communication if considering the non-significant result of Klopf and

Cambra’s (1980) study.

Chan (1996) did a cross-cultural validation study on the Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS,

Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975), using Chinese college students in Hong Kong as participants.

SCS is a widely used measure of disposition of self-focused attention, consisting of three

subscales, namely, Private Self-consciousness, Public Self-Consciousness, and Social Anxiety.

This study confirmed social anxiety as a distinct dimension in the SCS-Chinese version, and

found that on this scale Chinese students scored similarly to their American counterparts, but

higher than French, Dutch, and Sweden students (Chan, 1996). Although different orientations

due to the collectivism and individualism were proposed to account for the difference, the lack of

difference between Chinese and American college students may suggest some methodological

weakness.

Most research on social anxiety has focused on its affective component with a reliance on

paper-pencil, or self-reported measures, and somewhat neglected behavioral measures. Sue, Sue,

and Ino (1990) combined the self-report and behavior measures in their study on assertiveness

and social anxiety in Chinese-American women (college students), and found that Chinese-

Americans were as assertive as the Caucasian-Americans students, but they reported more

apprehensive about social situations than Caucasian students. An earlier study (Sue, Ino, & Sue,

1983) found similar results for Chinese American men. These studies suggested that Chinese-

Americans tend to report more anxiety and apprehension in social situations but behave as

assertively as their Caucasian counterparts. However, these studies failed to support the notion

24

that Chinese Americans are less assertive than Caucasian Americans as suggested by Cambra,

Klopf, and Oka (1978). The discrepancy between self-report and behavior measures is not easily

explained but appears to support the hypothesis that a cultural norm of nonassertiveness (e.g.,

Chinese) may result in negative self-evaluations of Asian Americans rather than actual deficits in

assertive behavior (Alden & Cappe, 1981).

Chinese Personality Factors

Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI). In countries where psychology is not

yet fully developed, such as China, measurements of psychological constructs have mainly relied

on translation and/or adaptation of instruments developed in Western countries, such as the

United States. F.M. Cheung and colleagues (1996a) summarized the limitations of the

translation/adaptation approach and argued that the most deficiency of this approach is its failure

to address the issue of cultural specific factors. Recognizing this deficiency, Cheung and

colleagues developed the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI, Cheung, et al.,

1996a), an instrument that both includes personality domains specific to Chinese cultures (emic)

and culturally comparable (etic) constructs. The CPAI was developed based on a large sample of

Chinese of Mainland China and Hong Kong (see Cheung, et al., 1996a for full description of the

development and psychometric properties of the inventory). The final version of CPAI consists of

22 personality scales and 12 clinical scales, and three validity scales.

Factor analysis based on the combined Mainland and Hong Kong samples yielded four

factors from the 22 personality scales: Dependability, Chinese Tradition, Social Potency, and

Individualism (Cheung, et al., 1996a). In a more recent study, Cheung and colleagues examined

the universality and sufficiency of the Five Factors in the Chinese context (Cheung et al., 2001).

A joint factor analysis performed on the CPAI personality scales and the Revised NEO

25

Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrea, 1992), the most often used measure of the

Five Factor (i.e., Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness,

see Costa & McCrea, 1992, for a review) yielded a sixth factor, Interpersonal Relatedness, a

factor was not loaded by any of the Five Factors. This factor was also confirmed in a Hawaii

sample involving different ethnic backgrounds, indicating the cross-cultural relevance of this

factor (Cheung, et al., 2001).

The Chinese personality factors included in the present study were assessed by the

subscales of CPAI, namely, Harmony, Face, Family Orientation, Modernity, and Ah-Q Mentality

(Defensiveness). These factors were among the emic personality characteristics deemed to be of

specific interest to the Chinese culture but were not covered in the most of personality inventories

developed under Western culture (Cheung, et al., 1996a). While these factors have been

theoretically considered to be indigenous to the Chinese culture, empirical evidence is needed to

validate this hypothesis. Thus, one purpose of the present study is to examine the uniqueness of

these Chinese personality to Chinese culture, and their cross-cultural relevance in predicting

anxiety under the Caucasian cultural context.

Harmony. Harmony is conceptualized to contain intrapersonal harmony (e.g., inner peace

of mind, self-contentment, and state of equilibrium) and interpersonal harmony (e.g., avoidance

of interpersonal conflicts) (Cheung et al., 1996a). Harmony orientation can be easily identified in

many Chinese proverbs such as “Yi He Wei Gui” (harmony is the first appreciated), “He Qi Sheng

Cai”, (harmony produces good business). This is the tendency to maintain the equilibrium and

avoid interpersonal conflict, which originated from the Confucian ethics that emphasizes

benevolence, righteousness or justice, and propriety or courtesy in the traditional Chinese culture

(Gabrenya & Hwang, 1996). This Confucian philosophy has been the governing principle of

Chinese social behavior in that it discourages aggressive behavior and helps maintain social

26

order, existing hierarchy, family intact, and interpersonal harmony (Bond & Wang, 1983). The

use of aggression to challenge authority and the hierarchical arrangements is suppressed from an

early age, and the tendency to maintain harmony has been considered as one of the important

virtues in the Chinese culture. Thus, in the Chinese culture characterized with collectivistic

orientation, other-orientation, relationship orientation, and authoritarian orientation, harmony may

have more importance implications for conflict avoidance and conflict resolution than in the

Caucasian culture characterized with an individualistic orientation, self-orientation, and

independent orientation.

The CPAI Harmony scale was one of the subscales loading the aforementioned Chinese

Tradition factor in the preliminary factor analysis (Cheung, et al., 1996a) as well as in the

Interpersonal Relatedness factor in comparison to the Five Factor Model (Cheung, et al., 2001).

Recent research on relationship harmony as a personality dimension also indicated its importance

in collectivistic Chinese culture. Kwan, Bond, and Singelis (1997) found that in contrast to

American students, Hong Kong students showed that development and maintaining relationship

harmony was as important as establishing self-esteem in predicting life satisfaction. They also

found that the relative importance of relationship harmony in predicting life satisfaction was

greater for Hong Kong students than for American students. In a study examining the relationship

between the CPAI Chinese Tradition/Interpersonal Relatedness scales and different aspects of

social relationships in the Chinese culture, Zhang (1997, cited in Cheung et al., 2001) found

CPAI Harmony scale was positively related to the trust of intimate persons in one’s in-group.

Emphasis on interpersonal harmony is not a patent of Chinese culture; indeed, it is a

traditional values shared by many other Asian ethnicities. Interpersonal harmony and cooperation

was considered as one of the between- and within-group similarities among many Asian ethnic

groups (Iwamasa, 1997). However, this orientation may sometimes be interpreted as conformity

27

and lack of assertiveness and research did show that some Asian Americans scored higher on

conformity (see Iwamasa, 1997, for a review) and lower on assertiveness (Iwamasa, 1997, for a

review) as compared to European Americans. These results should be interpreted cautiously as

research indicated an existence of discrepancy between self-report measures and behavioral

observations on assertiveness among Asian Americans. For example, Sue, Sue, and Ino (1990)

found that Chinese-American college students behaved as assertive as the Caucasian-Americans

students, though they reported more anxiety and apprehension about social situations than

Caucasian students.

In general, the concept of harmony has been largely discussed on the broad social and

cultural level through philosophical writings, folk wisdom, anthropological observations,

sociological surveys and psychological experimentation about aggression in Chinese people

(Bond & Wang, 1983; Bong & Hwang, 1986). Harmony as a personal disposition to avoid

conflict and maintain one’s inner peace of mind has not been adequately addressed and empirical

studies of harmony as a personality factor have been very limited. Moreover, there has been no

research studying the relationship of harmony as a personality factor to anxiety. However, from

the conceptualization of this construct and the aforementioned studies, a negative relationship

between harmony and anxiety can be readily hypothesized.

Face. Face is conceptualized as an individual’s tendency and concern to enhance one’s

face and avoid losing face in interpersonal and hierarchical connections and social behaviors

(Cheung et al., 1996a). Face has also defined by the Western sociologist Goffman (1955) as “an

image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes” (p. 233). Ho (1976, 1982) argued

that what inherited in face behavior is reciprocity, and the concept of face only has meaning in

viewing one’s behavior in relation to other’s.

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Although the concept of face may have universal application (Ho, 1976), what constitutes

a desirable face is cultural specific (Bond & Hwang, 1986). In the Chinese culture, face is a

dominant concept in interpreting and regulating social behavior, and is more interpersonal

connected. Like the Harmony Scale, the CPAI Face Scale was also one of the subscales loading

on the Chinese Tradition factor in the preliminary factor analysis in test standardization and in the

Interpersonal Relatedness factor in examining the completeness of the Five Factor Model

(Cheung et al., 2001). Domino, Affonso, and Slobin (1987) ranked face as one of the five most

influential societal factors in Chinese culture (the others being the extended family, the

government, filial piety, and Taoism).

Specific to Chinese culture, face can be broken down into two related components: Lian

and Mianzi (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Hu, 1944). According to Hu (1944), in traditional Chinese

culture, one’s lian can be preserved by faithful compliance with ritual or social norms and having

lian “represents the confidence of society in the integrity of ego’s moral character, the loss of

which makes it impossible for him to function properly in the community” (p.45). Mianz, on the

other hand “stands for the kind of prestige that is emphasized in this country: a reputation

achieved through getting on in life, through success and ostentation” (p. 45). The Western

concept of face corresponds to the Chinese Mianzi but is generally lacking the connotation of

lian. Thus, mianzi is more like the concept of face common in Western cultures and refers to the

reputation achieved through success, whereas Lian has more cultural-specific connotation of

humiliation, shame, and embarrassment brought by losing face (or in Chinese, lian), which is

considered as a specific kind of punishment in the Chinese society.

Bond and Hwang (1986) classified face behaviors in Chinese society into six categories: 1)

enhancing one’s own face by presenting the qualities most favored by others in the social

network, 2) enhancing other’s face by presenting compliments to others, confirming with their

29

opinions, giving gifts, 3) losing one’s own face as a result of failing to live up to the moral

standards of the society, 4) hurting other’s face thorough being insensitive to relationships with

those higher or lower on social scale, 5) saving one’s own face through compensatory, self-

defensive, or retaliating actions that are supposed to relive the feeling of humiliation of losing

face, and 6) saving other’s face by being reluctant to criticize others and compensating in

situation where one has to reject another’s request. Thus, individuals high in face orientation may

need to make more efforts to engage themselves in the face-saving and face-enhancing behaviors

and to avoid facing-losing and face-hurting behaviors. Failure of these efforts will be more likely

to bring them feeling of losing face than those low in face orientation. Furthermore, this will

increase the individual’s concern over his/her own behavior, and tax his/her sensitivity to other’s

reactions. As a result, the individual may be more likely to experience anxiety, particularly, social

anxiety when the individual is being viewed or scrutinized by others.

Face as a relational concept (Ho, 1982), in contrast to individualistic concepts such as self,

may also be a more important consideration in the collectivistic, relational oriented Chinese

culture than in the individualistic oriented Caucasian culture. Even within the Chinese culture,

regional difference on face was observed. In the preliminary results of CPAI test construction, the

Mainland China sample scored higher on the CPAI Face Scale and lower on the CPAI Practical-

mindedness Scale than the Hong Kong sample (Cheung et al., 1996a). This difference was

explained in terms of the greater Western influence in Hong Kong, where there is a relative

stronger emphasis on individual productivity and efficiency and less concern with traditional

styles of interpersonal relationships.

The influence of face, or fear of loss of face has been examined in quite a limited empirical

research among Chinese Americans. For example, Kwan and Sodowsky (1997) examined the

relationship between ethnic identity of 224 US Chinese immigrants and their experience of

30

salience of ethnicity, fear of loss of face, and cultural stress. Results revealed that internal ethnic

identity significantly predicted salience of ethnicity, and loss of face was one of the significant

predictors of acculturative stress. Leong, Wagner, and Kim (1995) investigated the influence of

loss of face and acculturation on group psychotherapy expectations of Asian American students.

Although Asian Americans sensitive to loss of face were hypothesized to have negative

expectations of group counseling, results showed that loss of face was not a significant predictor

of attitudes toward group counseling (Leong et al., 1995).

There have been very few empirical cross-cultural studies on face as a personality factor

under the typical Chinese and Caucasian cultures. Moreover, relationship between face and

psychological distress such as anxiety has not been addressed empirically and cross-culturally.

Given the cultural variations of face and the psychological consequences of losing one’s face or

being sensitive to loss of face, an examination of face seem important in research with its cross-

cultural relevance in predicting anxiety under the Caucasian culture.

Family Orientation. Family orientation is an important aspect that characterizes the social

orientation of the Chinese people (Yang, 1996). In Chinese society, it has been the family but not

individual person, that serves as the unit of the social structure and function. Family benefits are

above those of each of family member or other social organization that the individual family

member may be affiliated with. Children are encouraged to keep a close connection with their

family or their extended family through various ways. In contrast to the Chinese society, Western

cultures characterized with an individualistic orientation emphasizes personal development. It

appears to be the individual person that serves as the unit of the social structure and function.

Children are encouraged to leave the family for being independent once they grow up.

The description below highlights the important role of family in Chinese culture. The

Chinese culture stresses that bond between family members be continuous, resulting in the

31

individual being “rooted” in his/her immediate family, even if the person moves a long distance

from the family (Hsu, 1971b). This is in sharp different to the Western culture where an

individual is encouraged to branch out from the family and plant his/her own.

“In Chinese culture, family, rather than the individual, is the major unit of

society. The sense of the family’s importance, and its contribution to the

individual’s core identity, has been moulded by cultural norms and values

over many centuries. While respect for the past can be seen in ancestor

worship, there is simultaneously an emphasis on the future in bearing and

raising children to continue the family line. Thus, when a problem effects one

individual in a Chinese family, it influences the entire family” (Ekblad, 1996,

p. 383).

CPAI Family Orientation Scale measures one’s orientation toward family relationship and

the emphasis on maintaining intimate family ties. Individuals high in the Family Orientation will

be more likely to perceive an intimate, harmony, and supportive relationships within the family,

to enjoy being with the family and sharing feelings and thoughts with other family members, and

to sacrifice the individual interest for the family’s if needed. In Chinese society, family is the

basic unit of the society. One of the most important characteristics of Chinese families is the

blurring of personal boundary. All choices made by individual family members balanced against

the common interest and good in the family, and interdependence is the key word. Individual

privacy and right is less important than a common intimacy, and there is normally a continuous

unconditional support among family members (Chen, 1996)

Like the focus on harmony interpersonal relationship, focus on family is another common

characteristic shared by many other Asian ethnicities. For example Church (1987) summarized

the role of family and kin in the core of Filipino social, cultural and economic activities. The

strong sense of family solidarity exists in many Asian cultures, and the family ties often provide

emotional and economical security and support. From this point of perspective, family serves as

32

an important source of social support that is important for individual’s psychological well-being,

and thus an individual high in family orientation will be also more likely to perceive and benefit

from it. However, a trade-off might also exist within the traditional Asian families in which one’s

behavior is not only a reflection of the self, but also of the entire family. A person high in family

orientation may tend to associate what he/she does with the family and may have more concerns

over the implication of his/her behavior for the family. For example, a feeling of shame might be

strengthened if it is extended to the family. Furthermore, being high in family orientation may

also imply more responsibility for the family; this is true particular in Chinese families.

The influence of family orientation as a personal factor has not been studied empirically.

Thus, this study is an initial attempt to fill the gap. With the absence of previous research, it is

difficult to make any specific hypothesis concerning the relationship between family orientation

and anxiety. Generally, the intimate family tie and bond perceived by those high in family

orientation suggests a higher availability of social support from the family, which has been found

to be important for maintaining psychological well-being (Chou, 2000). Thus, a negative

relationship between family orientation and anxiety, particularly trait anxiety, can be expected.

However, the same relationship between family orientation and state anxiety and social anxiety

might be offset by the possible down-side trade-off due to the affiliation with and the

responsibility for the family in some social interactions.

Modernization. In CPAI, Modernization was conceptualized as one’s personal “attitudes

toward traditional Chinese beliefs and values in the areas of family relationship, materialism,

hierarchical order, rituals, and chastity” (Cheung et al., 1996a). Individuals with high

Modernization tend to hold negative attitudes toward these traditional Chinese beliefs and values.

Two types of modernization have been identified, individual/psychological modernization

and societal modernization. Individual modernization refers to a set of beliefs and values held by

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individuals in contrast to those traditional beliefs, whereas societal modernization mainly refers to

the new characteristics of a society brought by its advancement in education, economic, career,

culture, and family system, etc. (Yang, 1988). Modernization and modernity have been used

interchangeably; modernization has a connotation of changing to be more modern while

modernity mainly refers to the state or level of being modern. In this study, modernization is used

to indicate the changes that have been undertaken on both the individual and societal level

Yang has studied modernization extensively since early 1970 with his associates in Taiwan

(See Yang, 1996, for a review). They developed the Chinese Individual Traditionality/Modernity

Scale (CITMS) to measure the individual modernization as an indication of personality change in

response to the societal modernization in Taiwan. Yang (1996) reviewed these studies as well as

similar studies conducted in Mainland China and Hong Kong, and concluded that in response to

the process of societal modernization in Chinese societies, Chinese people tend to have reduced

their traditional social orientation (i.e., familistic orientation, other orientation, relationship

orientation, and authoritarian orientation) and have increased their individual orientation (i.e., self

orientation, independent orientation, competitive orientation, and egalitarian orientation).

However, he further indicated “this not to say that Chinese social orientation will eventually be

completely replaced by a form of Chinese individual orientation” (p. 489).

Controversies have existed with respect to the relationship between modernization and

psychological well-being. One theory proposed that the modernized life style has negative effects

to mental health (Fromm, 1955; Slater, 1970) and this was evidenced by findings that different

kinds of mental disorders tend to be increasing with the increased modernization level (Ko,

1975). On the contrary, another theory argued that modernization is helpful for solving some

social problems such as poverty and ignorance that are detrimental to human development with

consequential increases in life quality and satisfaction (Inkeles & Smith, 1970; Lerner, 1958).

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This theory has also been supported by findings that individual modernization was negatively

related to psychopathological symptoms (See Yang, 1988).

Cheung and colleagues (Cheung, Leung, Zhang, Song, & Xie, 1996) reported the

relationships of CPAI Modernization Scale to CPAI other scales based on the multiple regression

analyses for the total sample in test construction. Among the CPAI personality scales, high scores

on Flexibility, Logical Orientation, and low scores on Thrift, Face, and Defensiveness best

predicted scores on Modernization. Moreover five clinical scales best predicted scores on

Modernization, including low scores on Sexual Maladjustment, Somatization, and Anxiety, and

high scores on Depression and Anti-social Behavior. These relationships suggest that individual

modernity might be an important moderating variable in predicting the individual’s adaptation to

rapid social changes. Particularly, people who are more pragmatic, rational, flexible and open to

new experiences would be more likely to adjust than those who are defensive and rigid in their

adherence to traditional practices.

Using the CPAI Modernization Scale, the present study examined the relationship of

individual modernization to different types of anxiety. Due to the fact that China is still

undertaking a big social change toward being a more modernized society, individual

modernization as a moderator may have more important implications for Chinese culture than for

the Caucasian culture. Thus, it might be more likely to observe a stronger negative relationship

between individual’s modernization and the anxiety measures for Chinese than for Caucasians.

Moreover, as the social change is more of contextual and situational, such a relationship might be

more evident for state anxiety and social anxiety than trait anxiety.

Ah-Q Mentality (Defensiveness). Ah-Q was the well-known fictional character in the

famous and popular novel the True Story of Ah-Q by famous Chinese writer Hsun Lu (Lu, 1976)

in Chinese literature in early 20th century. Ah-Q was characterized with using a set of defensive

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mechanism including self-protective rationalization, externalization of blame, self-enhancement,

and belittling other’s achievements. In this novel, the character of Ah-Q was meant to satirize the

personality shortcomings of traditional Chinese people who have overused these defensive

mechanisms against defeat and disappointment. The CPAI Ah-Q Mentality, or Defensiveness

Scale was constructed based on the Ah-Q character (Cheung et al., 1996a).

The Ah-Q style defensiveness is different from the self-defensive mechanisms that have

been formulated in psychoanalytic theories, such as repression, rationalization, projection,

displacement, and identification. These Western style defensiveness mechanisms are often

applied with an orientation toward self or the individual’s own behavior, whereas the Ah-Q style

defensive strategies are characterized with other orientation, which can be reflected by the items

of the CPAI Defensiveness Scale, such as “My abilities are much better than those of the other

people but I never get a chance to make use of them.” “I believe many of the people who are

more successful than me got where they are through lies and deceits.” “If others tease me I would

find them mean, despicable, and unworthy of attention.” “If certain people do not invite me to

their gathering, I see it as their own loss.” Frequent use of this defensive style may imply one’s

predisposition to anxiety in that he/she needs to use this strategy to protect him/herself from

experiencing anxiety, and consequently may lower the intensity of anxiety experience, especially

in interpersonal situations. Therefore, for the present study it was hypothesized that a positive

relationship exists between the Ah-Q Mentality and trait anxiety but not state and social anxiety.

In the preliminary comparison of sample data from Mainland China and Hong Kong in

CPAI test construction and standardization, the Chinese sample showed higher Ah-Q Mentality

Scale than the Hong Kong sample (F.M. Cheung, et al., 1996a). The difference is logical given

the greater Western influence in Hong Kong. This scale was also found to be one of the best

predictor (negative) for the CPAI Modernization Scale. Moreover, Ah-Q Mentality, together with

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Harmony and Face scales constitute the major components of Chinese Tradition, which is a part

of the CPAI underlying structure (F.M. Cheung, et al., 1996a). These components consistently

appeared in the Sixth Factor, the Interpersonal Relatedness factor yielded from the joint factor

analyses of CPAI personality scales and the Five Factor measures but independent of any of the

Big Fives (Cheung, et al., 2001). These results indicate the important implications these

personality constructs hold in the Chinese societies and the meaning of relational orientation

embedded in these constructs.

Although in the Chinese societies almost everyone knows what the Ah-Q style refers to,

there has been no instrument measuring this construct until the development of CPAI.There has

been no research on Ah-Q mentality as a personality variable with respect to its relationship to

other psychological constructs and its cross-cultural relevance in other cultures. Seemingly, Ah-Q

mentality is a more indigenous construct specific to Chinese culture, but without further cross-

cultural research, conclusions cannot be made to what extent it is unique to Chinese societies.

Collective Self-Esteem

Conceptualization. The concept of collective self-esteem (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992)

evolved from the social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). According to this

theory, a person’s self-concept derives from two principal sources: personal identity and social

identity. Personal identity includes an individual’s specific attributes such as competency, talent,

and sociability. Social identity, on the other hand, refers to “that part of an individual’s self

concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership in a social group (or groups)

together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.” (Tajfel, 1981,

p.255). Thus, the personal identity refers to how people review themselves as individuals based

on their individual characteristics, and social identity refers to how they view the social groups to

37

which they belong to based on characteristics of one’s group (Luthtanen & Crocker, 1992;

Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994).

Crocker and Luhtanen (1990) redefined the social identity as collective identity in order to

avoid confusion with other social aspects of the self-concept, such as the self in interpersonal

(rather than inter-group) relationships. Thus, collective identity highlights those aspects of

identity associated with membership in social groups. According to the social identity theory,

individuals strive to maintain or enhance not only a positive personal identity (i.e., personal self-

esteem) but also a positive collective identity (i.e., collective self-esteem). Therefore, collective

self-esteem is the value people place on their social groups or the extent to which they evaluate

their social groups positively (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992).

Just as there are stable individual differences in the tendency to have personal identity,

Luhtanen and Crocker (1990, 1992) argued that there are also stable individual differences in the

tendency to have collective self-esteem. To measure the individual differences in collective

identity, Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) developed the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSE), which

assesses individual’s collective self-esteem derived from their membership in ascribed groups

pertaining to gender, race, religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The scale contains 16

items assessing four aspects of collective self-esteem: 1) Private esteem: one’s judgment of how

good one’s social groups are, 2) Public esteem: one’s judgment of how others evaluate one’s

social groups, 3) Membership esteem: one’s own judgment of how good one is as a social group

member, and 4) Identity esteem: the importance of one’s social group memberships to one’s self-

concept. The scale is preceded by instructions to think about one’s memberships in various social

groups and is referred to as measure of general collective self-esteem. However, it can also be

modified to instruct participants only to focus on membership in one group (e.g., race) and is

referred to as measure of race-specific collective self esteem (Crocker et al., 1994).

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Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias. Studies of collective self-esteem have mainly

focused on its relationship to ingroup bias, a reaction to threat of collective self-esteem by

enhancing the ingroup and derogating outgroups (e.g., Aberson, 1999; Crocker & Luhtanen,

1990; McFarland & Buehler, 1995). In Crocker and Luhtanen’s (1990) study, both personal and

collective self esteem were measured and participants received either success or failure feedback

of group performance. Results indicated that participants high in collective self-esteem showed an

ingroup-enhancing fashion, whereas those low in collective self-esteem did not. Analysis based

on personal self-esteem did not show this interaction.

McFarland & Buehler (1995) examined collective self-esteem as a moderator of the frog-

pond effect that individuals who perform well within an unsuccessful group have more favorable

reactions than equally capable ones who perform poorly within a successful group. The study

showed that this effect was strongest among individuals with lower collective self-esteem, with

an individualistic cultural heritage or having a weaker bond toward a particular social group.

In a study with 77 undergraduates of diverse ethnic background, Aberson (1999) examined

the effect of collective self-esteem on in-group bias exhibited through traditional attribution

measures and through alternative strategies of basking in reflected glory. The results indicated

that individuals low in collective self-esteem showed a greater tendency to bask in reflected glory

of successful ingroups, whereas those high in collective self-esteem exhibited ingroup bias

through traditional measures of ingroup bias (i.e., attributional ratings).

Collective self-esteem, psychological well-being, and cross-cultural implications.

Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, and Broadnax (1994) examined the relationship between collective

self-esteem and psychological well-being indicated by life satisfaction, depression, hopelessness,

and personal self-esteem in a study with 96 Caucasian, 91 Black, and 35 Asian American college

students. The study showed that, when the analyses were performed based on combined-group,

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the membership and private subscales of the general CSE were related to improved psychological

well-being, even when the effects of personal sell-esteem were controlled. However, when the

three groups were examined separately, the relationship of collective self-esteem to well-being

with personal self-esteem controlled was nonsignificant for Caucasians, small for Blacks, and

moderately strong for Asians. These results suggested that personal self-esteem might hold more

implications for psychological well-being than collective self-esteem in Caucasian culture,

whereas collective self-esteem may have played a more important role in Asian cultures

characterized with a collectivistic orientation.

Bettencourt and Dorr (1997) examined the mediating effect of collective self-esteem in the

relationship between allocentrism and subjective well-being with 175 college students of whom

95% were Caucasian/European Americans. The study showed that there was a positive

relationship between allocentrism and life satisfaction and that such a relationship was mediated

by collective self-esteem (i.e., the strength of relationship reduced when collective self-esteem

entered the regression). This study implied that collective self-esteem might have importance

influence on psychological well-being not only for people with collectivistic cultural

backgrounds, but also for those with an individualistic cultural backgrounds. However, due to the

small portion of Asian Americans (2%), this study failed to examine the relative importance of

collective self-esteem in mediating the relationship between allocentrism and subjective well-

being.

In Kwan, Bond, and Singelis’ (1997) study with 137 American and 125 Hong Kong

college students, the zero-order correlations showed three out of the four subscales of CSE Scale

(i.e., Membership, Private, and Public, but not Identity) were positively correlated with life

satisfaction and extraversion but negatively correlated with neuroticism, indicating the predictive

value of collective self-esteem in the process of generating life satisfaction. However, the strong

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relationship between all four subscales of CSE and personal self-esteem made the authors further

examined the unique contribution of collective self-esteem to life satisfaction by regression

analysis. They found none of the four CSE subscales predicted life satisfaction after partialing out

the effects of personal self-esteem and relationship harmony. Although the samples were

characterized with two different cultural backgrounds, the authors did not report if there was any

interaction effect between culture and collective self-esteem in predicting life satisfaction.

No study has been conducted on collective self-esteem among Chinese in mainland China,

but existing studies showed that Chinese participants tended to have a stronger ingroup bias than

American counterparts, suggesting collective self-esteem may hold more important implications

in Chinese societies characterized with a collectivistic orientation than in the individualistic

oriented Caucasian culture. Studies have shown that Chinese tend to believe that in-group

members are more likely to be dependable and trustworthy than out-group members. For

example, in resolving conflicts, Chinese in Hong Kong were more likely to sue a stranger than

American counterparts (K. Leung, 1987), and compared to American subjects, Chinese subjects

in Taiwan considered stranger to be less likeable and fair than those from the same group (Li,

1992).

In summary, studies on collective self-esteem seem to have a focus on issues of social

psychology, such as ingroup bias, but attention to the influence of this construct on psychological

well-being with a clinical focus tends to be increasing. The present study seeks to extend this

clinical focus by examining the relative importance of collective self-esteem in predicting anxiety

for Chinese and Caucasian college students. Based on the above literature review, it can be

hypothesized that there is a stronger negative relationship between collective self-esteem and

measures of anxiety in the Chinese sample than in the Caucasian sample.

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Self-Construal

Conceptualization. Culture molds and guides the construction and the content of the self-

concept, and determines how an individual arrives at his/her definition of self in relation to others

and to the world (Yamada & Singelis, 1999) or his/her self-construal. Singelis and Sharkey

(1995) conceptualized self-construal as “a constellation of thoughts, feelings, and actions

concerning the relationship of the self to others and the self as distinct from others” (p. 624).

Markus and Kitayama (1991) identified two types of self-construal: independent self-construal

and interdependent self-construal. The independent self-construal is defined as the “bounded,

unitary, stable” self that is separated from social context and the interdependent self-construal as

“flexible, variable” self (p. 230) that emphasizes external features such as status, roles, and

relationships.

The concept of independent and interdependent self-construal was evolved from the

identification of individualism and of collectivism as one of the four dimensions of cultural

variations of work-related values (other three being masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty

avoidance; Hofstede, 1980). Early conceptualization of individualism and collectivism tended to

emphasize the contrast between the subordination of personal goals to those of the in-group

(collectivism) and the priority of personal goals over the in-group (individualism) (See Singelis,

Bond, Sharkey, & Lai, 1999, for a discussion). Recently, a set of defining features of

individualism and collectivism was developed (Triandis, 1995, cited in Singelis et al., 1999).

Additional features of collectivism are: (a) defining the self as part of the in-group; (b) an

emphasis on norms and perceived duties in guiding the social behavior; (c) the importance of

relationships regardless of the immediate cost they may entail. Accordingly, additional features of

individualism are: (a) defining the self as autonomous from groups; (b) use of attitudes and other

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internal processes to guide one’s social behavior, and (c) weighing the relationship in terms of

their costs and benefits (Traindis, 1995).

The dimension of individualism vs. collectivism in cultural variation has provided an

important framework for understanding the cross-cultural phenomena and how the overall

cultural values influence societies as well as individuals (Trandis, 1989). This dimension seems to

have been tailor-made to explain the cross-cultural differences of self-concepts and social

behaviors. In their well-known Culture and Self paper, Markus and Kitayam’s (1991) stressed the

cultural influence on the development of self and identified two types of selves, independent self

and interdependent self, which were conceptualized to have been developed under and influenced

by the individualistic cultures and collectivistic cultures respectively.

According to Markus and Kitayama (1991), the independent view of the self is primarily

derived from and held in Western European and American cultures that view and value one’s

own behavior, thoughts, and feelings as meaningful entities of an individual. Under this culture,

the developmental goal of an individual is to become independent and autonomous. Independent

self-construal holds that internal aspects of the self (e.g., desires, preference, traits, or abilities)

are the most significant factors regulating individual’s behavior, and that the main source of self-

worth is the ability to express the self and to validate its internal attributes. The interdependent

view of self is primarily derived and held by non-Western European cultures (e.g., Asian,

African, Latin-American) characterized with a collectivistic orientation. People with

interdependent self-construal experience themselves primarily through social relationships and

view their behavior being governed by what they perceive to be the thoughts, feelings, and

actions of others. In other words, relationships with other people are used to define the self, and

the sense of self worth is mainly derived through their abilities to adjust themselves to the social

climate, to restrain the expressions of themselves and to maintain harmony with others.

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Based on this theoretical foundation, Singelis (1994) developed the Self-Construal Scale

(SCS), a scale designed to measure the individual differences in cognitive functioning due to

variations in independent and interdependent self-construals. Singelis and colleagues also

summarized some core components of independent and interdependent self-construals in which

independent self-construal emphasizes: (a) internal abilities, thoughts, and feelings; (b) being

unique and expressing the self; (c) realizing internal attributes, and (d) being direct in

communication; whereas interdependent self-construal emphasizes: (a) external, public features

such as status, roles, and relationships; (b) belonging and fitting in; (c) occupying one’s proper

place and engaging in appropriate action; and (d) being indirect in communication and “reading

other’s mind” (Singelis & Sharkey, 1995; Singelis, et al., 1999).

Conceptually, the independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal are

associated with individualism and collectivism, respectively. Whereas individualism and

collectivism describe the general attributes or value systems on a cultural or societal level, the

independent and interdependent self-construals are seen as more specific descriptions of values

and beliefs on individual level. Due to its effects on individual behavior as well as its relation to

the clear and potent cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism, self-construal promises to

be an important variable in linking culture to behavior (Singelis et al., 1999).

Another conceptual issue is the dimensionality of self-construal. In the past, both

individualism-collectivism and independent- interdependent self-construal were conceptualized

by many researchers as opposite bipolar dimensions. But researchers have generally agreed that

two separate dimensions are more appropriate. Independence and interdependent can coexist in

both individualistic and collectivistic cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). Independent and

interdependent self-construals can also coexist in a person, regardless of the overall individual or

collective culture he is in (Singelis, 1994; Singelis & Sharkey, 1995, Singelis et al., 1999).

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Self-construal and social behavior. Empirical studies show that the construct of

independent and interdependent self-construal holds implications for psychological processes

(i.e., cognition, emotion, and motivation). For example, Cousins (1989, cited in Markus &

Kitayam, 1991) examined the response styles of Japanese and Americans to the Twenty

Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) and found that Americans tended to describe

themselves with more personal traits (e.g., I am friendly) while Japanese tended to use more

contextual specific statements (i.e., I play tennis in the weekend). With respect to emotion,

Matsumoto, Kudoh, Scherer, and Wallbott (1988; cited in Markus & Kitayama, 1991) found that

Japanese participants reported feelings of anger primarily in the presence of strangers whereas

American and West European participants reported feelings of anger in the presence of closely

related others.

Studies also suggest the construct of self-construal moderates people’s social behavior.

Oetzel (1998) examined the decision-making activities of 62 Japanese and 86 European American

participants. One of the results of this study is that groups composed of members of high

independent self-construal are more likely to use competitive tactics and less likely to use co-

operative tactics than group composed of members of low independent self-construal. In another

study, Singelis and Brown (1995) examined the relationship of culture, self-construal, and

communication styles among 364 undergraduates and found that cultural collectivism was

positively related to the interdependent self-construal and negatively related to the independent

self-construal. Moreover they also found that the interdependent self-construal was positively

related to a high-contextual communication style in that participants high in interdependent self-

construal drew meaning from the context of a message and attributed communication behaviors

to the influence of the context.

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Singelis and colleagues conducted a number of related studies to examine the relationship

of culture, self-construal, embarrassability, and social anxiety. For example, in a study with 471

Asian American and 86 European American students, Singelis and Sharkey (1995) found that

independent self-construal was negatively correlated with embarrassability and interdependent

self-construal is positively associated with embarrassability. They further found that Asian

Americans were less independent, more interdependent, and more susceptible to feeling of

embarrassment than European Americans. The authors interpreted these results by suggesting the

function of embarrassability as an adaptive mechanism in collectivistic cultures and its

association with the sensitivity to other’s face, which is emphasized in Asian cultures.

Similar results were obtained in another study with 283 Chinese students in Hong Kong,

257 Students in Hawaii, and 274 students in mainland United States (Singelis et al., 1999). This

study showed that collectivism at the cultural level was associated with stronger interdependent

self-construal and weaker independent self-construal at the individual level and that independent

self-construal was negatively associated with embarrassability and interdependent self-construal

was positively associated with emabarrassability. In addition, this study found independent self-

construal was a significant positive predictor for high self-esteem while interdependent self-

construal was a significant negative predictor. This relationship did not show a cross-cultural

difference and failed to support the hypothesis that the self-esteem is related to self-construal

differently across cultures.

In another study, Sharkey and Singelis (1995) examined the embarrassability and its

association with social anxiety and self-construals with 371 Hawaii undergraduates from diverse

ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They found that embarrassability was related to three individual

variables which together accounted for 28% of the variance in embarrassability with unique

contributions: social anxiety (5.8%), independent self-construal (6.6%, negative direction), and

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interdependent self-construal (5.2%). Supported by these results, they argued that the Western

conceptualization of embarrassasibility as a negative trait or a deficit might have been biased in

that it may also play a healthy, functional, and adaptive role, depending on the cultural context.

Self-construal and emotional distress. Cultural variations in self-concept can be reflected

in the expression of emotional distress (Marsella, 1985; Landrine, 1992). With respect to the

relationship between self-construal and psychological distress, Cross (1995) examined the

differences in the ratings of the importance of independent and interdependent self-construals of

American and East Asian students studying in the US and the influence of these self-construals

on coping and stress. The East Asian students were 220 first-year international students coming

from Taiwan, Mainland China, South Korea, and Japan. The results indicated that: 1) there was

no significant difference on importance ratings of independent self-construal between the two

samples, but East Asian students rated higher importance of the interdependent self-construal and

reported higher level of stress; 2) self-construals and direct coping were the strongest predictors

of stress for East Asian students, but not predictive of stress for the American students; 3)

specifically, ratings of the importance of independent self-construal were positively related to

direct coping strategies, which predicted reduced levels of stress for East Asian students, while

ratings of the importance of interdependent self-construal were positively related to increased

stress. These results suggest that self-construals hold important implications for psychological

adjustment of students coming from collectivistic cultures.

In a study with 183 Caucasian and 165 Asian American college students, Okazaki (1997)

examined the specific relationships of ethnicity and self-construals to emotion distress

(depression and social anxiety). She found that Asian Americans reported higher interdependent

self-construal and lower independent self-construal than Caucasians. Asian Americans also

scored higher than Caucasians on measures of depression and social anxiety. However, when the

47

covariance between depression and social anxiety was statistically controlled, ethnicity and self-

construal variables were found to be associated with measures of social anxiety but not

depression. Specifically, when the covariance was controlled, ethnic differences on depression

disappeared but ethnic differences on social anxiety remained. Moreover, the independent self-

construal emerged as a significant (negative) predictor for social anxiety. These findings

suggested a more differential perspective on the relationships among culture, ethnicity, and

emotional distress.

In sum, studies employing Singelis’ (1994) measure of self-construal have demonstrated

that self-construal is an important variable in linking culture to behavior. However, most of these

studies have been conducted with American samples of different ethical backgrounds, mainly

Asian Americans and European Americans. Given the in-group heterogeneity of Asian

Americans, it is important to study independent and interdependent self-construal with a more

pure sample of collectivism. Theoretically, the ethnic differences and within group relationships

of self-construal and other psychological constructs should be strengthened in such a sample. So

far, there has been no study examining this construct with any sample in Mainland China. It is a

weakness and a deficit that research has overlooked the influence of this important variable on

one-fifth of the total population of the world, whose society has been characterized with

collectivistic cultures for centuries.

Perfectionism

Conceptualizations. Most of the existing discussions of perfectionism identify its central

component as the setting of excessively high personal standards or goals, combined with other

features such as actively striving of meeting rigid goals, self criticism, and underrating the

accomplishments (Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein & Mosher, 1990; Frost, Marten, Lahart, &

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Rosenblate, 1990). Early conceptualizations of perfectionism were largely unidimensional in that

they focused on self-related standards and cognitions. Beginning in the 1980s, attention has been

paid to other possible components of perfectionism such as the setting of unrealistic standards for

significant others (Hollender, 1987, cited in Hayward & Arthur, 1998) and the influence of

expectations from others, particular parents, on the development of perfectionism (Pacht, 1984,

cited in Hayward & Arthur, 1998). Recently, evidence for the multidimensional approach to

perfectionism has increased (Frost & Marten, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1990, 1991) and

corresponding multidimensional measures have been developed assessing the intrapersonal and

interpersonal elements of perfectionism (Frost et al., 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991).

Currently, there are mainly two multidimensional approaches to perfectionism, Frost and

colleagues’ (Frost et al., 1990) six dimension model, and Hewitt and Flett’s (1989) three

dimension model. In Frost and colleagues’ model, perfectionism is conceptualized as having six

dimensions: 1) high personal standards; 2) concern over mistake; 3) high parental expectations; 4)

parental criticism; 5) doubting of actions, and 6) organization. In the other model, Hewitt and

Flett’s (1990) conceptualized perfectionism as consisting of three dimensions: 1) self-oriented

perfectionism, 2) other-oriented perfectionism, and 3) socially-prescribed perfectionism.

Currently there are two measures entailed Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS).

Frost and colleagues’ MPS (Frost et al., 1990) contains 35 items and is sometimes called FMPS,

to differentiate it from Hewitt and Flett’s (1989, 1991) MPS, which contains 45 items, with 15 on

each dimension. Although neither of the two models is superior to the other, their measures may

be different in advantages to different studies. In FMPS, all the 35 items are keyed in positive

direction, leaving open the possibility of a yes-saying response bias. Also, for FMPS, studies have

suggested using its combined score as an index for a general perfectionism tendency is a better

strategy than its specific subscales (see Chang, 2000; Chang & Rand, 2000). Thus, with the

49

purpose of the present study in examining the cultural variations of influence of some personality

constructs on anxiety, Hewitt and Flett’s MPS seems more appropriate to serve this purpose

because it offers more space to examine the social influence of the relationship between

perfectionism and anxiety.

In Hewitt and Flett’s model, self-oriented perfectionism refers to the tendency for an

individual to set and seek high self-standards of his/or own performance. It is most closely related

to what previous measures of perfectionism have described. Other-oriented perfectionism refers

to the tendency for an individual to expect others to be perfect in their performance. Socially

prescribed perfectionism refers to the tendency for an individual to believe that others expect

perfectionism from him/her. The primary difference among these dimensions “is not the behavior

pattern per se, but the object to whom the perfectionistic behavior is directed (e.g., self-oriented

vs. other-oriented) or to whom the perfectionistic behavior is attributed (e.g., socially prescribed

perfectionism” (Hewitt & Flett, 1991, p.457).

Perfectionism and anxiety. There have been many empirical studies on perfectionism since

the development of the two multidimensional perfectionism scales. Specifically, numerous

studies have found perfectionism to be associated with increased numbers of psychological

problems. These problems include: neuroticism (e.g., Hewitt, Flett & Blankstein, 1991),

depression (e.g., Hewitt & Flett, 1993), anxiety (e.g., Hewitt & Flett, 1991), hopeless and suicidal

probability (Chang, 1998), subsequent maladjustment (Chang & Rand, 2000), negative mood and

worry (Chang, 2000), different forms of anxiety disorders (e.g., Antony, Purdon, Huta, &

Swinson, 1998). Due to space limitation and for the relevance of the present study, only studies

specifically examining the relationship of perfectionism and anxiety are reviewed.

The conceptualizations of perfectionism as a multidimensional construct and the

development of corresponding multidimensional measures have made it possible to examine the

50

differential relationships between dimensions of perfectionism and anxiety. For example, Hewitt

and Flett (1991) found a significant correlation between socially prescribed perfectionism and

anxiety, but not between self-oriented perfectionism and anxiety. Consistent with this finding,

Flett, Hewitt, Balnstein, and Koledin (1991) found a positive relationship between socially-

prescribed perfectionism and anxious overconcern, but no relationship between self-oriented

perfectionism and anxiety. In a more recent study with 178 post-secondary students, Hayward

and Arthur (1998) found both self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism

were associated with depression and anxiety with socially-prescribed perfectionism most closely

related to these symptoms of distress.

Studies using clinical samples also seemed to have supported the stronger relationship

between socially perfectionism and anxiety. For example, Antony and colleagues (Antony et al.,

1998) administrated both FMPS and MPS to 175 patients with different forms of anxiety

disorders. They found that among the MPS dimensions only socially prescribed perfectionism

was related with social phobia.

Although the relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and anxiety seems less

robust than that between socially prescribed perfectionism and anxiety, evidence of such

relationship does exist. For example, Flett, Hewitt, and Dyck (1989) administrated Burns

Perfectionism Scale (Burns, 1980, 1983, measures self-oriented perfectionism, cited in Flett et al.,

1989) and STAI (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970) to a sample of 162 college students.

Through correlation analyses, they found the (self-oriented) perfectionism was associated with

both state and trait anxiety with the largest relation being between (self-oriented) perfectionism

and trait anxiety.

Using MPS and the Endler Multidimensional Anxiety Scales (EMAS; Endler, Edwards, &

Vitelli, 1991, cited in Flett, Hewitt, Endler, & Tassone, 1995), Flett et al. (1995) examined the

51

specific relationships between dimensions of perfectionism and dimensions of anxiety. They

found that both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism were correlated with state and

trait anxiety. However, under experimental conditions of high vs. low ego involvement, socially

prescribed perfectionism was associated with higher state anxiety, but only in the high ego

involvement condition, whereas self-oriented perfectionism was unrelated to state anxiety in

either conditions. The authors explained the results from the perspective of the influence of

situational factors and called for the need of an interaction approach to the study of social aspects

of both perfectionism and anxiety.

The present study is a response to the need called for by Flett and colleagues (Flett et al.,

1995). Although Hewitt and Flett (1991) have stressed the interpersonal aspects and social

components in perfectionism, very few empirical studies have addressed the influence of

situational factors on the relationship between perfectionism and anxiety. Specifically, no study

has been done to examine how cultural factors would influence the relationship. Through the

above literature review, it seems that socially prescribed perfectionism is more likely to be related

to state anxiety and social anxiety, while the self-oriented perfectionism tends to be related to trait

anxiety. Could the strengths of these relationships be different under different cultures?

Considering interpersonal, relational, and social orientations emphasized in Chinese culture, and

the self, or individual orientation in the Caucasian culture, it can be hypothesized that the

relationship between socially prescribed perfectionism and social anxiety would be stronger for

the Chinese sample than for the Caucasian sample. It can also be hypothesized that the

relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and trait anxiety would be stronger for the

Caucasian sample than for the Chinese sample. With respect to between-group differences, for

the same reason of the above-mentioned cultural connotations embedded in the two cultures, it is

likely that Chinese have higher socially prescribed perfectionism and lower self-oriented

52

perfectionism than Caucasians. Given the emphasis on harmony in the Chinese culture, it can be

also hypothesized that Chinese would have lower other-oriented perfectionism than Caucasians.

Summary and Hypotheses

The literature review of cross-cultural studies on anxiety of Chinese and Americans

indicates several limitations of previous studies: (a) did not differentiate different types of

anxiety, (b) relied mainly on between-cultural comparisons while neglected within group

relationship, and (c) failed to examine the relative importance of some cultural specific

personality factors in predicting anxiety across the two cultures. Review of the literature on the

personality variables indicates that no research has examined the cross-cultural relevance of some

traditional Chinese personality factors in Western cultures, and for some recently formulated

cultural relevant variables such as independent and interdependent self-construal and collective

self-esteem, few research has examined their implications using a typical Chinese sample (i.e.,

sample of mainland China).

The present study intends to target at all the above limitations through investigating the

within-group relationships between these personality variables and different types of anxiety, and

comparing the strength of these relations across the Chinese and the Caucasian student samples.

The hypotheses, as formulated below, are inferred from previous relevant studies as well as the

social and cultural influences reflected on the individual level. In general, it is hypothesized that

personality constructs oriented toward interpersonal, relational, situational, and social

components are relevant and important for the Chinese sample, whereas those that imply

personal, individual and independent components are relevant for the Caucasian sample.

Specific hypotheses are formulated in the following two groups, A and B. The A group

hypotheses are of between-culture comparisons, in which comparisons of dependent variables are

53

formulated first, followed by the comparisons of independent variables. The B group hypotheses

concern with within-culture relationship and the relative strength of the relationship across cultures.

A. Hypotheses: Between-Culture Comparisons.

(1) Chinese students score higher on measures of trait anxiety, social anxiety than Caucasian

students, but they do not differ on state anxiety.

(2a) Chinese students score higher on measure of harmony than Caucasian students.

(2b) Chinese students score higher on measure of face than Caucasian students.

(2c) Chinese students score higher on measure of family orientation than Caucasian students.

(2d) Chinese students score lower on measure of modernization than Caucasian students.

(2e) Chinese students score higher on measure of defensiveness than Caucasian students.

(3) Chinese students score higher on all the aspects of collective self-esteem than Caucasian

students.

(4a) Chinese students score higher on interdependent self-construal than Caucasian students.

(4b) Chinese students score lower on independent self-construal than Caucasian students.

(5a) Chinese students score lower on self-oriented perfectionism than Caucasian students.

(5b) Chinese students score lower on other-oriented perfectionism than Caucasian students.

(5c) Chinese students score higher on socially prescribed perfectionism than Caucasian students.

B. Hypotheses: Within-Culture relationships.

(6) There is a less positive relationship between trait anxiety and state anxiety for the Chinese

than for the Caucasian students.

(7a) Perfectionism is a significant predictor for state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social anxiety

for both the Chinese and Caucasian students. Students with higher scores on

perfectionism report higher levels of anxiety.

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(7b) Specifically, socially prescribed perfectionism is a stronger predictor of trait anxiety and

social anxiety for Chinese than for Caucasians.

(7c) On the other hand, self-prescribed perfectionism is a stronger predictor of trait anxiety

for Caucasians than for Chinese.

(8a) Interdependent self-construal is a significant predictor of state and trait anxiety, and

social anxiety for the Chinese but not for the Caucasians. Students with higher

interdependent self-construal report higher level of state and social anxiety.

(8b) Independent self-construal is a significant predictor of state and trait anxiety, and social

anxiety for both Chinese and Caucasians but it is a stronger predictor for Caucasians.

Students with higher independent self-construal report lower level of trait anxiety.

(9) Aspects of collective self-esteem is a stronger predictors of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and

social anxiety for Chinese than for Caucasians. Students with higher collective self-

esteem report lower level of anxiety.

(10a) Harmony is a stronger predictor of state anxiety, trait anxiety and social anxiety for

Chinese students than for Caucasians. Students who have a stronger harmony

orientation report lower levels of anxiety.

(10b) Face will is a stronger predictor of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social anxiety for

Chinese than for Caucasians. Students who endorse more face value report higher

levels of anxiety.

(10c) Family orientation is a stronger predictor of trait anxiety for Chinese students than for

Caucasians. Students who are more family oriented report lower levels of trait anxiety.

(10d) Modernization is a significant predictor of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social anxiety

for Chinese students but not for Caucasians. Students who are more modernized report

lower levels of anxiety.

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(10e) Ah-Q Mentality (defensiveness) is a significant predictor of state anxiety, trait anxiety,

and social anxiety for Chinese but not for Caucasians. Students who apply more of

this kind of defensive style report higher levels of social anxiety.

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CHAPTER 3

METHOD

This chapter first describes the samples and procedure for the study, followed by

descriptions of the instruments used in his study and their development and psychometric

properties.

Participants

This study consists of two samples: the Chinese sample and the Caucasian sample. Table 1

presents a summary of the general demographics of the participants for each sample.

Participants in the Chinese sample were 324 undergraduate students enrolled in a large

comprehensive university in Beijing, China. Among these Chinese students, 137 (42.3%) were

male, and 187 (57.7) were female. Their ages ranged from 18 to 27 with a mean of 20.1. As for

marital status, 319 (98.5%) were unmarried, two (0.6%) married, and three (0.9%) did not report

their marital status. For education level, 111 (34.2%) were first year students, 133 (41.0%) were

second year, 61 (18.8%) were third year, and 19 (5.9%) were forth year. Of these students, 185

(57.1%) were in sciences majors, 130 (40.1%) were in arts majors, six (1.9%) were in medical

school, and three students did not indicate their majors. Of the family income level, 103 (31.8%)

students were from families with a monthly income below 2000 RMB ($250); 143 (44.1%) from

families with monthly income between 2000-4000 RMB ($250-$485), 33 (10.2%) from families

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with a monthly income between 4000-6000 RMB ($485-$725), and 41 (12.7%) students from

families with a monthly income above 6000 RMB ($725). About counseling history, 83 (25.6%)

of the 324 indicated that they had received counseling services, and 241 (74.4%) never received

counseling.

The Caucasian sample consists of 333 American students enrolled in a large

comprehensive university in central America. Among these students, 124 (37.2%) were male, and

209 (62.8%) were female. Their ages ranged from 18 to 33 with a mean of 18.7. Among these

students, 326 (97.9%) were unmarried, two (0.6%) are married, and five (1.5%) did not indicated

a specific marital status. For education level, 265 (79.6%) were first year students, 39 (11.7%)

were second year, 22 (6.6%) were third year, and 7 (2.2%) were forth year. Of these students, 78

(23.4%) were in science majors, 143 (42.9%) were in art majors, 43 (12.9%) were in medical

school, 65 (19.5%) students were undecided about their majors, and four students (1.2%) did not

indicate their majors. Of the family income level, 39 (11.7%) indicated an annual family income

below $10000; 33 (9.9%) had an annual family income between $10000-$30000; 54 (16.2%) had

an annual family income between $30000-$50000, and 171 (51.4%) students’ annual family

income were above $50000. 36 (10.8%) students in this sample did not report family income.

About counseling history, 81 (24.3%) of the 333 students indicated that they had received

counseling services; 251 (75.4%) never received counseling, and one students (0.3%) did not

report whether he had received counseling or not.

Instruments and Materials

Introduction to the study. All participants were given a written statement regarding the

study that briefly explained the nature of the study and what they will do in the study. They were

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informed that participation is totally voluntary and that they have the right to choose not to

participate or choose to withdraw at any time of the study time (see Appendix A).

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI, Form Y, see Appendix B). Sate anxiety and trait

anxiety were measured by the STAI (From Y, Spielberger, 1983). It is the latest revision of the

instrument intending to measure purer anxiety. It consists of two subscales, measuring state

anxiety (A-State) and trait anxiety (A-Trait), respectively. Each subscale consists of 20 items on a

four point Likert scale. For A-State scale, respondents are instructed to indicate how they feel

“right now, at this moment” on 20 statements describing anxiety feelings from 1 “not at all” to 4

“very much so”. For A-Trait, respondents are instructed to indicate how they feel generally on

another 20 statements describing more stable traits from 1 “all most never” to 4 “almost always”.

Spielberger and colleagues (1999) summarized the psychometric properties of STAI (Form

Y). Test-retest reliability coefficients for the T-Anxiety scale were reasonably high for college

students, ranging from 0.65 to 0.75 with a test interval from one week to six months. The median

test-retest reliability coefficients for a number of different samples of college students were 0.77.

Stability coefficients for the S-Anxiety were quite low, with a median of 0.33 only, but this lack

of stability was expected and may have somewhat supported the construct validity of S-Anxiety

as a valid measure of state anxiety that reflects the influence of unique situational factors at the

time of testing. Therefore, internal consistency coefficient such as Cronbach α coefficients is a

more meaningful index of reliability for S-Anxiety than test-retest correlations. The α coefficients

for both T-Anxiety scale and S-Anxiety were high for different samples of population and over

the entire age range with a median of 0.90 or higher.

With respect to validity of STAI, high correlations (0.73-0.85) have been reported between

T-Anxiety scale and Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS, Taylor, 1953) and Anxiety Scale

Questionnaire (ASQ, Cattell & Scheier, 1963), indicating a high degree of concurrent validity of

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T-Anxiety (See Spielberger, et al., 1999). MAS and ASQ were the two most often used measures

of trait anxiety at the time when STAI was developed (See Spielberger et. al., 1999, for a review

of these two measures), but the advantage of T-Anxiety scale is that that it represents a more

“pure” measure of anxiety and is comprised of less items (20) while both MAS and ASQ contain

items related to depression and anger requesting longer administration time due to more items

they contain. The higher mean scores of various neuropsychiatric patients who had anxiety as a

major symptom further evidenced the validity of T-Anxiety. Meanwhile, lower T-Anxiety scores

of patients diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, which is characterized by absence of

anxiety, also supported the validity of T-Anxiety (Spielberger, 1985; Spielberger, et al., 1999).

Higher S-Anxiety scores under stressful situations supported the validity of S-Anxiety scale. For

example, Scores of college students on S-Anxiety were significantly higher than during

classroom examinations, while lower after relaxation training, than when they were in normal

situations (Spielberger, 1983, cited in Spielberger, et al., 1999). Research with STAI in

physiological and biochemical processes further evidenced the validity of S-Anxiety scale in that

these research found strong relationships between increased S-Anxiety scores and arousal of the

autonomous nervous system (i.e., increased respiration, EEG changes, heart rate and blood

pressure (see Spielberger, 1985 for discussion).

STAI has been adapted into Chinese dialects by several researchers. Tsio, Ho, and Mak

(1986) made an early Chinese translation of the STAI (Form X) in Hong Kong. The reliability

and validity of this Chinese version of STAI were evidenced by subsequent studies (Shek, 1988;

Shek, 1991; Shek, 1993a). Ye translated STAI into Chinese Mandarin and did extensive work

with this Chinese version (Spielberger, March, 2000, personal communication). This translation

was used in the present study for the Chinese ample.

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Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD, see Appendix C). The SAD Scale (Watson &

Friend, 1969) is a widely used measure of social anxiety. It contains 28 items, 14 of which assess

social avoidance and 14 of which measure social distress. The initial pool of items was selected

with consideration of social desirability and frequency of endorsement. Acquiescence response

was controlled by inclusion of an equal number of positively and negatively worded items (Leary,

1991). The social avoidance and distress measured by this scale refer to the tendency to avoid

social situations and to feel anxious in such situations. Thus, this scale focuses on the affective

(i.e., stress) and behavioral (i.e., avoidance) components of social anxiety. However, the validity

and reliability of the subscales have not been systematically examined, and most research using

this scale has used the full-scale version (Leary, 1991). The original response format was true-

false, but many researchers have used the five-point Likert format. This study used this five-point

Likert format. Cronbach’s α coefficient of close to 0.90 has been reported for the five-point scale

version (Leary, 1991). Scores on SAD correlated highly (r = 0.75 or above) with a variety of

other measures of social anxiety (e.g., Johns, Briggs, & Smaith, 1986, cited in Leary, 1991). High

scorers on SAD reported greater anxiety in actual interactions than low scorers. Higher scorers

were less interested in participating in group discussions than low scorers (Watson & Friend,

1969). The SAD scale has been used successfully in more than a hundred studies designed to test

the effectiveness of various counseling interventions for chronic social anxiety (Leary, 1991).

Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI, see Appendix D). The set of traditional

Chinese personality factors (i.e., Harmony, Face, Family Orientation, Modernity, and Ah-Q

Mentality) were assessed by the corresponding personality subscales of CPAI (Cheung, Leung,

Fan, Song, Zhang, & Zhang, 1996). The CPAI was developed based on a large sample of Chinese

of Mainland China and Hong Kong (See Cheung, et al. 1996 for full description of the

development and psychometric properties of the inventory), using a combined emic-etic

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approach. It covers personality characteristics for normal and diagnostic assessments that intend

to identify culturally unique dimensions and cross-cultural universals.

The final version of CPAI consists of 22 personality scales, 12 clinical scales and three

validity scales. There are 15 items in each of the personality scales. Each item is a statement

describing a personal characteristic or typical behavior to which the respondent is instructed to

answer “yes” or “no”. The average Cronbach’s α coefficient for the personality scales is 0.69 for

the Mainland Chinese sample with a median of 0.70 (Cheung et al., 1996; Cheung et al., 2001).

For the five subscales used in the present study, α coefficients are 0.61 for Harmony, 0.75 for

Face, 0.71 for Family orientation, 0.62 for Modernization, and 0.71 for Ah-Q Mentality (Song,

Zhang, & Zhang, 1994). The test-retest (one-month interval) reliability coefficients for these

scales are 0.75 for Harmony, 0.70 for Face, 0.68 for Family orientation, 0.75 for Modernization,

and 0.72 for Ah-Q Mentality (Song et al., 1994). These five factors constitute the core

components of typical Chinese personality factors (Cheung et al., 1996; Cheung et al., 2001).

The CPAI has been translated by two translators proficient in both English and Chinese

(See Cheung et al., 2001). The procedure of back translation was adopted to refine the translation.

Research using this English version CPAI in a Singapore Chinese sample and a Hawaii college

student sample has indicated the English version of CPAI has acceptable internal consistency

reliability but specific coefficients were not reported (see Cheung et al., 2001). This English

version of CPAI was used for the Caucasian sample in the present study.

Self-Construal Scale (SCS, see Appendix E). The SCS (Singelis, 1994) is designed to

measure the “constellations of thoughts, feelings, and actions” (p. 584) that comprise independent

and interdependent self-construals as separate dimensions. Original SCS version contained 24

items, with 12 on each of the two dimensions. Recently, the SCS has been revised (Singelis,

personal communication, April, 2000). Six additional items (with three on each of the subscales)

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were added to improve internal reliabilities of the original scale. Also, the original item #2 (“I feel

comfortable using someone's first name soon after I meet them, even when they are much older

than I am”) has been replaced by a new statement (“I can talk openly with a person who I meet

for the first time, even when this person is much older than I am”), as it was determined that this

item was not appropriate for collective cultures, such as Japan or China, where first names are

rarely used at initial meetings. This replacement was made to ensure the conceptual equivalence

of feeling equal and comfortable with people recently met and has been used successfully with

both US and Hong Kong Chinese participants (Singelis, personal communication, April, 2000).

Cronbach Alpha reliabilities of the 15-item version have been ranging from the high .60’s to the

middle .70’s. These reliabilities are adequate considering the broadness of the construct and the

wide range of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors assessed by the scale (Singelis, personal

communication, April, 2000).

A response format of 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) is

applied to each of the item of SCS. Two separate scores are calculated, one for the strength of the

independent self and one for the interdependent self. The scales are scored by adding each

respondent’s scores for all the independent items and the interdependent items, and divided by 15

respectively to get the mean score for the items (Singelis, personal communication, April, 2000).

Collective Self-Esteem (CSE, see Appendix F). The CSE (Luhtanen, & Crocker, 1992) is a

16-item scale composed of four subscales (Membership, Private, Public, Identity) that measures

collective self-esteem evolved from the concept of collective identity in the social identity theory

(Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Tuner, 1986). A response format of 7-point Likert scale (1= strongly

disagree, 7= strongly agree) is used with the CSE.

The scale is preceded by instructions to think about one’s memberships in various social

groups (e.g., gender, race, religion) and is referred to as measure of general collective self-esteem.

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However, it can also be modified to instruct participants only to focus on membership in one

group (e.g., race) and is referred to as measure of race-specific collective self esteem (Crocker,

Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994). As in the society of Mainland China, due to the relative

within group homogeneity, people usually don’t identity themselves on dimension of specific

race/ethnicity, thus the present study used the instruction for measuring general collective self-

esteem.

Research has indicated that CSE has good reliability. For example, Luhtanen and Crocker

(1992) reported the Cronbach’s α coefficients ranging from 0.85 to 0.89 for the subscales. These

reliabilities were comparable to those found in another study examining the relationship between

collective self-esteem and psychological well-being among Caucasian, Black, and Asian college

students (Crocker, et al., 1994, 0.63, 0.79, 0.86, and 0.81 for the Membership, Private, Public, and

Identity subscales, respectively). Research on CSE also indicated that the four subscales are

interrelated, yet distinct, with evidence of a four-factor structure. Research also suggested

components of collective self-esteem were correlated with other relevant measures such as

personal self-esteem (e.g., Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997). These studies supported the validity

of the CSE scale.

Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS, see Appendix G). The MPS (Hewitt & Flett,

1991) is a 45-item measure of perfectionism consisting of three theoretically distinct scales

measuring self-oriented perfectionism (e.g., “I demand nothing less than perfection from

myself”), other-oriented perfectionism (e.g., “Everything that others do must be of top-notch

quality”), and socially prescribed perfectionism (e.g., “My family expects me to be perfect”), with

15 items in each of the dimensions. Respondents are asked to rate their agreement to statements

based on a 7 –point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree). Higher scores on the

three subscales reflect greater levels of perfectionism.

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Research on the MPS based on college samples has shown that it reflects three empirically

distinguishable dimensions and has good test-retest reliability over a three month period (0.88,

0.85, and 0.75 for the subscales of self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed,

respectively). MPS has construct validity with other measures of perfectionism (See Chang &

Rand, 2000). In their research on perfectionism and its relationship to college student adjustment,

Chang and Rand (2000) reported Cronbach’s α coefficients of 0.78, 0.71, and 0.76 for self-

oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism subscales, respectively.

Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale—Brief Form (M-C Form C, Appendix H). The

M-C Form C (Reynolds, 1982) is a 13-item brief form of the original 33-item true-false Marlowe-

Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlow, 1960). The original scale has been used

primarily to assess the impact of social desirability on self-report measures but is not used as

often as desirable because of its length (Reynolds, 1982).

In order to construct reliable and valid brief forms in assessing social desirability,

Reynolds (1982) administrated the original 33-item scale to 608 Caucasian, Black, and Hispanic

undergraduates. Through factor analysis, descriptive, and reliability analyses, six short form

versions of the original scale were extracted. The strongest version was a 13-item form with a

reliability (KR-20) of 0.76, a correlation of 0.93 with the original scale and a correlation of 0.41

with Edwards Social Desirability Scale (Edwards, 1957, cited in Reynolds, 1982). This version

was recommended for use as a viable brief scale to measure social desirability.

Procedure

Translation and back translation. Measurements of state and trait anxiety, social anxiety,

perfectionism, self-construal, and collective self-esteem were translated and back-translated to

ensure the linguistic and concept equivalence. The author of the present study first translated the

65

original English versions of these instruments into Chinese. Then, the translated Chinese versions

were back translated into English by a second bilingual person. The two English versions were

compared, and the two translators discussed the discrepancies. Through consulting with native

speakers of English and people who are familiar with Chinese language and culture, it was

determined what should be the most appropriate wording that can represent both linguistic and

conceptual equivalence between the two cultures.

Data collection. The present study was submitted to and was approved by Human Subjects

Institutional Review Board. All the above instruments were put into a package with the

solicitation statement on the top of the package. The sequence of all other instruments was

randomly determined in order to counter-balance any possible sequential effect. For the

Caucasian sample, data were collected from participants in small groups of 20-40 students in

winter quarter of 2002 through the Research Experience Program (REP). These students were

enrolled in an introductory psychology class and received credits for participating in this study.

For the Chinese sample, participants were students enrolled in an introductory psychology class

in a large comprehensive university in Beijing, China. They did not receive any credit for the

study but were presented a small piece of gift as an incentive. For both samples, the time to

complete the whole questionnaire ranged from 20-40 minutes.

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

This chapter presents the results of the study. Preliminary analyses are presented first

with respect to (1) comparisons of demographic characteristics of the two samples; (2) means and

standard deviations of the study variables, and the internal consistency reliability of those

instruments measuring these variables, and (3) inter-correlations of the study variables. Following

the preliminary analyses are the primary analyses which include (1) between-group comparisons

of both dependent variables and independent variables of this study, and (2) within-group

analyses with respect to the relationships between dependent variables and independent variables

for each sample.

Preliminary Analyses

Comparisons of demographic characteristics. The demographic characteristics of the two

samples are presented in Table1 and were described in the previous chapter (see Method, Chapter

Three for details). Chi-square analyses indicated no significant difference for distribution of

gender [χ2 (1, N = 657) = 1.75, ns], marital status [χ2 (2, N = 654) = 4.86, ns], and previous

counseling experience [χ2 (1, N = 656) = 0.13, ns]. In both samples, there were more females than

males; almost all of the students were unmarried, and about 74%-75% of the students had no

previous counseling experience.

67

However, Chi-square analyses indicated that the two samples did differ on distributions

of age [χ2 (10, N = 651) = 244.0, p < .001] and education level [χ2 (3, N =657) = 138.21, p <

.001]. Overall, 20-22-year-old participants represented a larger proportion of the Chinese sample

(64.7%) than the Caucasian sample (14.1%), while 18-19-year-old participants made up a larger

proportion of the Caucasian sample (83.2%) than the Chinese sample (31.5%). The age difference

between the two samples was consistent with the difference on education levels. Proportionately,

second-year and third-year students made up a larger proportion (59.8%) than the Caucasian

sample (18.3%), while first-year students made up a larger proportion of the Caucasian sample

(79.6%) than the Chinese sample (34.3%).

Distributions of academic majors and family income were not compared across the two

samples, mainly because of lack of comparability. For example, in the Chinese university where

the Chinese data were collected, there are relatively more sciences majors than arts majors. Also,

under the Chinese education system, students have to choose a major once they are enrolled in the

college. Therefore, there was a relatively lower representation of Chinese students in arts majors,

and there was no undecided majors in the Chinese sample as compared to the Caucasian sample.

For the family income, Chinese families use monthly income to indicate their average income

level while in America, annual family income is used. Although for both samples, family income

was scaled in the same way, apparently there was a lack of equality of the scale due to economic

difference between the two countries. Thus, the academic majors and family income levels are

only for descriptive purpose, but their potential influences on other variables were taken into

account within each of the samples.

Means, standard deviations, internal consistency. All scales and subscales used to

measure the variables in this study were scored according to the published standards. Their

means, standard deviations, and internal consistency statistics were summarized in Table 2.

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Results of between-group comparisons of these mean scores were presented in the primary

analyses. This section presented their internal consistency reliabilities.

Reliability analyses were conducted for each scale and subscale. Cronbach’s alphas for

the scales measuring dependent variables (i.e., State Anxiety, Trait Anxiety, Social Avoidance

and Social Distress) ranged from .82 to .89 for the Chinese sample and from .88 to .94 for the

Caucasian sample. The alphas of the State and Trait anxiety for the Caucasian sample (.94, .92)

were comparable to those summarized by Spielberger and colleagues (1999), and the alphas for

social anxiety for the Caucasian sample (.88, .89) were also comparable to those internal

consistent estimates summarized by Leary (1991). Although the alphas for the Chinese sample

were lower than those for the Caucasian sample, most of them were still close to .90, which

indicated high reliability of the translated scales when they were used to measure the dependent

variables on Chinese college students.

For the independent variables, the alphas of the subscales in the Chinese Personality

Assessment Inventory (i.e., Harmony, Face, Family Orientation, Modernization, and

Defensiveness) ranged from .65 to .72 for the Chinese sample, which were comparable to those

reported by Cheung and colleagues (1996). For the Caucasian sample, comparable alphas were

observed for the subscales of Face (.68), Family Orientation (.77), and Defensiveness (.61), but

alphas of Harmony (.57) and Modernization (.52) were relatively lower than their Chinese

counterparts (.65, .67, respectively). These low internal consistency coefficients may indicate that

items that measure Harmony and Modernization are less meaningful for the Caucasian students.

The alphas of the subscales measuring Collective Self-esteem among Chinese students

were .66 on the Membership Esteem, .78 on the Private Esteem, and .70 on the Public Esteem,

which were in general comparable to their counterparts in the Caucasian sample (.73, .72, .73).

These alphas indicated moderate reliabilities on these scales for both samples. However, the

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Chinese sample yielded a much lower internal consistency coefficient (.46) than the Caucasian

sample (.65), which may indicate items measuring Identity Esteem is less meaningful for the

Chinese students than for the Caucasian students.

The alphas of the Independent self-construal and Interdependent self-construal were .67

and .77 for the Chinese sample and .75 and .69 for the Caucasian sample. While these alphas

indicated moderately reliability for both samples, the Chinese sample yielded a higher reliability

on Interdependent self-construal than the Caucasian sample, whereas the Caucasian sample

yielded a higher reliability on the Independent self-construal. These differences were in an

expected direction given the cultural connotations of individualistic-independent orientation in

the Caucasian culture and collectivistic-interdependent orientation in the Chinese culture.

For the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Chinese sample yielded alphas of .86

on self-oriented perfectionism, .72 on other-oriented perfectionism, and .74 on socially prescribed

perfectionism. The corresponding alphas for the Caucasian sample were .89, .69, and .84,

respectively. These coefficients suggested moderately high internal consistency on these scales

for both samples and it can be seen that the two samples have comparable internal consistency on

self-oriented perfectionism and other-oriented perfectionism. However, the alpha on socially

prescribed perfectionism was higher for the Caucasian sample (.84) than for the Chinese sample

(.74). This difference suggested that items measuring socially prescribed perfectionism might

make more sense for Caucasian students than for the Chinese students.

In sum, the measurements of dependent variables had high internal consistency reliability

for both samples in that most of the coefficients were close to .90). The two samples had

comparable moderate to high internal consistency reliabilities on measures for most of the

independent variables. However, the Chinese sample had much lower internal consistency

reliabilities on identity esteem and social desirability but much higher internal consistency

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reliabilities on Harmony and Interdependent Self-Construal than the Caucasian sample whereas

the Caucasian sample had much lower internal consistent reliabilities on Harmony and

Modernization but had much higher reliability on socially prescribed perfectionism and personal

self-esteem than the Chinese sample. These differences were considered in explanation of other

results.

Inter-correlations among dependent variables. Table 3a presents the inter-correlations for

the dependent variables for the Chinese sample. Pearson correlation coefficients among all of

these dependent variables were significantly positive at .001 level. Specifically, there were high

positive correlations between state anxiety and trait anxiety (r = .69) and between social distress

and social avoidance (r = .79). State anxiety was also positively related to social avoidance (r =

.29) and social distress (r = .38). Similarly, trait anxiety was positively related to social avoidance

(r = .37) and social distress (r = .44).

Table 3b presents the inter-correlations for the dependent variables for the Caucasian

sample. Pearson correlation coefficients among all of these dependent variables were significantly

positive at 0.001 level. Specifically, there were high positive correlations between state anxiety

and trait anxiety (r = .73) and between social distress and social avoidance (r = .83). State anxiety

was also positively related to social avoidance (r = .33) and social distress (r = .32). Similarly,

trait anxiety was positively related to social avoidance (r = .44) and social distress (r = .45).

It can be seen that for both samples, there were significantly high positive correlations

between state and trait anxiety and between social avoidance and social distress. These

correlations were comparable to those summarized by Spielberger and colleagues (1999) and

Leary (1991). There were moderate correlations between state-trait anxiety and avoidance-

distress components of social anxiety, but in general the correlation coefficients of trait anxiety to

avoidance-distress components of social anxiety tended to be greater than the correlation

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coefficients of state anxiety to these components. Across the two samples, all the correlation

coefficients for the Chinese except the correlation between state anxiety and social distress were

smaller than those in the Caucasian sample. Of particular interest of the present study is the

comparison of the strength of the correlations between state anxiety and trait anxiety for the two

samples. Although, using the Fisher’s Z score transformation procedure, none of these differences

reached a significant level of .05, it appeared that the relationship between state anxiety and trait

anxiety was relatively weaker for the Chinese sample than the Caucasian sample. Therefore, the

hypothesis 6 that there is a less positive relationship between trait anxiety and state anxiety for the

Chinese than for the Caucasian students was partially supported.

Inter-correlations among independent variables. The matrices of inter-correlation

coefficients among independent variables are presented in Table 4a (Chinese) and Table 4b

(Caucasian). To focus on the correlations with relatively larger effect size, only the correlations

significant at .01 level were summarized in this section. This is because with a fairly large sample

size, a small correlation coefficient could reach a statistically significant level.

For the Chinese students, harmony was positively correlated to family orientation (r =

.38, p < .001) but negatively correlated to modernization (r = -.20, p < .001). Harmony was also

positively correlated to collective self-esteem components, specifically, to private (r = .20, p <

.001), identity (r = .25, p < .001) collective self-esteem, and interdependent self-construal (r =

0.47, p < .001). Face was negatively correlated to family orientation (r = -.15, p < .01) and

modernization (r = -.22, p< .001), but positively correlated to defensiveness (r = .32, p < .001).

Face was also negatively correlated with membership (r = -.21, p < .001), private (r = -.16, p <

.01), and public (r = -.19, p < .001) collective self-esteem but positively correlated to identity

collective self-esteem (r = .16, p < .01). In addition, face was negatively correlated to

independent self-construal (r = -.16, p < .01) and positively correlated to interdependent self-

72

construal (r = .15, p < .01). Finally, face was positively correlated to all perfectionism

components, specifically, self-oriented (r = .24, p < .001), other-oriented (r = .16, p < .01) and

social-prescribed (r = .42, p < .001) perfectionism. Family orientation was negatively correlated

to modernization (r = -.17, p < .01) but positively correlated to membership (r = .30, p < .001),

private (r = 0.32, p < .001), and public (r = .22, p < .001) collective self-esteem components and

interdependent self-construal (r = .24, p < .001). It negatively correlated to social-prescribed

perfectionism (r = -.22, p < .001). Modernization had a negative correlation with defensiveness (r

= -.19, p < .001), positive correlations with public collective self-esteem (r = .17, p < .01) and

independent self-construal (r = .15, p < .01). Defensiveness had negative correlations with private

(r = -.23, p < .001) and public (r = -0.21, p < .001) collective self-esteem, but it had positive

correlations with all of the perfectionism components, specifically, self-oriented (r = .18, p < .01),

other-oriented (r = .21, p < .001), and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = .28, p < .001).

For the Chinese students, membership collective self-esteem had positive correlations

with the other three collective self-esteem components, specifically, private (r = .44, p < .001),

public (r = .36, p < .001), and identity (r = .17, p < .01) collective self-esteem, as well as with

interdependent self-construal (r = .24, p < .001), but a negative correlation with socially

prescribed perfectionism. Private collective self-esteem had positive correlations with public (r =

.57, p < .001) and identity (r = .24, p < .001) collective self-esteem and positive correlations with

both independent (r = .25, p < .001) and interdependent (r = .30, p < .001) self-construal. It

negatively correlated to socially prescribed perfectionism (r = -.26, p < .001). Public and identity

collective self-esteems were positively correlated (r = .15, p < .01). Like private collective self-

esteem, public collective self-esteem also positively correlated to both independent (r = .23, p <

.001) and interdependent (r = .25, p < .001), but negatively correlated to other-oriented (r = -.18,

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p < .01) and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = -.27, p < .001). For identity collective self-

esteem, it was only positively correlated to interdependent self-construal (r = .32, p < .001).

For the Chinese students, independent and interdependent self-construal were positively

correlated (r = .28, p < .001) with each other. While independent self-construal was negatively

correlated to socially prescribed perfectionism (r = -.23, p < .001), the interdependent self-

construal was negatively correlated to other-oriented perfectionism (r = -.15, p < .01).

For the Chinese students, the factors of perfectionism, self-oriented perfectionism had

positive correlations with both other-oriented (r = .45, p < .001) and socially prescribed

perfectionism (r = .29, p < .001), which were positively correlated with each other (r = .37, p <

.001).

For the Caucasian students, harmony was positively correlated to face (r = .29, p < .001),

family orientation (r = .15, p < .01), and defensiveness (r = .25, p < .001), but negatively

correlated to modernization (r = - .37, p < .001). Harmony was also positively correlated to

identity collective self-esteem esteem (r = .15, p < .01), interdependent self-construal (r = .47, p

< .001), and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = .17, p < .01). Face was negatively correlated

to family orientation (r = - .19, p < .001), modernization (r = - .16, p < .01), but positively

correlated to defensiveness (r = .35, p < .001). Face was also negatively correlated with

membership (r = - .25, p < .001) and private (r = - .15, p< .01) collective self-esteem. In addition,

face was negatively correlated to independent self-construal (r = - .16, p < .01) and positively

correlated to interdependent self-construal (r = .34, p < .001). Finally, face was positively

correlated to self-oriented (r = .24, p < .001) and socially prescribed (r = .44, p < .001)

perfectionism. Family orientation was negatively correlated to modernization (r = - .27, p < .001)

and defensiveness (r = - .25, p < .001) but positively correlated to membership (r = .18, p < .01),

private (r = .23, p < .001), and public (r = .26, p < .001) collective self-esteem and

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interdependent self-construal (r = .24, p < .001). It negatively correlated to social-prescribed

perfectionism (r = - .24, p < .001). Modernization had a negative correlation with defensiveness

(r = - .21, p < .001) and interdependent self-construal (r = - .28, p < .001). Defensiveness had

negative correlations with membership (r = - .18, p < .01), private (r = - .26, p < .001) and public

(r = - .21, p < .001) collective self-esteem, but it had positive correlations with other-oriented (r

= .17, p < .01) and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = .29, p < .001).

For Caucasian students, membership collective self-esteem had positive correlations with

the other three collective self-esteem components, specifically, private (r = .68, p < .001), public

(r = .53, p < .001), and identity (r = .34, p < .01) collective self-esteem, as well as with

independent self-construal (r = .32, p < .001), and a negative correlation with socially prescribed

perfectionism (r = - .29, p < .001). Private collective self-esteem had positive correlations with

public (r = .57, p < .001) and identity (r = .36, p < .001) collective self-esteem and positive

correlations with independent self-construal (r = .24, p < .001). It negatively correlated to

socially prescribed perfectionism (r = - .30, p < .001). Public and identity collective self-esteems

were positively correlated (r = .32, p < .001). Like private collective self-esteem, public

collective self-esteem also positively correlated to independent self-construal (r = .29, p < .001),

but negatively correlated to socially prescribed perfectionism (r = - .20, p < .001). For identity

collective self-esteem, it had a positive correlation with interdependent self-construal (r = .22,

p < .001) and other-oriented perfectionism (r = .20, p < .001).

For the Caucasian students, interdependent self-construal was positively correlated with

self-oriented (r = .19, p < .001) and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = .17, p < .01). As for

aspects of perfectionism, self-oriented perfectionism had positive correlations with both other-

oriented (r = .32, p < .001) and socially prescribed perfectionism (r = .47, p < .001), which

were positively correlated with each other (r = .27, p < .001).

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Inter-correlations between independent variables and dependent variables. Table 5

presents inter-correlations between independent variables and dependent variables for the Chinese

and Caucasians. Harmony had negative correlations with state anxiety (r = - .12, p < .05) and

trait anxiety (r = - .13, p < .05) for the Chinese but not for the Caucasians. For both Chinese and

Caucasians, face had positive correlations with all of the dependent variables. While the

correlations between face and social anxiety aspects were comparable for the two samples, it

appeared that the Caucasians yielded greater correlations between face and state anxiety (r = .29,

p < .001) and trait anxiety (r = .40, p < .001) than their Chinese counterparts (r = .20, .29,

respectively, p < .001). Also for both Chinese and Caucasians, family orientation had negative

correlations with all of the dependent variables. Of these correlations, the Chinese appeared to

have a greater correlation between family orientation and trait anxiety (r = - .35, p < .001) than

Caucasians (r = - .28, p < .001). While for the Chinese the defensiveness had positive correlations

with state anxiety (r = .18, p < .001), trait anxiety (r = .14, p < .01), social avoidance (r = .22, p

< .001) and social distress (r = .20, p < .001), for the Caucasians it only positively correlated to

social avoidance (r = .18, p < .00) and social distress (r = .18, p < .01).

For the collective self-esteem aspects, membership, private, and public collective self-

esteem had significant (all at .001 level) negative correlations with all of the dependent variables

for both Chinese and Caucasians. However, an examination of these correlations suggested: (a) a

weaker correlation between membership collective self-esteem and state anxiety (r = - .28)

among Chinese than Caucasians (r = - .35) but a stronger correlation between membership

collective self-esteem and social distress (r = - .44) among Chinese than Caucasians (r = - .35);

(b) stronger correlations between private collective self-esteem and social anxiety aspects for

Chinese (for social avoidance, r = - .42; for social distress, r = - .34) than for Caucasians (r = -

76

.27 and r = - .20, respectively); (c) weaker correlations between public collective self-esteem and

state anxiety (r = -.21), social avoidance (r = - .26), ad social distress (r = -.22) for Chinese

students than for Caucasian students (r = - .31, - .42, and - .38, respectively). For identity

collective self-esteem, no significant correlations were observed for the Chinese, however, for the

Caucasians, identity collective self-esteem was negatively correlated with social avoidance (r =

- .19, p < .001) and social distress (r = - .11, p < .05).

For self-construal scales, independent self-construal had significant (at .001 level)

negative correlations with all of the dependent variables for both Chinese and Caucasians, but

these correlations tended to be stronger for the Caucasians (r = - .29 to r = - .44) than for the

Chinese (r = - .21 to r = - .32). However, the interdependent self-construal had a negative

correlation with social avoidance (r = - .18) for Chinese only.

For aspects of perfectionism, self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism had positive

correlations with state anxiety (r = .12, p < .05, for self-oriented; r = .16, p < .01, for other-

oriented) and trait anxiety (r = .22, p < .001, for self-oriented; r = .20, p < .001, for other-

oriented) for the Chinese. However, these correlations were not found among Caucasian students.

Moreover, other-oriented perfectionism positively correlated to social distress (r = .14, p < .01),

which was not found either for Caucasians. For both Chinese and Caucasians, significant positive

correlations (p < .001) were found between socially prescribed perfectionism and all the

dependent variables, but the correlations between socially prescribed perfectionism and social

anxiety aspects for Chinese (r = .35 with social avoidance, r = .37 with social distress) tended to

be stronger than the Caucasians (r = .20 and r = .21, respectively).

Correlations of study variables with social desirability. Table 3a and Table 3b present

the correlations between social desirability and dependent variables, and Table 4a and Table 4b

present the correlations between social desirability and independent variables. For both Chinese

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and Caucasians, there were significant (all at .001 level) negative correlations between social

desirability and all of the dependent variables. While the correlations between social desirability

and state and trait anxiety were comparable across the samples, the correlations between social

desirability and social anxiety components tended to be stronger for Chinese (r = - .27 for social

avoidance, r = - .33 for social distress) than for Caucasians (r = - .22 for social avoidance, r =

- .24 for social distress).

With respect to independent variables for both Chinese and Caucasians, there were

significant positive correlations between social desirability and harmony, family orientation,

membership, private, and public collective-esteem. However, the Chinese sample yielded

stronger correlations between social desirability and harmony (r = .28), family orientation (r =

.34), membership (r = .29), private (r = .32), and public (r = .25) collective self-esteem than

Caucasians (r = .17, .19, .21, .17, respectively). Also for both Chinese and Caucasians, there

were significant negative correlations between social desirability and face, defensiveness, and

socially prescribed perfectionism, and similarly, these correlations appeared to be stronger for

Chinese (r = - .33, - .28, - .30, respectively) than for the Caucasians (r = - .29, - .23, - .16,

respectively). Moreover, for Chinese, there were significant negative correlations between social

desirability and self-oriented perfectionism (r = - .14, p < .01) and other-oriented perfectionism

(r = - .19, p < .01), but these correlations were not significant for the Caucasians. Also, the social

desirability had a positive correlation with interdependent self-construal for Chinese (r = .20, p <

.001) but not for Caucasians (r = .02, ns), and it had a positive correlation with independent self-

construal for Caucasians (r = .23, p < .001) but not for Chinese (r = .09, ns).

Primary Analyses: Between-Group Comparisons on Means of Study Variables

To control the experimentwise error rate, two simple MANOVA analyses (Hotelling’s

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T2) were performed respectively to test the between-group differences on dependent variables and

independent variables. Tests of equivalence of variances were also performed and the results

indicated that for most the variables, the variance equivalence was not violated. For trait anxiety,

state anxiety, and personal self-esteem, tests of variance equivalence suggested unequivalent

variance for the two groups, however, given the large sample size of the present study, effect of

this unequivalence of variance can be ignored (Cohen, 2001).

MANOVA for between-group comparisons on dependent variables. For the results of the

simple MANOVA, data analysis about the between-group differences for dependent variables

indicated that Chinese and Caucasian students differed significantly on this combined set of

dependent variables [F (4, 651) = 23.01, p < .001, η2 = .124]. Specifically, Chinese students

scored significantly higher than Caucasian students on Trait Anxiety (M = 42.89 for Chinese, M =

40.53 for Caucasians) [F (1, 654) = 9.62, p < .01, η2 = .02], Social Avoidance (M = 35.88 for

Chinese, M = 29.43 for Caucasians) [F (1, 654) = 85.96, p < .001, η2 = .12], and Social Distress

(M = 36.83 for Chinese, M = 31.82 for Caucasians) [F (1, 654) = 47.40, p < .001, η2 = .07]. There

was no significant difference on State Anxiety between the two groups [F (1, 654), ns, η2 = .00].

Therefore, these results supported hypothesis 1 that Chinese students score higher on measures of

Trait anxiety and Social anxiety than Caucasian students but they do not differ on state anxiety.

MANOVA for between-group comparisons on independent variables. Similarly, results of

the simple MANOVA testing the between-group differences for independent variables indicated

that Chinese and Caucasian students differed significantly on this combined set of independent

variables [F (14, 641) = 28.7, p < .001, η2 = .40]. Specifically, on the subscales of the Chinese

Personality Assessment Inventory, Chinese students scored significantly higher than Caucasian

students on Harmony (M = 10.64 for Chinese, M = 8.45 for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 119.03, p

< .001, η2 = .15], Family Orientation (M = 10.62 for Chinese, M = 9.56 for Caucasians) [F (1,

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656) = 21.38, p < .001, η2 = .03], and Modernization (M = 12.18 for Chinese, M = 10.56 for

Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 42.04, p < .001, η2 = .06], and there was no significant difference on

face [F (1, 656) = .15, ns, η2 = .00] and Defensiveness [F (1, 656) = .05, ns, η2 = .00] between the

two groups [F (1, 654), ns, η2 = .00]. These results supported hypotheses 2a and 2c concerning

differences on harmony and family orientation, but not hypotheses 2b, 2d, and 2e concerning

differences on face, modernization, and defensiveness, which stated that Chinese students would

also score higher on face and defensiveness but lower on modernization than Caucasian students.

On the subscales of Collective Self-Esteem, Chinese students scored significantly higher

(M = 22.61) than Caucasian students (M = 21.80) on Public Collective Self-Esteem only [F (1,

656) = 8.61, p < .01, η2 = .01]. However, on Membership (M = 21.50 for Chinese, M = 22.97 for

Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 28.43, p < .001, η2 = .04], Private (M = 21.92 for Chinese, M = 22.70

for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 6.9, p < .01, η2 = .01], and Identity (M = 16.70 for Chinese, M =

18.67 for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 35.26, p < .001, η2 = .05] collective self-esteem components,

Chinese students scored significantly lower than Caucasians students. Therefore, hypothesis 3

that Chinese students would score higher on all aspects of collective self-esteem than Caucasian

students was largely not supported. Interestingly, most of the results were in the opposite

direction to what was hypothesized.

As for independent and interdependent self-construal, as expected by hypotheses 4a and

4b, Chinese students scored significantly higher on interdependent self-construal (M = 4.89) than

Caucasian students (M = 4.59) [F (1, 656) = 20.68, p < .001, η2 = .03], and they scored

significantly lower on Independent Self-Construal (M = 4.77) than Caucasians students (M =

4.96) [F (1, 656) = 14.28, p < .001, η2 = .02].

On aspects of perfectionism, as predicted by hypotheses 5a and 5b, Chinese students

scored significantly lower than Caucasian students on Self-Oriented Perfectionism (M = 4.52 for

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Chinese, M = 4.73 for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 8.01, p < .01, η2 = .01] and Other-Oriented

Perfectionism (M= 3.58 for Chinese, M = 4.92 for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = 44.21, p < .001, η2 =

.06]. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups on Socially Prescribed

Perfectionism (M = 3.64 for Chinese; M = 3.69 for Caucasians) [F (1, 656) = .93, ns, η2 = .00].

These results supported hypotheses 5a and 5b but not 5c.

Primary Analyses: Comparisons of Within-Group Relationships between Independent and

Dependent Variables

One major purpose of the present study was to explore the relationships between selected

personality factors (predictors) and anxiety (criterion) within each of the two cultures and

compare those relationships across the two cultures. This purpose was achieved by performing

hierarchy regressions of the aforementioned personality constructs on anxiety and compare the

regression coefficients across the two samples. Since what we are really interested is whether the

culturally specific constructs can explain the variance of anxiety above and beyond those

accounted for by other constructs, the order of entering the selected personality constructs was

determined by our interest in and how much previous studies have done on that particular

construct. As mentioned earlier, perfectionism is rooted and developed in the Western cultures,

and is presumably to have universal influences across many cultures. There have been many

studies on this construct, which have consistently suggested a positive relationship between

perfectionism and psychological distress. Therefore, perfectionism was entered first in the

regression equation. Self-construal was entered next in the equation because there have also been

many studies on this construct in comparing Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans, and we

are interested if these findings can be replicated for our Chinese sample. Compared to

perfectionism and self-construal, we are more interested in collective self-esteem and those

Chinese personality constructs, which we believe are more culturally specific and relevant and

have not yet been studied in cross-cultural studies that directly compare Chinese and Caucasian

participants. Therefore, they were entered last in the third and forth blocks.

Scatter-plots were drawn to test the major assumptions of multiple regressions (i.e., linear

relationship, normality and independence of error, and constant variance of error). No significant

violation of these assumptions was observed. In addition, diagnostic test of multi-collinearity of

predictors were also performed for each of the hierarchical regressions. The results suggested

high tolerance for most of the independent variables (close to or above 0.75).

Comparisons of (standardized) regression coefficients (β) were performed using the

procedure proposed by Cohen and Cohen (1983), in which a Z statistic can be obtained through

the following formula (p.111):

Z = (β1 – β2) /2

22

1 ββ SESE +

In the above equation, β is the standardized regression coefficient and is the

standard error of the coefficient. Comparisons of coefficients were not performed if both of them

were not significant, simply because it did not make any sense to test the difference of two non-

significant coefficients.

1βSE

Hierarchical regression of trait anxiety on personality constructs as predictors. Table 8

presents results of hierarchy regression of trait anxiety on personality constructs for Chinese and

Caucasian students. All the personality constructs combined accounted for 37% of the variance of

trait anxiety for Chinese, and 42% of the variance for Caucasians.

Subscales of perfectionism accounted for a significant 17% of the variance of trait

anxiety for Chinese [∆F (3, 320) = 22.13, p < .001] and 22% for Caucasians [∆F (3, 329) = 30.03,

p < .001]. Self-oriented (β = -.13, p < .05) and other oriented (β = -.14, p < .01) perfectionism

predicted trait anxiety for Caucasians only, but in an unexpected negative direction, suggesting

81

82

that for Caucasians, the higher the tendency of perfectionism toward self and other people, the

lower the trait anxiety they reported. These results failed to support hypothesis 7a concerning

prediction of trait anxiety (i.e., all aspects of perfectionism should be predictors of trait anxiety

for both Chinese and Caucasians in a positive direction) because not only did self-oriented and

other-oriented perfectionism not predict trait anxiety for Chinese, but also they predicted trait

anxiety for Caucasians in an opposite direction. Socially prescribed perfectionism was a

significant predictor of trait anxiety in an expected positive direction for both Chinese (β = .37,

p< 0.001) and Caucasians (β = .52, p < .001) but unexpectedly it appeared to be a stronger

predictor of trait anxiety for Caucasians than for Chinese (z = 1.96, p < .05). Therefore,

hypothesis 7b concerning prediction of trait anxiety (i.e., it would be a stronger predictor for

Chinese students) was not supported. Although self-oriented perfectionism predicted trait anxiety

for Caucasian students only, the negative relationship was in opposite direction to hypothesis 7c.

As for self-construal, once the variance of trait anxiety accounted for by perfectionism

was partialed out, self-construal accounted for an additional 3% of the variance for Chinese [∆F

(2, 318) = 5.62, p < .01] and 7% of the variance of trait anxiety for Caucasians [∆F (2, 327) =

17.11, p < .001] and it appeared that it was the independent self-construal but not the

interdependent self construal that contributed most of these variances for both groups.

Specifically, for both Chinese and Caucasians, interdependent self-construal was not a

significantly predictors of trait anxiety (β = .03, ns for both groups). This result failed to support

hypothesis 8a concerning trait anxiety (i.e., interdependent self-construal predicts trait anxiety for

Chinese but not Caucasians). However, independent self-construal predicted trait anxiety in an

expected negative direction for both Chinese (β = -.17, p < .01) and Caucasians (β = -.28, p <

.001). These results indicated that for both Chinese and Caucasian students, the higher their

independent self-construal, the lower the trait anxiety they reported. Although not reaching

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statistical significance level, independent self-construal appeared to be a better predictor of trait

anxiety for Caucasians (β = -.28) than Chinese (β = -.17). Thus, the result partially supported the

hypothesis 8b concerning trait anxiety (i.e., independent self-construal is a stronger predictor of

trait anxiety for Caucasians).

Components of collective self-esteem accounted for an additional 13% of the variance of

trait anxiety for Chinese [∆F (4, 314) = 14.87, p < .001] and 6% for Caucasians [∆F (4, 323) =

6.92, p < .001] when variance of trait anxiety accounted for by perfectionism and self-construal

were partialed out. Specifically, membership collective-self-esteem predicted trait anxiety in an

expected negative direction for both Chinese (β = -.30, p < .001) and Caucasians (β = -.22, p <

.01). Although the difference of the regression coefficients was not statistically significant (z =

.92, ns), it appeared that membership collective self-esteem was a stronger predictor for Chinese

students. In addition, private collective self-esteem predicted trait anxiety for Chinese only, in an

expected negative direction (β = -.19, p < .01). These results potentially supported hypothesis 9

concerning prediction of trait anxiety from membership collective self-esteem and private

collective self-esteem. Inconsistent with hypothesis 9, public collective self-esteem was not a

predictor of trait anxiety for both Chinese and Caucasian students, and identity collective self-

esteem predicted trait anxiety for Caucasian students only in an unexpected positive direction (β

= .12, p < .05).

Finally, the Chinese personality constructs accounted for 5 % [∆F (5, 309) = 4.50, p <

.001] of the variance of trait anxiety for the Chinese and 8% [∆F (5, 318) = 8.48, p < .001] for

Caucasians above and beyond all the other personality constructs. Specifically, consistent with

hypothesis 10c, family orientation was a significant predictor (in an expected negative direction)

of trait anxiety for Chinese only (β = -.16, p < .01), suggesting that for Chinese, the higher their

family orientation, the lower their trait anxiety. However, contrary to hypothesis 10a and 10b

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concerning prediction of trait anxiety from harmony and face (i.e., they are both stronger

predictors of trait anxiety for Chinese), harmony (β = -.19, p < .001) and face (β = .25, p < .001)

were significant predictors of trait anxiety for Caucasians only. For both Chinese and Caucasian

students, neither modernization nor defensives was a significant predictor of trait anxiety, thus,

hypotheses 10d and 10e concerning prediction of trait anxiety from modernization and

defensiveness as predictors of trait anxiety for Chinese only were not supported.

Hierarchical regression of state anxiety on personality constructs as predictors. Table 9

presents results of hierarchical regression of state anxiety on personality constructs for Chinese

and Caucasian students. All the personality constructs combined accounted for 22% of the

variance of state anxiety for Chinese, and 28% of the variance for Caucasians.

Components of perfectionism accounted for 10% [∆F (3, 320) = 11.72, p < .001] of the

variance of state anxiety for Chinese, and 13 % [∆F (3, 329) = 15.73, p < .001] of the variance for

Caucasians. Specifically, self-oriented perfectionism (β = -0.15, p < .05) predicted state anxiety

for Caucasians only, but in an unexpected negative direction, suggesting that for Caucasians, the

higher the tendency of perfectionism toward self, the lower the state anxiety they experienced.

Other-oriented perfectionism was not a significant predictor either for Chinese or for Caucasians.

Similar to predicting trait anxiety, socially prescribed perfectionism was a significant predictor of

state anxiety in an expected positive direction for both Chinese (β = .29, p< 0.001) and

Caucasians (β = .41, p < .001). Although difference of coefficients did not reach a significant

level (z = 1.42, ns), socially prescribed perfectionism appeared to be a stronger predictor of state

anxiety for Caucasians (β = .41) than for Chinese (β = .29). These results in general failed to

support hypotheses 7b and 7c concerning prediction of state anxiety from socially prescribed

perfectionism (i.e., a stronger predictor for Chinese) and self-oriented perfectionism (i.e., a

stronger predictor for Caucasians in a positive direction).

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Self-construal, once the variance of state anxiety accounted for by perfectionism was

partialed out, accounted for an additional 2% of the variance for Chinese [∆F (2, 318) = 3.82, p <

.05] and 6% of the variance for Caucasians [∆F (2, 327) = 12.00, p < .001]. Specifically, for both

Chinese and Caucasians, interdependent self-construal was not a significantly predictors of state

anxiety, but independent self-construal predicted state anxiety in an expected negative direction

(β = -.15, p < .01 for Chinese; β = -.25, p < .001 for Caucasians). These results indicated that for

both Chinese and Caucasian students, the higher their independent self-construal, the lower the

trait anxiety they reported. Although the difference did not reach statistical significance (z = 1.58,

ns), independent self-construal did appear to be a better predictor of state anxiety for Caucasians

(β = -.25) than for Chinese (β = -.15). Therefore, although theses results did not support

hypothesis 8a concerning prediction of state anxiety from interdependent self-construal (i.e.,

predictor for Chinese only), they partially supported hypothesis 8b concerning prediction of state

anxiety from independent self-construal (i.e., stronger predictor for Caucasians).

Components of collective self-esteem accounted an additional 7 % of the variance of

state anxiety for Chinese [∆F (4, 314) = 7.06, p < .001] and 5 % for Caucasians [∆F (4, 323) =

5.39, p < .001] when variance of state anxiety accounted for by perfectionism and self-construal

were partialed out. Specifically, membership collective self-esteem predicted state anxiety in an

expected negative direction equally for both Chinese (β = -.19, p < .001) and Caucasians (β = -

.18, p < .05, z = .10, ns), suggesting that for both Chinese and Caucasians students, the higher

their membership esteem, the lower the state anxiety they reported. However, the result that

membership collective self-esteem predicted state anxiety equally for both groups failed to

support hypothesis 9 that expected membership collective self-esteem to be a stronger predictor

for Chinese students.

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Finally, the Chinese personality constructs accounted for a non-significant amount of

variance of state anxiety for Chinese [3 %, ∆F (5, 309) = 2.15, ns] but a significant 5 % of

variance for the Caucasians [∆F (5, 318) = 4.29, p < .01], above and beyond all the other

personality constructs. Specifically, harmony predicted state anxiety in an expected direction for

both Chinese (β = -.13, p < .05) and Caucasians (β = -.15, p < .01), but it did not appear to be a

stronger predictor for Chinese or Caucasians (z = .22, ns), which failed to support hypothesis 10a

that harmony would be a stronger predictor of state anxiety for Chinese students. However,

contrary to hypothesis 10b concerning prediction of state anxiety from face (i.e., a stronger

predictor for Chinese), face was a significant predictor of state anxiety in an expected positive

direction for Caucasians only (β = .19, p < .05), which suggested that for Caucasian students, the

higher their face value, the higher the state anxiety they reported. For both Chinese and Caucasian

students, family orientation, modernization, and defensives were not significant predictors of state

anxiety for both groups of students. Thus, hypotheses 10c, 10d and 10e concerning prediction of

state anxiety were not supported.

Hierarchical regression of social avoidance on personality constructs as predictors.

Table 10 presents results of hierarchy regression of social avoidance on personality constructs for

Chinese and Caucasian students. All the personality constructs combined accounted for 37 % of

the variance of social avoidance for Chinese and 39 % of the variance for Caucasians.

Subscales of perfectionism accounted for a significant 13 % of the variance of social

avoidance for Chinese [∆F (3, 320) = 15.99, p < .001] and 8 % for Caucasians [∆F (3, 329) =

9.25, p < .001]. Self-oriented perfectionism predicted social avoidance for Caucasians only (β = -

.23, p < .001) but in an unexpected negative direction, suggesting that for Caucasians, the higher

the tendency of perfectionism toward self, the less they may be socially avoidant. Socially

prescribed perfectionism was a significant predictor of social avoidance in an expected positive

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direction for both Chinese (β = .37, p< 0.001) and Caucasians (β = .29, p < .001). Although

difference of regression coefficients did not reach significant level, the socially prescribed

perfectionism appeared to be a stronger predictor for Chinese, and this was by and large

consistent with hypothesis 7b concerning prediction of social anxiety from socially prescribed

perfectionism. For social avoidance, other-oriented perfectionism did not appear to be a

significant predictor for both Chinese (β = .01, ns) and Caucasians (β = .07, ns).

Self-construal, once the variance of social avoidance accounted for by perfectionism was

partialed out, accounted an additional 7 % of the variance for Chinese [∆F (2, 318) = 12.99, p <

.001] and 16 % of the variance for Caucasians [∆F (2, 327) = 34.81, p < .001]. Specifically,

interdependent self-construal predicted social avoidance for Chinese only (β = -.12, p < .05) but

in an unexpected negative direction to hypothesis 8a concerning predicting social anxiety (i.e.,

only a predictor for Chinese but in a positive direction that the higher the interdependent, the

higher social anxiety), for both Chinese and Caucasians. However, independent self-construal

predicted social avoidance in an expected negative direction for both Chinese (β = -.21, p < .01)

and Caucasians (β = -.41, p < .001), suggesting that for both groups, the higher their independent

self-construal, the lower the social avoidance tendency. Moreover, as expected in hypothesis 8b,

independent self-construal did appear to be a stronger predictor of social avoidance for

Caucasians than for Chinese (z = 2.69, p < .01).

Components of collective self-esteem accounted for an additional 15 % of the variance of

social avoidance for Chinese [∆F (4, 314) = 17.25, p < .001] and 11% for Caucasians [∆F (4,

323) = 13.81, p < .001] when variances accounted for by perfectionism and self-construal were

partialed out. Specifically, membership collective-self-esteem predicted social avoidance in an

expected negative direction for both Chinese (β = -.31, p < .001) and Caucasians (β = -.27, p <

.01), and no significant difference was found between the two coefficients (z = .50, ns). Thus

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hypothesis 8b that membership collective self-esteem is a stronger predictor of social avoidance

for Chinese was only partially supported. More complicated results were found regarding

predicting social avoidance from private collective self-esteem in that it predicted social

avoidance for both groups but in an opposite direction. For the Chinese group, students with

higher private collective self-esteem tended to report lower social avoidance (β = -.22, p < .001)

but for the Caucasian group, students with higher private collective self-esteem tended to have

higher social avoidance (β = .20, p < .01). Also, being contrary to hypothesis 9 about public

collective self-esteem (i.e., a stronger predictor for Chinese), public collective self-esteem was a

predictor of social avoidance for Caucasian students only (β = -.24, p < .001). Identity collective

self-esteem was not a significant predictor for both Chinese and Caucasian students.

Finally, the Chinese personality constructs accounted for 3 % of the variance of social

avoidance for both Chinese [∆F (5, 309) = 2.78, p < .05] and Caucasians [∆F (5, 317) = 3.54, p <

.01], above and beyond all the other personality constructs. Specifically, harmony appeared to be

a significant predictor of social avoidance for Chinese only (β = .16, p < .01) but contrary to

hypothesis 10a, it predicted social avoidance in an unexpected positive direction in that the higher

the harmony orientation, the higher social avoidance Chinese student tended to report. Similar to

predicting trait anxiety and state anxiety, face predicted social avoidance in an expected positive

direction for Caucasians only (β = .12, p < .05), which was again in contrary to hypothesis 10b

that face would be a stronger predictor for Chinese. For defensiveness, consistent to hypothesis

10e, it predicted social avoidance in a positive way for Chinese students only (β = .13, p < .01).

Hierarchical regression of social distress on personality constructs as predictors. Table

11 presents results of hierarchy regression of social distress on personality constructs for Chinese

and Caucasian students. All the personality constructs combined accounted for 34% of the

variance for Chinese and 35% for Caucasians.

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Subscales of perfectionism accounted for a significant 14 % of the variance of social

distress for Chinese [∆F (3, 320) = 17.82, p < .001] and 8 % for Caucasians [∆F (3, 329) = 8.83,

p < .001]. Similar to predict trait anxiety, state anxiety, and social avoidance, self-oriented

perfectionism predicted social distress for Caucasians only (β = -.20, p < .001), but in an

unexpected negative direction, suggesting that for Caucasians, the higher the tendency of

perfectionism toward self, the lower the social distress they may experience. Socially prescribed

perfectionism was a significant predictor of social distress in an expected positive direction for

both Chinese (β = .38, p< 0.001) and Caucasians (β = .29, p < .001). Although difference of

regression coefficients did not reach significant level (z = 1.14, ns), the socially prescribed

perfectionism appeared to be a stronger predictor for Chinese. Thus, hypothesis 7b was partially

supported. For social distress, other-oriented perfectionism did not appear to be a significant

predictor for both Chinese (β = .04, ns) and Caucasians (β = .07, ns).

When the variance of social distress accounted for by perfectionism was partialed out,

self-construal accounted an additional 6 % of the variance for Chinese [∆F (2, 318) = 10.82, p <

.001] and 14 % of the variance for Caucasians [∆F (2, 327) = 27.90, p < .001]. Specifically,

independent self-construal predicted social distress in an expected negative direction for both

Chinese (β = -.24, p < .001) and Caucasians (β = -.38, p < .001), suggesting that for both groups,

the higher their independent self-construal, the lower the social distress they may experience.

Moreover, as expected in hypothesis 8b, independent self-construal did appear to be a stronger

predictor of social distress for Caucasians than for Chinese, with a marginal level of significance

(z = 1.89, p = .06).

Components of collective self-esteem accounted an additional 13 % of the variance of

social distress for Chinese [∆F (4, 314) = 15.31, p < .001] and 9 % for Caucasians [∆F (4, 323) =

10.47, p < .001] when variances accounted for by perfectionism and self-construal were partialed

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out. Specifically, membership collective-self-esteem predicted social distress in an expected

negative direction for both Chinese (β = -.34, p < .001) and Caucasians (β = -.24, p < .001), and it

appeared to be a stronger predictor for Chinese, even though the difference did not reach a

significant level (z = 1.16, ns). Thus, hypothesis 9 concerning prediction of social anxiety (i.e., a

stronger predictor for Chinese students) from membership collective self-esteem was partially

supported. Also, similar to predicting social avoidance, more complicated results were found

regarding predicting social distress from private collective self-esteem in that it predicted social

distress for both groups but in an opposite direction. For the Chinese group, students with higher

private collective self-esteem tended to report lower social distress (β = -.17, p < .01) but for the

Caucasian group, students with higher private collective self-esteem tended to experience higher

social distress (β = .25, p < .001). In addition, being contrary to hypothesis 9 about predicting

social anxiety from public collective self-esteem (i.e., a stronger predictor for Chinese), public

collective self-esteem was a predictor of social distress for Caucasian students only (β = -.26, p <

.001). Identity collective self-esteem was not a significant predictor of social distress for both

Chinese and Caucasian students.

It is interesting to find that for Caucasian students private esteem originally had a

negative correlations (r = -.27, -.20) with social anxiety components, but in the regression

equations, these relations turned out to be positive (β = .20, .25). Noticing that there were strong

correlations between private esteem and membership (r = .68) and public esteem (r = .57), both

of which also had high negative correlations with social anxiety, we ran another hierarchical

regression to see if covariance with membership and public esteem may have any effect on

change of the relationship between private esteem and social anxiety. Using social avoidance as

the criterion and the private (entered first), identity (entered second), public and membership

(entered last) esteem as predictors, it was found that inclusion of identity in the equation did not

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change the original negative relationship between private esteem and social avoidance, but once

the public and membership esteem were entered, the relationship between private esteem and

social avoidance changed from significant negative to significant positive.

Finally, the Chinese personality constructs accounted for a non-significant 2 % of the

variance of social distress for Chinese [∆F (5, 309) = 1.71, ns] and a significant 5% of the

variance for Caucasians [∆F (5, 317) = 5.32, p < .001], above and beyond all the other personality

constructs. Specifically, none of these Chinese personality factors was a significant predictor of

social distress for Chinese students. Therefore, hypotheses 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d and 10e concerning

predicting social distress (i.e., stronger predictors for Chinese students) were not supported.

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CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses the results of the study. The first two parts discuss the between-

group comparisons, which include differences of magnitudes of anxiety and differences of

magnitudes of personality factors between Chinese and Caucasian students. The third part

discusses the comparisons of within-group relationship, that is, the relationship between anxiety

and their hypothesized predictors within each group. These two comparisons were referred

respectively to as the level-oriented comparison and the structure-oriented comparison (Leung &

Van de Vijver, 1996).

Differences of Anxiety between Chinese and Caucasian Students

Results of the present study supported hypothesis 1 that Chinese students would score

higher on measures of trait anxiety and social anxiety than Caucasian students, but they would not

differ on state anxiety. The results of between-group comparisons based on MANOVA analysis

indicated that there were significant differences on the measures of anxiety between Chinese and

Caucasian students. Specifically, Chinese students had significantly higher scores on trait anxiety

(M = 42.89 vs. 40.53), social avoidance (M = 35.88 vs. 29.43) and social distress (M = 36.83 vs.

31.82) than Caucasian students. No significant difference was found on state anxiety. Among the

differences, it appeared that the difference on social anxiety had greater effect size (η2 = .12 for

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social avoidance, .07 for social distress) than on traits anxiety (η2 = .02). This finding suggested

that Chinese and Caucasian students were less different on trait anxiety than on social anxiety.

The finding is generally consistent with the conceptualizations of trait anxiety and social anxiety,

suggesting that cultural related factors may have more influences on social anxiety than trait

anxiety. The finding that Chinese students scored higher on trait anxiety and social anxiety than

Caucasian students was consistent to previous studies in which Chinese (or Asian American)

participants were found to be more anxious than their American (or Caucasian American)

counterparts (Chataway & Berry, 1989; Chen, 1996; Okazaki, 1997; Sun, 1968; Yeh & Hwu,

1992; Zhang, Butler, and Pryor, 1996). But previous studies did not differentiate the type of

anxieties. In addition to providing further evidence of previous findings, this study increased

knowledge to our understanding on cross-cultural differences for different types of anxiety.

Authoritarian orientation may be used to explain the high trait anxiety among Chinese

students. Obedience to authorities is one of the important aspects that characterize Chinese

people’s social orientation (Yang, 1996). It is also one of the elements of hierarchical collectivism

(Triandis, 2002). One of the behavioral consequences of this authoritarian orientation is

frequently watching over one’s behavior or opinions to be certain they parallel the authority’s

perspective. Individuals with high authoritarian orientation tend to eagerly seek authoritative

standard and to be sensitive to his/her own behavior (Yang, 1996). For individuals with high

authoritarian orientation, anxiety occurs in situations when there is no authoritative standard, or

when there are more than two authoritative standards. Also, anxiety occurs in situations when

there is a discrepancy between what one experiences and what the authority figure expects.

Another possible explanation for the differences on trait anxiety and social anxiety might

be the cultural variation in the independent self-construal. Individuals with high independent self-

construal value internal aspects of the self (e.g., desires, preference, traits, or abilities) as

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significant factors regulating behavior. The main source of self-worth is their abilities to express

the self and to validate its internal attributes. One with high independent self-construal will be

relatively independent of how others may think and will have fewer concerns over others’

evaluations. Consequently, the individual is more immune to social anxiety. Generally, in a

collectivistic culture like China, people are low in independent self-construal but high in

interdependent self-construal and this may suggest the proneness to social anxiety. This

explanation was supported by the present study. As discussed in detailed later, independent self-

construal predicted trait anxiety and social anxiety negatively for both Chinese and Caucasian

students with Chinese students scoring lower than Caucasians on independent self-construal.

A third explanation for the high social anxiety of Chinese students might be their strong

harmony orientation. For Chinese students, a strong harmony orientation implies orientation to

harmony in interpersonal relationships. To maintain a harmony in interpersonal relationship,

Chinese students might choose to do things not so much for what they want to do but for what

positive comments others may make. As a result, this may make them overly sensitive to

interpersonal relationships and consequently, constrain their behavior or even reduce their social

interaction with others in order to minimize the risk of being negatively evaluated. This

explanation was also supported by the present study in that harmony predicted social avoidance

positively for Chinese students only, and Chinese students scored significantly higher on harmony

orientation than Caucasian students.

Also, Chinese and Caucasian students did not differ on state anxiety. This result is

consistent with the conceptualization of state anxiety as a temporal state that is characterized with

subjective feelings of tension at certain moment that can fluctuate overtime (Spielberger et al.,

1999). This result indicated that Chinese students did not report more tension than their

Caucasian counterparts at the moments when they completed the questionnaire. Although state

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anxiety has a moderate to high correlation to trait anxiety (Spielberger et al., 1999), it may be also

influenced by some situational factors that may appear randomly, such as events happened

immediately before the moment when the test was administered. Our finding suggested that

Chinese and Caucasian students did not differ on state anxiety. While previous studies suggested

that Chinese (or Asian Americans) were more anxious than their American counterparts (or

Caucasian Americans), generalization of this difference to all types of anxiety should be taken

cautiously.

Finally, the meaning of the differences of scores on anxiety measures should also be

discussed. The present study indicated that Chinese students scored higher on trait anxiety and

social anxiety than Caucasian students. However, the conclusion that Chinese students were more

anxious, more socially avoidant and distressed than Caucasian students cannot be warranted

without measures of anxiety being equivalent across the two groups. Marsella and Leong (1995)

proposed four levels of equivalence for personality assessment in cross-cultural studies, namely:

linguistic equivalence, conceptual equivalence, scalar equivalence, and normative equivalence.

Both of the measures of state-trait anxiety and social anxiety were originally developed in the

United States and were imported measures of anxiety for Mainland Chinese. The high internal

consistency reliabilities of these measures for Chinese students (α = .90 for state anxiety, .89 for

trait anxiety, .82 for social avoidance, and .89 for social distress) may suggest equivalence at

linguistic, conceptual, and scalar levels. However, these reliabilities were smaller than those for

the Caucasian students (α = .94, .92, .88, .90, respectively). Although these reliabilities were

generally comparable across the two cultural groups, it is unclear whether the differences have

any implications for the equivalence of these measures. Therefore, considerations may need to be

taken in explaining the differences of the anxiety scores between the two sample groups.

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Perhaps, it is more difficult to reach equivalence at the normative level than at other

levels. For the anxiety measures in the present study, we are unsure if the differences of the

anxiety scores bear any normative meanings. In other words, although Chinese students scored

higher on trait anxiety and social anxiety, they may not necessarily function less well personally

and socially than Caucasian students. The fact that Chinese students had higher scores on a social

anxiety measure developed from a typical Western culture is in general consistent with the

communication norm that is typical of Asian cultures. Hall (1977) conceptualized high-context

versus low-context communication as a cultural variation. High-context communication relies on

presumptions shared by people, non-verbal signals and specific situations in which interaction

occurs, whereas low-context communication requires clear, explicit verbal articulation, and

elaborate expressions that are relatively independent of situational interpretation. By comparing

these two types of communications, it might be inferred that people who rely on high-context

communication may appear more socially submissive or socially avoidant than those who rely on

low-context communication. While we cannot say that for any society or individual

communication norms are totally high- or low-context, high-context communication tends to be

more endorsed in the Chinese culture or other Asian cultures than in Western cultures.

The lack of normative equivalence of a measure developed under one culture but

imported to measure psychological distress in another culture has implications on both clinical

practice and research. In clinical settings, comparison of scores between individuals of different

cultures or ethnics often infers personal or social functions of the individuals compared.

Standardized scores that are based on each norm of the two cultures should be used instead of raw

scores. In cross-cultural research, it would be interesting to include two measures of theoretically

the “same” construct, with each of the measures being developed under its own culture. Perhaps

more valid conclusions can be made if the same difference is observed on both of the measures.

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Differences on Personality Constructs between Chinese and Caucasian Students

Chinese personality constructs. Concerning the selected Chinese personality constructs,

Chinese students scored higher on harmony, family orientation, and modernization than

Caucasians students. There were no differences on scores of face and defensiveness. Supporting

hypothesis 2a and 2c, the result indicated that Chinese students had a stronger orientation to

harmony and family than Caucasian students. This finding provided empirical evidence at

individual level regarding cultural variations of harmony and family orientation that were

described earlier at a broader social level (see Chapter 2).

One finding worthy of notice might be that the difference on harmony orientation

between Chinese and Caucasians students had a larger effect size (η2 = .15) than differences on

other Chinese personality factors (η2 = .03 -.06), but the relatively low internal consistent

reliability of the CPAI Harmony scale for Caucasian students (α = .57) may warrant a closer

examination on this difference. Although conceptualized to contain intrapersonal harmony and

interpersonal harmony, the CPAI-Harmony scale did not differentiate these two aspects. It is

unclear whether it was the intrapersonal harmony or the interpersonal harmony that did not make

much sense to Caucasian students. It would be interesting to measure these specific aspects

separately and compare them across the two groups. Therefore, the difference on harmony

between Chinese and Caucasian students might be better taken with a differential perspective

with its relative large effect not taken for granted without further research.

The finding that no difference was found on face value between Chinese and Caucasian

students failed to support hypothesis 2b that Chinese students would have higher face value than

their Caucasian counterparts. One inference can be made from this finding might be that the face

orientation measured in the present study may have equal cultural relevance for Chinese culture

and Caucasian culture. A closer look at the CPAI-Face scale suggested that what the scale

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measures is the construct of face about maintaining one’s positive social value and reputation,

which is conceptually equal to the face concept common in the Western culture. The negative

connotation of losing face such as shame, humiliation, and punishment that might be indigenous

to Chinese culture (Bond & Hwang, 1986) was largely absent from the CPAI-Face scale. Another

finding that face was a significant predictor of anxiety for Caucasian students but not for Chinese

students provided further evidence for the multi-facet perspective of face value.

Modernization was conceptualized as one’s personal attitudes toward traditional Chinese

beliefs concerning family relationship, materialism, hierarchical order, rituals, and chastity

(Cheung et al., 1996a). Contrary to hypothesis 2d, the present study found that Chinese students

scored higher on the CPAI-Modernity scale than Caucasians students, suggesting that those

Chinese students in the present study tended to hold a more negative attitude toward traditional

Chinese values. One explanation of this anti-tradition tendency might be the contrast effect due to

the co-existence of traditional Chinese value and the Western value in the current Chinese

society. Having seen or experienced events associated with traditional Chinese value and using

them as an anchor, Chinese students may likely endorse positions that lean toward the other end

of the continuum of traditionality-modernity. Another explanation might be that many Caucasian

students in this study were not knowledgeable of some of the traditional Chinese values. As a

result, the content of the modernity scale might not make much sense to them. This was

evidenced by the relatively low internal consistency (α = .52) of the scale for Caucasian students.

A third factor that may have influenced Chinese student’s modernity might be the cultural

environment of the university, plus the city where the university is located. All the Chinese

participants were recruited from Peking University located in Beijing, the capital of China. It has

a much higher level of societal modernization than many of other Chinese cities. The university

itself has a long history of taking a leading role in the advancement of the Chinese modernity

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since 1920s. This particular cultural environment is likely to have contributed to Chinese

students’ endorsement of values of higher modernity. Therefore, cautions should be made when

generating the difference on modernity between Chinese students and Caucasian students to

Chinese students from other universities in other cities that may have a lower level of societal

modernity.

Finally, regarding hypothesis 2e (i.e., Chinese students would score higher on

defensiveness), the result failed to find any difference on defensiveness between Chinese and

Caucasian students. This construct was developed based on a fictional character (Ah-Q) who used

a set of defensive mechanism including self-protective rationalization, externalization of blame,

self-enhancement, and belittling other’s achievements. While this set of defensive mechanisms

was recognized to be typical of many Chinese people, it is unclear if it can be used to characterize

the Chinese culture.

Collective self-esteem. Overall, results concerning collective self-esteem failed to support

hypothesis 3 that Chinese students would have a higher collective self-esteem than Caucasians

students. It was found that Chinese students scored higher on public collective self-esteem but

lower on membership, private, and identity collective self-esteem than Caucasian students. These

results indicated that compared to Caucasian students, Chinese students had a more favorable

perception of how others think of his/her group. But Chinese students judged their own group less

favorably, viewed themselves as less worthy group members and viewed their group membership

less important for their personal identity.

The differences between Chinese and Caucasian students on membership and private

collective self-esteem is consistent with the finding of Crocker and colleagues (1994)’s study, in

which Asians students (in the United states) were also found to have lower membership and

private collective self-esteem than Caucasian students. The cultural variation of self-enhancement

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tendency might explain why Chinese students had lower membership and private esteem than

Caucasian students. In general, self-enhancement is promoted in Western individualistic-oriented

cultures, whereas self-criticism or self-effacing is more employed in Eastern collectivistic-

oriented cultures (Heine & Lehman, 1995; Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit,

1997). Therefore, the result that Chinese students scored low on membership and private esteem

might be a refection of Chinese culture’s emphasis on humility, subordination and conformation

to social norms.

Another factor that may explain the relatively low membership and private collective

self-esteem of Chinese students might be the general lack of connection to other social groups

beyond family spheres in the Chinese society. As discussed earlier, family orientation is an

important characteristic of Chinese society. With orientation, family’s benefit is upmost above

any personal benefit and/or benefits of other social groups that the family member may be

associated with. Family orientation is a reflection of the collectivism that characterizes Chinese

culture, but Yang (1996) argued that it is a type of in-group collectivism rather than a universal

collectivism (Schwartz, 1990). To further differentiate this family orientation from in-group

collectivism of other non-familial social groups, Yang (1996) proposed to use familial

collectivism to describe the nature of the collectivism reflected in the family orientation.

This familial collectivism, however, may have overshadowed the non-familial

collectivism that Chinese people have in their non-familial social groups. Yang (1996) pointed

out that in a traditional Chinese society there are very few non-familial groups, and their

importance is far below that of their family. Specific to the university setting, social organizations

such as various fraternities and sororities that are popular in American universities are absent in

Chinese universities. In a more critical manner, Lin (1939) pointed out that China is an

“individualistic” nation in that what people are concerned is their individual family only but not

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the whole society. He argued that originally the word “social group” did not apply for Chinese

society, and the individualistic nature of Chinese people can be evidenced by the pattern of games

that Chinese people play (Lin, 1939). For example, in Mahjongg, a very popular Chinese game,

each of the four people plays on him/herself. Unlike Bridge, a popular game in Western countries,

many Chinese games don’t have combination of partners that plays on a group. Even once a

group is formed, its function or effectiveness is often in question. There has been a folklore in

Chinese society, that is, one Chinese can defeat three Japanese, but three Chinese as a group will

be defeated by one Japanese. Though lack of empirical evidence, there has been a general

recognition that in Chinese society the non-familial group don’t seem to function well compared

to other ethnicities.

However, it is interesting to find that, although Chinese students had lower membership,

private, and identity collective self-esteem, they tended to have higher public collective self-

esteem. In other words, their perceived other people’s perception is more favorable than

Caucasian students. This finding is inconsistent with Crocker and colleagues (1994)’s study, in

which Asian students were found to have lower public collective self-esteem but higher identity

collective self-esteem than Caucasians students. It is unclear if the reasons discussed above can

be applied to explain the similar results (on membership and private collective self-esteem) of the

two studies. It is also unclear if there might be other factors related to different situations of the

participants in the two studies that could explain the different results (on public and identity

collective self-esteem) of the two studies.

In sum, the present study is one among those that first examined collective self-esteem

among Chinese participants in a purer Chinese society. Our original hypothesis that Chinese

students would have higher collective self-esteem on all of its aspects was based on the general

and perhaps static collectivism orientation of the Chinese society. However, the unexpected

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findings of the present study propel us to take a dynamic and specific perspective on the

individualism-collectivism dimension in future research. It will be important for future

researchers to examine collective self-esteem with respect to the nature of the groups that

participants have membership with. It will also be interesting to relate collective self-esteem to

specific group functions and effectiveness. Based on the strong emphasis on family orientation in

Chinese society, we hypothesize that the more the group has familial connotations, the more

effective the group will be, and consequently, group members will have more collective self-

esteem about their group.

Self-construal. Supporting hypothesis 4a and 4b, the present study found that Chinese

students had higher interdependent self-construal but lower independent self-construal than

Caucasians students. This finding appeared to be self-explainable by examining the internal

consistency reliabilities for the two groups. While having moderately high reliabilities for both

groups, the interdependent self-construal had relatively higher reliability (α = .77) than

independent self-construal (α = .67) for the Chinese. But for the Caucasians, the independent self-

construal had relatively higher reliability (α = .75) than the interdependent self-construal (α =

.69). These differential reliabilities indicated that interdependent self-construal is a more reliable

construct in Chinese society but independent self-construal is more reliable in Western countries.

This result is consistent with previous studies that found Asian Americans were less

independent but more interdependent than Caucasian Americans (e.g., Okazaki, 1997; Singelis &

Sharkey, 1995). With Mainland Chinese students as participants, the present study extended

research of self-construal on Asian American participants to Asians outside of the United States.

Our finding provided additional evidence for the conceptualization of independent-interdependent

self-construal and the existence of cultural influence of the individualistic-collectivism dimension

at the individual level.

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Multi-dimensional perfectionism. As expected (hypotheses 5a and 5b), Chinese students

were lower on self-oriented perfectionism and other oriented-oriented perfectionism, but

inconsistent with hypothesis 5c (i.e., Chinese students would be higher on socially prescribed

perfectionism), there was no difference on socially prescribed perfectionism between the two

groups.

The Confucian doctrine of the mean is believed to have influence on the low self-oriented

and other-oriented perfectionism among Chinese students. As described earlier, the doctrine of

the mean discourages personal achievement and advocates that people should act toward the

mean in order to maintain a peace of mind and harmony in interpersonal relationships. The

rationale behind this doctrine is that setting too high standards for personal achievement or having

too high expectations on others will result in personal distress and interpersonal conflicts once

these high expectations are not met. The finding that Chinese students had lower self-oriented and

other-oriented perfectionism than Caucasian students was also validated by their correlations to

social desirability. For Chinese students, there were significant negative correlations between

social desirability and self-oriented perfectionism (r = -.14, p < .01) and other-oriented

perfectionism (r = -.19, p < .01), but the corresponding correlations among Caucasians students

were absent. These correlations indicated that holding high expectations on self and others are not

socially desirable for the Chinese students.

Chinese students were expected to have higher socially prescribed perfectionism than

Caucasian students (hypothesis 5c). At first blush it is surprising that Chinese and Caucasian

students did not differ on socially prescribed perfectionism. However, this finding makes sense if

we take a closer look at what are the aspects of the expectations that participants may think others

have on them. The inter-correlations between social desirability and other relevant personality

variables indicated that Chinese society may prescribe more expectations on harmony (r = .28),

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family orientation (r = .34) and interdependence (r = .20) than the Caucasian society (inter-

correlation with social desirability were .17, .19, .02, respectively for Caucasian students.

Differences among these correlations were at significant level of .05 or close to .05 level),

whereas the Caucasian society may prescribe more expectations of independence (r = .23) than

the Chinese society (r = .09). The finding of the present study suggested that both Chinese and

Caucasian students may perceive equal levels of expectations from others on them, but they may

differ on different aspects that they think others expect them to do. It will be of value if future

cross-culture research can link socially prescribed perfectionism specifically to domains of

culturally variable behaviors.

Within-group Relationship: Relationship between State and Trait anxiety

Hypothesis 6 postulated that there would be a less positive relationship between state and

trait anxiety for the Chinese students than for the Caucasian student. The result of the present

study indicated a correlation of .69 between state and trait anxiety for the Chinese students, which

is less than the correlation of .74 for the Caucasian students. However, the difference did not

reach a significant level. Thus, hypothesis 6 was only partly supported. Consistent with this

finding was that correlations between social avoidance and state anxiety (r = .29 vs. .33), trait

anxiety and social avoidance (r = .37 vs. .44), social avoidance and social distress (r = .79 vs. .83)

were also in general smaller than their counterparts for Caucasian students.

There might be two possibilities for these seemingly systematic differences. First, there

might be some true difference of state-trait anxiety correlation between the two groups, but its

effect size is too small to reach a significant level. If this is the case, the smaller correlation

between trait anxiety and state anxiety may be explained by Chinese people’s emphasis on

situational and contextual orientation. As Hsu (1971a) argued, in a collectivistic culture like

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Chinese, people’s behavior is more likely to be determined by situational or contextual factors

rather than personality traits. Hsu’s early assertion is consistent with Church’s (2000) recent

model of personality and culture in which personality traits are believed to exist in collectivistic

cultures but account for behavior less in collectivistic than in individualistic cultures. Second, the

difference might also be accounted for by the different psychometric properties of the anxiety

measures. All the measures were originally developed in the United States and were translated

into Chinese for the Chinese students. Although high internal consistency reliabilities were

observed on most of these translated measures, they are in general smaller than those for

Caucasian students. If the meaning of items were relatively less consistent within one measure, it

could result in low correlations with other measures. Thus, more research is needed to further

explore the relationship between state anxiety and trait anxiety for Chinese participants.

Within-group Relationship: Predicting Anxiety from Cultural Specific Personality Factors

In this part, we discussed and compared the within-group relationships between selected

personality factors and different types of anxiety among Chinese and Caucasian students. We

wanted to identify the best predictors of each type of anxiety for each of the two groups, and we

wanted to examine how specific that the selected personality factors are to each group in

predicting anxiety.

Predicting anxiety from perfectionism. Consistent with hypothesis 7a, the present study

found that for both Chinese and Caucasians students, socially prescribed perfectionism was a

strong predictor of trait anxiety, state anxiety, social avoidance, and social distress. This result is

consistent with previous studies that found socially prescribed perfectionism was a strong

predictor of anxiety as well as other psychological distress (Antony et al., 1998; Chang, 2000;

Flett, et al., 1991; Flett, et al., 1995; Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Hayward & Arthur, 1998). Perhaps

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being the first study that examined multidimensional perfectionism on Mainland Chinese, this

study extended these previous findings (that were all based on participants residing in Western

countries) to the Chinese society in Mainland China. Therefore, this study provided evidence that

socially prescribed perfectionism is a strong and universal predictor of anxiety across different

cultures.

Hypothesis 7b postulated that socially prescribed perfectionism would be a stronger

predictor of social anxiety for Chinese than for Caucasian students. This hypothesis was also

supported. Although, in general, socially prescribed perfectionism is a universal predictor of

anxiety across cultures, the present study suggested an interaction between type of anxiety and

culture. Socially prescribed perfectionism appeared to have stronger predictive value in predicting

social avoidance (β = .37) and social distress (β = .38) for Chinese than for Caucasians (β = .29

for both avoidance and distress); whereas it was a stronger predictor of trait anxiety (β = .52) and

state anxiety (β = .41) for Caucasian students than for Chinese students (β = .37 for trait anxiety,

.29 for state anxiety; difference of coefficients of trait anxiety was significant and difference on

state anxiety was of marginal level of significance). This result further validated the hypothesis

that different cultures may prescribe different aspects of perfectionism. The Chinese culture may

mainly prescribe high interpersonal related expectations, which may appear to be more taxing in

social interaction situations and thus make people more susceptible to social anxiety; whereas an

individualistic culture may mainly prescribe high expectations concerning personal achievement,

which may be relatively independent of interpersonal situations but have more impact on trait

anxiety.

Hypothesis 7c stated that self-prescribed perfectionism would be a stronger positive

predictor of trait anxiety for Caucasian than for Chinese students. However, mixed results were

found regarding this hypothesis. The result that self-oriented perfectionism was not a predictor of

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state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social anxiety for Chinese students was consistent with previous

studies in which self-oriented perfectionism was found to have no, or weak relationship with

anxiety (Chang, 2000; Flett, et al., 1991; Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Hayward & Arthur, 1998).

However, self-oriented perfectionism was a significant predictor for all of the anxiety in

Caucasians. While this result was consistent with our hypothesis 7c that self-oriented

perfectionism would have a stronger relationship with anxiety for Caucasians than for Chinese, it

was unexpected that it had a negative relationship with anxiety. It appeared that for Caucasian

students, a tendency of setting up high personal standards is related to less anxiety. However, our

study is not the only one that found such a positive effect of self-oriented perfectionism on

psychological distress. Frost and colleagues (1993) found greater self-oriented perfectionism to

be significantly related to greater positive affect. Chang & Rand (2000) proposed a possible

explanation that perfectionism may not comprise only maladaptive or harmful components. The

self-oriented perfectionism as in MPS “might be tapping aspects of perfectionism related to

setting and striving for high achievement standards that are not completely maladaptive, as least

as it functions in college student populations” (p. 134). While this explanation sounds plausible

for findings of no relationship between self-oriented perfectionism and psychological distress, our

finding propels us to speculate further that if there is any component of self-oriented

perfectionism that might be associated with positive psychological effects. Thus, more research

will be needed to investigate the specific components that the MPS self-oriented perfectionism

measures and their specific relationships with maladaptive, non-maladaptive, or even adaptive

aspects.

No specific hypothesis was made about other-oriented perfectionism. But the study

indicated that other-oriented perfectionism was also a significant negative predictor of trait

anxiety for Caucasian students. One possible reason might be that Caucasian students’ higher

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expectations on others may be associated with the greater personal achievement they have already

obtained. In other words, the higher the personal achievement one has obtained, the higher

expectations he/she may have on others. It is generally believed that actual achievement might be

negatively related to anxiety. Therefore, other-oriented perfectionism may appear to have a

negative relationship with trait anxiety due to the moderating effect of personal achievement that

they may have obtained.

Predicting anxiety from independent self-construal. Consistent with hypothesis 8b, the

present study found that independent self-construal predicted state anxiety, trait anxiety, and

social anxiety in a negative direction for both Chinese and Caucasian students and it was a

stronger predictor for Caucasians than Chinese.

Our finding that independent self-construal is a negative predictor of anxiety is consistent

with findings from previous studies in which a negative relationship was found between

independent self-construal and embarrassability (Sharkey & Singelis, 1995; Singelis & Sharkey,

1995; Singelis et al., 1999), stress (Cross, 1995) and social anxiety (Okazaki, 1997). Perhaps

being the first study that observed the same relationship among Mainland Chinese students and

on other types of anxiety, our study has added to the existing evidence of the effect of

independent self-construal on psychological distress. Moreover, our study provided new evidence

that independent self-construal had a stronger negative relationship with anxiety for Caucasian

students than Chinese students. This result is consistent with Singelis and colleagues’s (1999)

finding that independent self-construal is more negatively correlated with embarrassability in

United States than in Hawaii or Hong Kong. These findings together suggested that although

independent self-construal is a cross-culturally relevant (or universal) construct for both

individualistic and collectivistic cultures, it might be more relevant in the individualistic culture

than in the collectivistic culture.

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While hypothesis 8a expected that interdependent self-construal would be a positive

predictor of anxiety for Chinese students, the present study largely failed to support this

hypothesis. Interdependent self-construal was found to have a negative relationship with social

avoidance only for Chinese students. Previous studies have had mixed results regarding the

relationship between interdependent self-construal and distress. Sharkey and Singelis (1995)

found that interdependent self-construal had a unique contribution (5.2%) to the variance of

embarrassability. Cross (1995) also found that ratings of the importance of interdependent self-

construal were positively related to increased stress for East Asian students studying at the United

States. However, in Okazaki (1997)’s study, only independent self-construal was found to be a

significant (negative) predictor of social anxiety. Since most of these studies had Asian

Americans or Asians in the United States as participants, mixed findings might be due to within-

group diversity or levels of acculturation. The lack of such a positive relationship between

interdependent sell-construal and anxiety might be attributed to the social desirability associated

with being interdependent in Chinese society. Seen from Table 4, interdependent self-construal

had a significant positive relationship (r = .20) with social desirability in the Chinese sample but

this relationship was absent in the Caucasian sample (r = .02). Therefore, although being more

interdependent might make one more sensitive to other people’s opinion on him/her, the positive

connotation inherent in being interdependent in the Chinese society might have some counter-

effect on the concerns regarding how other people think of himself/herself. Since being more

interdependent might be regarded as more socially favorable in Chinese society, one may

demonstrate less social avoidant behaviors.

Finally, the inclusion of different types of anxiety in the present study enabled us to

examine the relative predictive strength of independent self-construal in predicting these

anxieties. Our study suggested that independent self-construal might predict social anxiety better

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than state or trait anxiety. The self-construal (mostly from independent self-construal since

interdependent self-construal was not a predictor for anxiety except social avoidance for Chinese)

accounted for apparently less variance of state and trait anxiety (2% - 3% for Chinese, 6% - 7%

for Caucasians) than social avoidance and distress (6% -7% for Chinese, 14%-16% for

Caucasians). This intuitively makes sense in that being independent is more associated with social

interaction situations where interpersonal evaluations are involved. The more one is independent,

the more he/she will be free of other’s evaluation, and consequently the less social anxiety he/she

may experience.

Predicting anxiety from collective self-esteem. Hypothesis 9 expected that aspects of

collective self-esteem would be stronger predictors of state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social

anxiety for Chinese than for Caucasians and that students with higher collective self-esteem

would report lower level of anxiety. This hypothesis was largely supported by the finding that

aspects of collective self-esteem combined explained more variance of anxiety for Chinese than

for Caucasian students after effects of perfectionism and self-construal were controlled. For

Chinese (vs. Caucasians), collective self-esteem accounted for a unique 13% (vs. 6 %) of trait

anxiety variance, 7% (vs. 5%) of state anxiety variance, 15% (vs. 11%) of social avoidance

variance, and 13% (vs. 9%) of social distress variance. Specifically, membership and private

collective self-esteem were two stronger predictors of trait anxiety and state anxiety for Chinese

than for Caucasian students. These results suggested that collective self-esteem, particularly

membership esteem and private esteem are culturally more relevant to the collectivistic-oriented

Chinese culture than to individualistic-oriented Western culture.

The finding that high membership collective self-esteem was associated with reduced

anxiety for both Chinese and Caucasian students is consistent with Crocker and colleagues’

(1994) study in which they found membership self-esteem was related to improved psychological

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well-being. Noticing that there have not been many studies on relationship between collectivism

self-esteem and mental health, our study provided some initial evidence to support collectivism

self-esteem as one of the many resources to counteract psychological distress.

For trait anxiety and state anxiety, how favorably one judges his/her group (i.e., private

esteem) was related to reduced anxiety for Chinese but not for Caucasian students. It seemed that

whether or not Caucasian students feel good about their groups did not contribute to their anxiety

experienced generally (trait anxiety) or experienced at the moment (state anxiety). This is

probably because of Caucasian culture’s greater emphasis on individual personal traits than traits

of groups. While this explanation seems plausible for trait and state anxiety, it’s not for social

anxiety. It is puzzling to find a significant positive relationship between private esteem and social

anxiety for Caucasian students when membership and public esteem were controlled. That is, for

Caucasian students with the same membership and public esteem, the more favorably they judged

their groups, the more social avoidance they may engage in and the more social distress they may

experience. It is unclear whether this new significant positive relationship (after membership and

public esteem were controlled) is accidental in nature due to the statistical procedure (notice we

had a large sample size which may easily make a small change significant), or has any practical

meaning in predicting social avoidance. We expect this to be further clarified in our future study.

For Chinese students, public esteem and identity esteem were not predictors of any of the

anxiety measures. Generally in Chinese society, one doesn’t draw much inference of oneself from

the social groups they are in. This may be on one hand due to the lack of connection to non-

familial social groups, or the self-effacing tendency on the other hand (see discussion regarding

between-group differences on personality constructs). For Chinese, when one’s group is

evaluated positively, individual group member usually claims less credit of him or herself but

tends to attribute group success to the collectivistic efforts. And likewise, when one’s group is

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negatively evaluated, he/she doesn’t feel much responsible for the group failure either. Contrary

to Chinese society, Caucasian culture emphasizes recognition of personal contribution to his or

her group. One draws inference of his or her own contribution to the group from group

performance. This difference of relating group quality to personal contribution was evidenced by

different inter-correlations of membership esteem (i.e., judgment of how good one is as group

member) to public esteem (i.e., judgment of how good one’s group is evaluated by others)

between Chinese and Caucasian students. Caucasian students showed a significant higher

correlation (r = .52) between membership esteem and public esteem than Chinese students (r =

.36).

Predicting anxiety from Chinese personality factors. Hypotheses 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, and

10 e expected that all selected Chinese personality constructs would be stronger predictors of

anxiety for Chinese than for Caucasian students. However, mixed findings were found regarding

these hypotheses. In the hierarchical regression analyses, the Chinese personality factors were

entered last in the equation. We wanted to examine if these theoretically more Chinese-culture

related personality factors would account any additional variance of anxiety after all other

personality factors being partialed out. However, to our surprise, some of these personality factors

did not appear to be more culturally relevant for Chinese. Some were even more relevant for

Caucasian students.

Contrary to hypothesis 10a (i.e., harmony as a stronger predictor for Chinese), the result

suggested that harmony tended to be a stronger predictor of state and trait anxiety for Caucasian

than for Chinese students. It only predicted social anxiety for Chinese students but in an

unexpected positive direction. It might be the specific components that were measured by CPAI-

Harmony scale made the result inconsistent with the hypothesis. Harmony was conceptualized to

contain elements of both intrapersonal harmony and interpersonal harmony (Cheung et al.,

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1996a), but these elements were not differentiated in the CPAI-Harmony scale. Although

harmony is regarded as a personality construct that is specifically related to Chinese (or Asian)

culture, one question remains if both intrapersonal harmony and interpersonal harmony are

equally relevant to Chinese culture or, both of them are equally irrelevant to the Western culture.

The finding of present study tended to support a differential perspective on cultural relevance of

harmony elements. The results indicated that harmony tended to have a stronger negative

relationship with trait anxiety for Caucasian students than Chinese students. The finding that such

a stronger relationship was observed on trait anxiety but not social anxiety in Caucasian students

may suggest that intrapersonal harmony or at least some component of it was more relevant for

the Western culture than the Chinese culture. Not a predictor of social anxiety for Caucasian,

harmony was a significant predictor of social avoidance for Chinese. This may suggest that

components of interpersonal harmony might be more relevant for Chinese culture. However,

empirical evidence is needed through more differential assessment of harmony components with

respect to their specific relevance to different cultures.

Also noteworthy is the direction of the relationship of harmony with social avoidance.

While harmony predicted trait anxiety in an expected negative direction for Caucasian students, it

predicted social avoidance for Chinese students in an unexpected positive direction. Although the

direction of the relationship was not expected, it makes sense under the Chinese culture. Being

involved in many social interactions may subject individuals to evaluations from others and may

also increase the chance of interpersonal conflicts. Therefore, one who has a strong harmony

orientation may choose to avoid social interactions to maintain harmony.

In direct opposite to hypothesis 10b (i.e., face value would be a stronger predictor for

Chinese), face was consistently found to be a significant positive predictor of all of the anxiety

measures for Caucasian students, but it was not a predictor of any of the anxiety measures for

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Chinese students. As discussed earlier, this is probably because that CPAI-Face scale may only

have measured the common components of face that are equally relevant for both cultures, but

may have missed the elements that are indigenous to Chinese culture. Goffman (1955) defined

face in Western culture as "the positive social value one effectively claims” and “an image of self

delineated in terms of approved social attributes" (p. 213). Thus, the Western conceptualization of

face mainly concerns how to maintain a positive social value and image in their interaction with

others. Specific to Chinese culture, Hu (1944) broke face into two related components: Lian and

Mianzi. A further differential analysis on these two aspects by Bond & Hwang (1986) suggested

that it is the mianzi that is analogous to the concept of face common in Western cultures because

both of them have a focus on maintaining one’s positive social value and reputation, whereas only

lian has a more cultural-specific connotation of humiliation, shame, and embarrassment brought

by losing face (or in Chinese, diu-lian). This negative connotation of face is generally absent in

the Western concept of face (Goffman, 1955). It might be the case that under the Chinese culture,

what really matters is not whether one can maintain a positive image of self (mianzi) but if they

can avoid loss of face (lian or diu-lian). Bearing these two differential aspects in mind and

revisiting the CPAI-Face scale, we found most of the items in this scale measure the mianzi, such

as “Sometimes I pretend I understand a lot, because I do not want others to look down on me”, “I

prefer not to discuss my weaknesses, even with my closest friends”, and only one item, “I feel a

loss of face (i.e., diu-lian) when others turn down my favor”, concerns the negative connotation

inherent in the lian concept. Therefore, due to lack of indigenous components in the CPAI-Face,

the present study only found face as a predictor of anxiety for Caucasian students but not for

Chinese student. However, previous study has supported the specific relationship between loss of

face and psychological distress. For example, using Zane (1992)’s measure of fear of loss of face,

Kwan and Sodowsky (1997) found that fear of loss of face was one of the significant predictors

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of acculturative stress. It will be of value if future researchers take a multi-facet perspective to

focus on different components of face that may have different cultural relevancy for different

cultures.

Consistent with hypothesis 10c, this research suggested that family orientation is a

construct that is more culturally relevant to Chinese culture than to Western culture. Family

orientation was a significant negative predictor of trait anxiety for Chinese students only. In

Chinese society, family ties often provide emotional and economical security and support. Family

serves as an important source of social support that has been found to be important for

maintaining psychological well-being (Chou, 2000). Generally, the intimate family tie and bond

perceived by those high in family orientation suggests a higher availability of social support from

the family, and throughout their childhood development, this support may have served as an

important role in buffering the general psychological distress such as trait anxiety.

Hypothesis 10d expected modernity to be a stronger predictor of anxiety for Chinese

students. Not supporting this hypothesis, it was found not to be related to any of the anxiety

measures for both Chinese and Caucasian students. One possible explanation is perhaps the lack

of uni-dimensionality of the modernity construct measured by the CPAI. In CPAI, modernity was

conceptualized as one’s personal attitudes toward traditional Chinese beliefs concerning family

relationship, materialism, hierarchical order, rituals, and chastity (Cheung et al., 1996a). It can be

seen that this construct includes various aspects of traditional Chinese culture, which may have

different relationships with anxiety. The relationship of modernity to anxiety might be balanced

off by specific relationships between its specific components and anxiety.

Hypothesis 10e predicted that defensiveness was a predictor for Chinese students only.

This study found that defensiveness predicted social avoidance positively for Chinese students,

but it was not a predictor of any of the anxiety measures for Caucasian students. This result

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supported the above hypothesis. In addition to family orientation, defensiveness or Ah-Q

mentality is another personality construct that is specifically related to Chinese culture. The

finding that defensiveness was only a predictor of social avoidance but not other types of anxiety

is consistent with the conceptualization of this cultural specific construct. The Ah-Q style

defensiveness is conceptualized to be different from the Western style self-defensive mechanisms

that have been formulated in psychoanalytic theories, which are often applied with an orientation

toward self, or the individual’s own behavior. In contrast, the Ah-Q style defensive strategies are

characterized with an orientation toward others in response to other people’s negative reaction or

evaluation. Frequent use of this defensive style may imply one’s predisposition to social anxiety

in that he/she needs to use this strategy to protect him/herself from other’s negative reactions. But

as discussed earlier, this construct has been lacking a strong theoretical base. Thus, it needs to be

investigated further in future research.

Implications for Counseling

Current counseling and psychotherapy approaches based on the Caucasian dominant

culture have been criticized for lack of cultural variations to clients with various cultural

backgrounds. While cross-cultural counseling has been an important issue in the United States

with respect to providing services to an increasingly diverse clientele, ironically it has not yet

been paid enough attention in China that has one fifth of the world’s total population. This is

probably because cross-cultural counseling has been mistakenly regarded as only practice

involving different ethnics between counselor and client. Thus, it is not an issue in China since in

almost all clinical cases, a Chinese counselor will have a Chinese client. However, both theories

and practices of counseling in China have been mainly transplanted from those in Western

countries without few cultural variations (Duan & Wang, 2000). It remains a crucial issue as how

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to advance the cross-cultural or multicultural counseling in China. One way to break through the

staleness might be to increase people’s awareness of the importance of multi-cultural counseling

issue in China with empirical evidence. We believe publication of the present findings will draw

more people’s attention to this issue and increase their awareness that certain personality factors

may have different influences on development of anxiety problems for Chinese than for

Westerners. Moreover, findings of present study also help to increase practitioners’ knowledge

regarding counselor’s multicultural counseling competence, based on which they can make a

more effective case conceptualization and consequently provide more culturally responsive

treatment in treating anxiety problems.

First, the different cultural relevance of different personality constructs in their

relationships to different types of anxiety added to the knowledge for case conceptualization. For

example, as revealed by this study, socially prescribed perfectionism and face may serve as two

important contributing factors of trait anxiety for Caucasian students, while socially prescribed

perfectionism and harmony may be more related to social anxiety for Chinese students.

Therefore, in the case of conceptualizing a Caucasian student’s Generalized Anxiety Disorder

(GAD), a counselor may consider if this student’s distress is related to how he/she thinks others

may expect him/her to be a perfect individual (i.e., socially prescribed perfectionism) and how

he/she tries to present himself as an individual with a high social prestige (i.e., face). But in the

case of a Chinese student with a social anxiety problem, a counselor may give more priority to

how he/she thinks others may expect him to behave appropriately in front of others (i.e., socially

prescribed perfectionism) and how he/she tries to maintain a harmony interpersonal relationship.

Second, the present study also has implications for providing more culturally sensitive

interventions in treatments of anxiety related problems. In the above Chinese student’s case, the

counselor may validate client’s efforts in maintaining interpersonal harmony but in the mean time

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help him/her to realize that how a desire to maintain a harmony relationship with others may

make him/her withdraw from social interactions and appear socially avoidant. The counselor and

client may work collaboratively in identifying specific behaviors that will satisfy the desire for a

harmony relationship but not necessarily distant him or herself from social interactions. Perhaps

this will be a more effective treatment plan than otherwise the counselor only focuses on helping

the client being more independent of other’s evaluations. In addition, focusing on membership

collective self-esteem might be another effective intervention for Chinese students. Our study

suggested that Chinese students scored lower on membership collective self-esteem than

Caucasian students, but for Chinese students, membership collective self-esteem appeared to have

a stronger relationship with anxiety for Chinese students. In counseling, counselor may help a

Chinese client to develop a sense of being a good member of his/her social groups. Membership

collective self-esteem may have particular implication for group counseling for Chinese students.

One important task of group counselor(s) might be to enhance individual group member’s sense

of contribution to the whole group. While this is important for group of any ethnicity, it might be

particularly important, or challenging for a group consists of Chinese students.

Limitations

The present study has a number of limitations that are worthy of mention. First, all the

measures used in this study were self-report in nature. Second, although translation and back-

translation procedure was used to obtain cross-cultural equivalence of these measures, the results

of present study could also be influenced by the possible differences in response style between

Chinese and Caucasian students. Third, the Chinese sample and the Caucasian sample were

convenient samples, which reduced the levels of representativeness of the college populations in

the two cultures. A forth limitation was that this study used a college students sample, and this

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made it cautious to generate the findings to other non-college populations. Another limitation was

that we did not included clinical samples in our study. Although the present study provided some

practical implications for counseling, it would bear more significant counseling implications if

clinical samples of different types of anxiety disorders were also included.

Since our main interest is to identify culturally specific predictors from selected

personality constructs, we did not consider too much of the influence of some demographic

variables. The two samples were comparable in distributions of gender, marital status, and

counseling experience, but it is unclear if there was any interaction effect between culture and

these demographic variables with respect to levels of cultural relevance of the personality

constructs. Also, it appeared that the Chinese sample consisted of more older students and

students of higher academic ranks (sophomore or above) than the Caucasian sample. We was not

certain how these may influence the differences on magnitudes of anxiety and personality factors

between the two groups. The lack of comparability in academic majors and family income also

prevented us from investigating their influences. The influences of these demographic variables

should be addressed more thoroughly in future studies.

Future Research Directions

The debate of whether personality is universal (etic) or cultural specific (emic) construct

has been for a long time in research about personality and culture. This debate appears to have

polarized personality constructs on the etic-emic dimension rather than integrated their specific

components that could have both universal and cultural specific meanings. Few studies have

investigated the relative cultural relevance of a hypothetically universal or indigenous personality

construct to cultures different from its origin. A convergent perspective calling for integration of

the etic and emic approaches has been proposed with respect to research on personality and

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culture (Marsella, Dubanoski, Hamada, & Morse, 2000; Traindis, 2000, 2002). Traindis (2002)

argued for description of emic plus (rather than versus) etic description of personality that based

on data from many cultures that have a lager cultural distance.

The present study was among those that have first echoed the above approach. Using

CPAI, an indigenously developed measurement, this study found cross-cultural relevance of some

Chinese personality constructs to the Caucasian culture. The study implied that some of the

Chinese personality constructs that were originally conceptualized to be indigenous (to Chinese

culture) also bear cross-cultural relevance to Caucasian cultures, but they have been rarely

included in the Western culture based personality theories. The study calls for more research of

these Chinese personality constructs in the context of Caucasian culture.

However, the study also suggested that effects of cultural specific (or indigenous)

components of a personality construct should not be overshadowed by its cross-cultural

relevance. We believe it will be more fruitful if future research can take a differential perspective

regarding the specific components of a personality construct and relate them to specific behavior

domains in studying the relationship between personality and culture. Perhaps what is culturally

specific are the specific components of a construct. The finding that face was not a predictor of

anxiety for Chinese students can be attributed to the lack of negative connotations inherent in

losing face in the CPAI-Face scale, a characteristic that might be specifically relevant to the

Chinese culture. It might also be the case that what is culturally specific is related to the specific

domains of behavior. For example, harmony was both a good predictor of anxiety for both

Chinese and Caucasian students, but it predicted anxiety differently for different types of anxiety

for the two groups. Strong harmony orientation was associated with experience of reduced trait

anxiety for Caucasian students, but it was associated with increased social avoidance for Chinese

students. Therefore, it might be hypothesized that harmony orientation is more relevant to the

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Caucasian culture in terms of generalized anxiety response, but it is more relevant to the Chinese

culture in anxiety associated with social interactions. These are all questions that can be

addressed in future studies.

In future research, we will further validate the findings of the present study using different

samples, various research methodologies, and from a more differential and dynamic perspective

regarding specific components of certain personality constructs and/or specific domains of

behavior. We would like to follow up our study using comparisons of clinical samples of different

type of anxiety disorders. We expect to find the same relationships but with larger effect sizes

when clinical samples were used. For example, the present study found that socially prescribed

perfectionism was a better predictor of trait anxiety for Caucasian students than for Chinese

students but it was a better predictor of social anxiety for Chinese students than for Caucasian

students. We expect the above differences would be more conspicuous between Chinese and

Caucasian patients with GAD or social anxiety disorder. More over, we would like to cross

validate the present findings using anxiety measures that were indigenously developed in the

Chinese culture (e.g., the CPAI-Anxiety scale) in addition to use of STAI. If similar between-

group differences and within-group relationships will be obtained on CPAI-Anxiety scale, the

findings will be more reliable and valid and the we would not have much concern over the cross-

cultural equivalence of the measures. If not, we may need to pay more attention to differences of

the measures themselves, particularly with respect to the normative equivalence.

Finally, we are also interested in examining cross-cultural relevance of some personality

constructs in predicting other psychological distress. The present study found that some cultural

specific personality constructs were associated with different types of anxiety in specific ways.

This finding suggested that for different types of emotional distress, there might be some different

relationships between different distress and their personality correlates. Okazaki (1997)’s study

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indicated that independent self-construal still predicted (social) anxiety when participants’

depression scores were controlled, but it did not predict depression when anxiety scores were

controlled, suggesting self-construal variables might be associated with anxiety and depression

differently. We are interested to further explore the selected cultural specific personality

constructs with respect their relationships to depression. Specifically, we would like to identify

what might be those personality constructs specifically related to certain distress and what might

be those constructs that predict psychological distress universally.

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APPENDIX A

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY (For the Caucasian sample)

Thank you for choosing to complete this questionnaire. The purpose of study is to explore the relationship between some cultural variables and anxiety among college students. Your efforts will help health care providers better understand the nature of anxiety and offer the best possible services to college students. The questionnaire consists of several scales and completion of the questionnaire may take 45-60 minutes. Please read the instructions carefully before you start and complete the questionnaire honestly. Before you start to fill out the questionnaire, it is important for you to understand that I make the following two commitments to you:

1. Your participation is totally voluntary. You have the right to choose not to participate and the right to withdraw from the study at any time without negative consequences. You will still receive research credit even though you choose not to participate or withdraw anytime during the study.

2. Your response will be kept completely confidential and anonymous. No one will have access to your responses other than myself and my research advisor. I ask that you do not put your name anywhere on the questionnaire. Furthermore, when I receive the completed questionnaires, I will combine all the responses together so that no individual answers to the questions can be identified.

By completing this questionnaire, you indicate your agreement to participate in this study. If you have any questions about the study, please contact me, Dong Xie, M.S., at (614) 688-9795 (xie.21@osu.edu), or my research advisor, Dr. Frederick Leong, Professor, Department of psychology at (614) 292-8219. Please feel free to take this Introduction sheet with you if you would like to have the above information with you for future reference. In addition, if you have any comments, please write them on the back of this page. Thank you very much for your time and cooperation!

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APPENDIX B

SELF-EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE

Form Y-1

DIRECTIONS: A number of statements which people have used to describe themselves are given below. Read each statement and then circle the appropriate number to the right of the statement to indicate how you feel right now, that is, at this moment. There are no right or wrong answers. Do not spend too much time on any one statement but give the answer which seems to describe your present feelings best.

Not At All Somewhat Moderately So Very Much So 1 2 3 4

1. I feel calm……………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4

2. I feel secure……………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 3. I am tense………………………………………………………... 1 2 3 4 4. I feel strained……………………………………………………..1 2 3 4 5. I feel at ease………………………………………………………1 2 3 4 6. I feel upset……………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 7. I am presently worrying over possible misfortunes…………….. 1 2 3 4 8. I feel satisfied…………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 9. I feel frightened…………………………………………………. 1 2 3 4 10. I feel comfortable……………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 11. I feel self-confident……………………………………………. 1 2 3 4 12. I feel nervous……………………………………………………1 2 3 4 13. I am jittery……………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 14. I feel indecisive………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 15. I am relaxed……………………………………………………. 1 2 3 4 16. I feel content…………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 17. I am worried……………………………………………………. 1 2 3 4 18. I feel confused………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 19. I feel steady…………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 20. I feel pleasant……………………………………………………1 2 3 4

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Form Y-2

DIRECTIONS: A number of statements which people have used to describe themselves are given below. Read each statement and then circle the appropriate number to the right of the statement to indicate how you generally feel. There are no right or wrong answers. Do not spend too much time on any one statement but give the answer which seems to describe how you generally feel.

Not At All Somewhat Moderately So Very Much So 1 2 3 4

21. I feel pleasant……………………………………………………1 2 3 4 22. I feel nervous and restless……………………………………….1 2 3 4 23. I feel satisfied with myself……………………………………... 1 2 3 4 24. I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be……………….. 1 2 3 4 25. I feel like a failure……………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 26. I feel rested…………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 27. I am “calm, cool, and collected”………………………………. 1 2 3 4 28. I feel that difficulties are piling up so that I cannot overcome them……………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 29. I worry too much over something that really doesn’t matter….. 1 2 3 4 30. I am happy………………………………………………………1 2 3 4 31. I have disturbing thoughts……………………………………… 1 2 3 4 32. I lack self-confidence…………………………………………... 1 2 3 4 33. I feel secure…………………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 34. I make decisions easily………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 35. I feel inadequate……………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 36. I am content……………………………………………………. 1 2 3 4 37. Some unimportant thought runs through my mind and bothers me……………………………………… 1 2 3 4 38. I take disappointment so keenly that I can’t put them out of my mind……………………………………… 1 2 3 4 39. I am a steady person…………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 40. I get in a state of tension or turmoil as I think over my recent concerns and interests……………………………… 1 2 3 4

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APPENDIX C

Social Behavior Scale

INSTRUCTION: Read each of the following statements carefully and indicate on blank left to it how characteristic it is of you according to the following scale: 1= Not at all characteristic of me 2= Slightly characteristic of me 3= Moderately characteristic of me 4= Very characteristic of me 5= Extremely characteristic of me _____ 1. I feel relaxed even in unfamiliar social situations. _____ 2. I try to avoid social situations which force me to be very sociable. _____ 3. It is easy for me to relax when I am with strangers. _____ 4. I have no particular desire to avoid people. _____ 5. I often find social occasions upsetting. _____ 6. I usually feel calm and comfortable at social occasions. _____ 7. I am usually at ease when talking to someone of the opposite sex. _____ 8. I try to avoid talking to people unless I know them well. _____ 9. If the chance comes to meet new people, I often take it. _____ 10. I often feel nervous or tense in casual get-togethers in which both sexes are present. _____ 11. I am usually nervous with people unless I know them well. _____ 12. I usually feel relaxed when I am with a group of people. _____ 13. I often want to get away from people. _____ 14. I usually feel uncomfortable when I am in a group of people I don’t know. _____ 15. I usually feel relaxed when I meet someone for the first time. _____ 16. Being introduced to people makes me tense and nervous. _____ 17.Even though a room is full of strangers, I may enter it anyway. _____ 18.I would avoid walking up and joining a large group of people. _____ 19. When my superiors want to talk with me, I talk willingly. _____ 20. I often feel on edge when I am with a group of people. _____ 21. I tend to withdraw from people. _____ 22. I don’t mind talking to people at parties or social gatherings. _____ 23. I am seldom at ease in large group of people. _____ 24. I often think up excuses in order to avoid social engagements. _____ 25. I sometimes take the responsibility for introducing people to each other. _____ 26. I try to avoid formal social occasions. _____ 27. I usually go to whatever social engagements I have. _____ 28. I find it easy to relax with other people.

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APPENDIX D

Personality Inventory INSTRUSTION: This questionnaire contains a number of items, all of which focus on you. Please read every item and try to decide if its content reflects your personality characteristics. If it does, please circle the (Y) answer. If it does not, circle the (N) answer. There are no correct or wrong answers to these questions. Please answer all the questions. Thank your for your cooperation. 1 I always try hard to get along well with others Y N2 Sometimes I pretend I understand a lot, because I do not want others to look

down on me Y N

3 Compared to others, our family is lacking in intimacy and compassion Y N4 Ancestral sacrifices, weddings, funerals, etc. should be conducted in keeping

withntheir traditional forms and etiquette, i.e. without any arbitrary changes Y N

5 I can always think of some weak points or shortcomings in people who have achieved accomplishments

Y N

6 If someone offends me, I will try hard to forgive them Y N7 I always think about other people's opinion of me before I do something Y N8 Some of my family members' habits irritate me Y N9 To avoid mistakes in life, the best thing to do is to listen to what the elders say Y N10 I believe most well-known people became famous because of other peoples'

inspiration and having to check with someone. Y N

11 When I do something I am always very careful not to embarrass anyone Y N12 I pay a lot of attention to how others see me Y N13 Sometimes I hate my family members Y N14 Kids that deserve the most praise are those who obey the rules just as adults do Y N15 My abilities are much greater than those of other people but I never get a chance

to make use of them Y N

16 Usually when I talk with people I take great care not to offend them Y N17 I usually care a lot about my appearance Y N18 I get angry when my family tell me how I should live my life Y N

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19 If teachers or superiors are mistaken, it is acceptable for students or inferiors to contradict them

Y N

20 When I see people who are wealthier than me, I will think that they do not live happier lives than mine

Y N

21 I always maintain a peaceful frame of mind Y N22 Inviting someone out to dinner has to be done in style in order to keep up

appearances Y N

23 I often have serious clashes of opinion with my family Y N24 Parents should not interfere with their children's freedom to choose a profession. Y N 25

I can certainly do whatever others can do, and if I do not, it is only because I do not want to get too much attention

Y N

26 When I accomplish something important, I try hard not to get too excited, because I know that success does not happen very often

Y N

27 I am usually very particular about the way I dress because I do not want others to look down on me

Y N

28 I do not see my relatives often these days Y N29 If a dispute cannot be resolved, a family elder should be invited to act as an

arbiter to uphold justice Y N

30 Those wealthy and influential people have to keep themselves busy making money and gaining power all the time. They can never be as comfortable and relaxed as I am

Y N

31 I accept my position in the society, and I also think it is a fair reflection of my abilities and my disposition

Y N

32 I feel a loss of face when others turn down my favor Y N33 I am willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of my family Y N34 Students need to be completely devoted to learning, and should not get distracted

by what is happening in the society Y N

35 One day I will become famous overnight, and people who now despise me will have to eat their words and try to make up

Y N

36 Human beings will definitely be punished for destroying the law of nature Y N37 I would rather cut down on my regular expenses, but when it comes to inviting

out or giving presents to someone, I feel obliged to be generous Y N

38 If I have something to do and expect to be late at home, I will usually let my family know in advance

Y N

39 There is no stigma about marrying a divorced person Y N40 If it were not for the fact that I have always had bad luck in the past, I would

have outdone many people by now Y N

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41 I strongly support the principle that if a family lives in harmony, all things will prosper

Y N

42 Sometimes when I make a mistake I am not ready to admit it in public, even though I know I am wrong

Y N

43 Sometimes my family members tell me trivial matters; that annoys me very much Y N44 Children do not have to follow their parents' wishes when choosing a partner for

Marriage Y N

45 When others criticize me I always feel they are making a big fuss over trivial matters, particularly as they make many more mistakes than I do

Y N

46 My mind is at peace, and I have few desires Y N47 I prefer not to discuss my weaknesses, even with my closest friends Y N48 There are many things I do not feel easy about telling my family Y N49 A woman's chastity is more important than her life Y N50 If certain people do not invite me to their gathering, I see it as their own loss Y N51 I seldom argue with my family Y N52 Sometimes I will insist on giving a friend a decent gift even if it means

borrowing money to buy it Y N

53 During holidays and vacations, I often engage in recreational activities with my family

Y N

54 The belief that "you can count on your children to be a safety net for your old age" is outdated

Y N

55 If someone declines my invitation, I will think he/she does not know how to appreciate the opportunities I give them

Y N

56 The saying "Harmony is most valuable" is very true Y N57 I pay a lot of attention to what kind of attitude people have toward me Y N58 There are many family photos in my home Y N59 Education is a sacred profession, and therefore teachers should not mind too

much about their pay Y N

60 If others tease me I would find them mean, despicable, and unworthy of attention Y N61 It is a virtue to tolerate everything Y N62 When I am eating out and others have already finished their meal, I will also stop

eating and pretend I am full, even if I am not Y N

63 My parents are good to me Y N64 Eccentric clothes and hairstyles should be strictly banned so as to preserve

traditional simplicity Y N

65 I believe many of the people who are more successful than me got where they are Through lies and deceit

Y N

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66 I follow the saying that "Those who are contented are always happy" as a principle in life

Y N

67 Even if I was poor, I would still try to buy a presentable coat Y N68 My family would not be peaceful if I were not so tolerant Y N69 It is impossible even for the most decent people to be entirely without evil

thoughts Y N

70 I have failed many times but it has never been my fault Y N71 I feel extremely uneasy in a situation where my friends are having an argument Y N72 I always worry I will not say the most appropriate thing when I am interacting

with strangers Y N

73 Usually I prefer to be with my intimate friends rather than my family Y N74 If the content of some TV programs or movies does not conform to our culture,

they should be eliminated with no exceptions Y N

75 It's dangerous at the top, and that is why being a success is no good Y N

APPENDIX E

Self-Description Scale

INSTRUCTIONS: This is a questionnaire that measures a variety of feelings and behaviors in various situations. Listed below are a number of statements. Read each one as if it referred to you. Beside each statement write the number that best matches your agreement or disagreement. Please respond to every statement. Thank you.

____1. I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects.

1=STRONGLY DISAGREE 4=DON’T AGREE OR 5=AGREE SOMEWHAT

2=DISAGREE DISAGREE 6=AGREE

3=SOMEWHAT DISAGREE 7=STRONGLY AGREE

____2. I can talk openly with a person who I meet for the first time, even when this person is much older than I am.

____3. Even when I strongly disagree with group members, I avoid an argument. ____4. I have respect for the authority figures with whom I interact. ____5. I do my own thing, regardless of what others think. ____6. I respect people who are modest about themselves. ____7. I feel it is important for me to act as an independent person. ____8. I will sacrifice my self interest for the benefit of the group I am in. ____9. I'd rather say "No" directly, than risk being misunderstood. ____10. Having a lively imagination is important to me. ____11. I should take into consideration my parents' advice when making education/career plans. ____12. I feel my fate is intertwined with the fate of those around me. ____13. I prefer to be direct and forthright when dealing with people I've just met. ____14. I feel good when I cooperate with others. ____15. I am comfortable with being singled out for praise or rewards. ____16. If my brother or sister fails, I feel responsible. ____17. I often have the feeling that my relationships with others are more important than my

own accomplishments. ____18. Speaking up during a class (or a meeting) is not a problem for me. ____19. I would offer my seat in a bus to my professor (or my boss). ____20. I act the same way no matter who I am with.

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____21. My happiness depends on the happiness of those around me. ____22. I value being in good health above everything. ____23. I will stay in a group if they need me, even when I am not happy with the group. ____24. I try to do what is best for me, regardless of how that might affect others. ____25. Being able to take care of myself is a primary concern for me. ____26. It is important to me to respect decisions made by the group. ____27. My personal identity, independent of others, is very important to me. ____28. It is important for me to maintain harmony within my group. ____29. I act the same way at home that I do at school (or work). ____30. I usually go along with what others want to do, even when I would rather do something

different.

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APPENDIX F

Social Perception Scale

INSTRUCTIONS: We are all members of different social groups or social categories. Some of such social groups or categories pertain to gender, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. We would like you to consider your memberships in those particular groups or categories, and respond to the following statements on the basis of how you feel about those groups and your memberships in them. There are no right or wrong answers to any of these statements; we are interested in your honest reactions and opinions. Please read each statement carefully, and respond by using the following scale from 1 to 7:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly disagree Disagree Disagree

somewhat Neutral Agree somewhat Agree Strongly agree

____ 1. I am a worthy member of the social groups I belong to. ____ 2. I often regret that I belong to some of the social groups I do. ____ 3. Overall, my social groups are considered good by others. ____ 4. Overall, my group memberships have very little to do with how I feel about myself. ____ 5. I feel I don't have much to offer to the social groups I belong to. ____ 6. In general, I'm glad to be a member of the social groups I belong to. ____ 7. Most people consider my social groups, on the average, to be more ineffective than other

social groups.

____ 8. The social groups I belong to are an important reflection of who I am. ____ 9. I am a cooperative participant in the social groups I belong to. ____ 10. Overall, I often feel that the social groups of which I am a member are not worthwhile. ____ 11. In general, others respect the social groups that I am a member of. ____ 12. The social groups I belong to are unimportant to my sense of what kind of a person I

am. ____ 13. I often feel I'm a useless member of my social groups. ____ 14. I feel good about the social groups I belong to. ____ 15. In general, others think that the social groups I am a member of are unworthy. ____ 16. In general, belonging to social groups is an important part of my self image.

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APPENDIX G

General Behavioral Assessment INSTRUSCTION: Listed below are a number of statements concerning personal characteristics and traits. Read each item and decide whether you agree or disagree and to what extent. If you strongly agree, circle 7; if you strongly disagree, circle 1; if you feel somewhere in between, circle any one of the numbers between 1 and 7. If you feel neutral or undecided the midpoint is 4.

Strongly Neutral or Strongly Disagree Undecided Agree

1 4 7

1.When I am working on something, I cannot relax until it is perfect …. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2. I am not likely to criticize someone for giving up too easily………. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3. It is not important that the people I am close to are successful…………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4. I seldom criticize my friends for accepting second best………………. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5. I find it difficult to meet others’ expectations of me………………….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. One of my goals is to be perfect in everything I do…………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. Everything that others do must be of top-notch quality……………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8. I never aim for perfection in my work………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

9. Those around me readily accept that I can make mistakes too……….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10. It doesn’t matter when someone close to me does not do their

absolute best………………………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. The better I do, the better I am expected to do……………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

12. I seldom feel the need to be perfect………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

13. Anything I do that is less than excellent will be seen as poor

work by those around me…………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

14. I strive to be as perfect as I can be…………………………… ……… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

15. It is very important that I am perfect in everything I attempt……….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

16. I have high expectations for the people who are important to me…… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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17. I strive to be the best at everything I do……………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

18. The people around me expect me to succeed at everything I do………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

19. I do not have very high standards for those around me………………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

20. I demand nothing less than perfection of myself………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

21. Others will like me even if I don’t excel at everything……………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

22. I can’t be bothered with people who won’t strive to better themselves..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

23. It makes me uneasy to see an error in my work………………………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

24. I do not expect a lot from my friends…………………………………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

25. Success means that I must work even harder to please others…………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

26. If I ask someone to do something, I expect it to be done flawlessly…..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

27. I cannot stand to see people close to me make mistakes………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

28. I am perfectionistic in setting my goals………………………………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

29. The people who matter to me should never let me down…………….. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

30. Others think I an okay, even when I do not succeed…………………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

31. I feel that people are too demanding of me……………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

32. I must work to my full potential at all times…………………………. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

33. Although they may not show it, other people get very upset with

me when I slip up………………………………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

34. I do not have to be the best at whatever I am doing……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

35. My family expects me to be perfect……………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

36. I do not have very high goals for myself……………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

37. My parents rarely expected me to excel in all aspects of my life………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

38. I respect people who are average……………………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

39. People expect nothing less than perfection from me……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

40. I set very high standards for myself…………………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

41. People expect more from me than I am capable of giving……………..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

42. I must always be successful at school or work…………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

43. It does not matter to me when a close friend does not try their hardest..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

44. People around me think I am still competent even if I make a mistake..1 2 3 4 5 6 7

45. I seldom expect others to excel at whatever they do……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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APPENDIX H

Personal Attitude Scales (PAS)

INSTRUCTION: Listed below are a number of statements concerning personal attitudes and

traits. Read each item and decide whether the statement is true (T) or false (F) as it pertains to

you personally. Please circle the answer you choose.

1 It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged T F

2 I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way T F

3 On a few occasions, I have given up doing something because I thought too

little of my ability

T F

4 There have been times when I felt like rebelling against people in authority

even though I knew they were right

T F

5 No matter who I’m talking to, I’m always a good listener T F

6 There have been occasions when I took advantage of someone T F

7 I’m always willing to admit it when I make a mistake T F

8 I sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget T F

9 I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable T F

10 I have never been irked when people expressed ideas very different from my

own

T F

11 There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good fortune of others T F

12 I am sometimes irritated by people who ask favors of me T F

13 I have never deliberately said something that hurt someone’s feelings T F

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APPENDIX I

DEMORGRAPHIC INFORMATION

INSTRUCTION: Please respond to the following questions about yourself and your family. DO NOT PROVIDE YOUR NAME OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION. Mark your responses on this sheet. 1. Sex: ____Male ____Female 2. Age: ______________________ 3. Race: ____Caucasian ____Black ____Native American ____Asian/Pacific ____Hispanic/Latino ____Other (specify) __________________ 4. Marital Status: ____Single ____Married ____Divorced/Separated ____ Widowed ____Other (specify)____________ 5. Personal (if you support yourself) or Family Annual Income ____Under $10,000 ____$30,000 - $40,000 ____$10,000 - $20,000 ____$40,000 - $50,000 ____$20,000 - $30,000 ____Over $50,000 6. Your Education:

____Primary School ____College First Year ____College Associate ____Secondary School ____College Sophomore ____College Graduate ____Vocational School ____College Junior ____Post-Baccalaureate ____High School ____College Senior

7. Father’s Education:

____Primary School ____College First Year ____College Associate ____Secondary School ____College Sophomore ____College Graduate ____Vocational School ____College Junior ____Post-Baccalaureate ____High School ____College Senior

8. Mother’s Education:

____Primary School ____College First Year ____College Associate ____Secondary School ____College Sophomore ____College Graduate ____Vocational School ____College Junior ____Post-Baccalaureate ____High School ____College Senior

9. Academic Major __________________________________________ 10. Have you ever been in counseling/therapy?______ Yes _______ No

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APPENDIX J

自我评定问卷一

说明：以下是一些人们用以描述自己的句子。请阅读每一个句子，并在右边最能表明你现

在 的感受，也就是你此时此刻 感受的相应数字上划圈。答案无所谓对错。请不要在每个

句子上 花太多时间，但是要选出最能表达你 现在 感受的那个答案。

毫不 有点 相当 非常

1.我感到平静……………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4

2.我感到安全……………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4

3.我感到紧张……………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4

4.我感到很累……………………………………………….. 1 2 3 4

5.我感到悠闲舒适…………………………………………...1 2 3 4

6.我感到心烦意乱…………………………………………...1 2 3 4

7.我正在担心可能会遇到一些不幸的事情………………...1 2 3 4

8.我感到满意………………………………………………...1 2 3 4

9.我感到害怕………………………………………………...1 2 3 4

10.我感到舒服……………………………………………….1 2 3 4

11.我感到有自信心………………………………………….1 2 3 4

12.我感到忐忑不安………………………………………….1 2 3 4

13.我感到心神不定………………………………………….1 2 3 4

14.我感到犹豫不决………………………………………….1 2 3 4

15.我感到轻松……………………………………………….1 2 3 4

16.我感到心满意足………………………………………….1 2 3 4

17.我感到忧心忡忡………………………………………….1 2 3 4

18.我感到迷惑……………………………………………….1 2 3 4

19.我感到沉着、镇定……………………………………….1 2 3 4

20.我感到愉快……………………………………………….1 2 3 4

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自我评定问卷二

说明：以下是一些人们用以描述自己的句子。请阅读每一个句子，并在右边最能表明你一

般或通常 感受的相应数字上划圈。答案无所谓对错。请不要在每个句子上花太多时间，

但是要选出最能表达你 一般或通常 感受的那个答案。

从不 有时 经常 总是

21.我感到愉快………………………………………………..1 2 3 4

22.我感到紧张和心神不定…………………………………..1 2 3 4

23.我对自己感到满意………………………………………..1 2 3 4

24.我希望能象别人那样快乐………………………………..1 2 3 4

25.我感到自己像个失败者…………………………………..1 2 3 4

26.我感到安宁………………………………………………..1 2 3 4

27.我感到沉着、冷静、注意力集中………………………..1 2 3 4

28.我感到困难重重，难以克服……………………………..1 2 3 4

29.我过多地担心那些实际上并不重要的事情……………..1 2 3 4

30.我感到快乐………………………………………………..1 2 3 4

31.我有一些使自己感到烦乱的意念………………………..1 2 3 4

32.我缺乏自信………………………………………………..1 2 3 4

33.我感到安全………………………………………………..1 2 3 4

34.我容易作出决定…………………………………………..1 2 3 4

35.我感到力不从心…………………………………………..1 2 3 4

36.我感到心满意足…………………………………………..1 2 3 4

37.一些不重要的想法浮现在我脑海中，烦扰着我………..1 2 3 4

38.我常感到极端失意，不能自拔…………………………..1 2 3 4

39.我是一个沉着镇定的人…………………………………..1 2 3 4

40.当想到目前的一些利害得失时，

我就会陷入一种紧张或混乱的状态……………………..1 2 3 4

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APPENDIX K

社会交往行为量表

说明：请仔细阅读每个句子，并就它们代表你自己个性特点的程度依据下面的量表在左边

的空格上填上相应的数字。

没有任何 稍微有一些 有中等程度的 非常有 特别有

代表性 代表性 代表性 代表性 代表性 1 2 3 4 5 1.即使在一个陌生的社交场合里，我也觉得轻松自如。

2.我会避免那些要求自己表现得很活跃的社教场合。

3.与陌生人在一起而感到很轻松对我来说很容易。

4.我没有刻意避免与人接触。

5.社教场合经常让我不舒服。

6.在各种社交场合我觉得轻松自如。

7.与异性交谈时，我觉得很自在。

8.我尽量避免与人交谈，除非我很了解他们。

9.我不回避任何结识新朋友的机会。

10.在有异性参加的非正式的聚会上，我会觉得紧张不安。

11.与别人在一起我会紧张，除非我与他们很熟悉。

12.与一群人在一起时，我常感到心情轻松愉快。

13.我时常希望能远离其他人。

14.与一群我不认识的人在一起时，我觉得不自在。

15.初次与人认识时，我觉得很轻松。

16.被介绍给别人认识时，我会紧张不安。

17.即使房间里都是一群陌生人，我还是会进去。

18.我不会走过去加入一群人的讨论。

19.当我的上司或领导想与我交谈时，我会很乐意与他们交谈。

20.与一群人在一起总让我紧张。

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21.我愿意远离人群。

22.我不介意在各种社交集会上与人交谈。

23.与一群人一起时，我很少觉得自在。

24.我时常找一些借口从而避免参加社交活动。

25.我有时主动介绍人们相互认识。

26.我尽力避免参加正规的社交活动。

27.不论是哪种社交活动，我通常都会参加。

28.我和别人在一起时很放松。

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APPENDIX L

一般个性测量表

说明：本问卷是由许多与你有关的问题组成。请阅读每一个问题，如果该问题所描述的与

你的性格相符，请在“是”上划圈；如果该问题不能描述你的性格，请在“否“上划圈。答案

并没有对错之分。请回答所有问题。谢谢合作！

1 我总是努力与别人和谐相处 是 否

2 有时我装作懂得很多，以免被他人轻视。 是 否

3 和别人的家庭比较，我的家里缺少亲情和关怀。 是 否

4 祭祖、婚庆、丧事等应该按照传统的形式与礼节进行，不可任意更改。 是 否

5 对於那些取得成就的人，我总可以经常在心里找出他们的缺点和不足

之处。

是 否

6 假使别人冒犯我，我会尽量包涵。 是 否

7 在做事之前，我总会考虑其他人对我的想法。 是 否

8 我家里有些人的习惯使我厌烦。 是 否

9 要避免人生的错误，最好的辨法是听从长者的话。 是 否

10 我认为大多数出名的人，都是靠别人奉承吹嘘而成名，很少是靠真

材实学。

是 否

11 我做事小心谨慎，以免使别人为难。 是 否

12 我很重视其他人如何看我。 是 否

13 我有时会憎恨我的家人。 是 否

14 最值得称赞的小孩，就是像成人一样守规矩的小孩。 是 否

15 我的能力比人强很多，只不过总是没有机会让自己发挥。 是 否

16 我通常讲话都小心翼翼，以免得罪别人。 是 否

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17 通常我很留意我的容貌。 是 否

18 当家人向我建议我应当怎样做人时，我便会发怒。 是 否

19 如果师长或上司有错，学生或下属可以提出理由辩驳。 是 否

20 看到那些比我有钱的人，我便觉得他们的生活并不比我快乐。 是 否

21 我一直保持着平和的情绪状态。 是 否

22 请人家吃饭，一定要有体面。 是 否

23 我时常与家人有严重的意见分歧。 是 否

24 父母不应干涉子女选择职业的自由。 是 否

25 别人可以做的事，我一定也做得到，只是由於我不想出风头，

才不去做的。

是 否

26 在取得重要成就时，我尽量不过份激动，因为我知道成功是不会

经常发生的

是 否

27 我通常衣着讲究，以免受人轻视。 是 否

28 现在我与亲戚很少来往。 是 否

29 如果因事争执不下，应请辈份高的人来主持公道。 是 否

30 那些有财有势的人为了赚钱掌权，整日忙碌劳累，那有我这样

自在轻松。

是 否

31 我接受我在社会上的地位，并觉得它与我自己的能力、性格相符合。 是 否

32 别人若不领我的情，会令我觉得丢脸。 是 否

33 我愿意为我的家人牺牲一切。 是 否

34 学生应该专心读书求学，不要为社会上的事情去分心。 是 否

35 我总有一天会一呜惊人的，现时那些看不起我的人，终会回

过头来巴结讨好我。

是 否

36 人类破坏自然规律，必定受到惩罚。 是 否

37 我宁愿自己平时节省些，但请客送礼时就要出手大方。 是 否

38 如果我有事不能按时回家，我一般都事先通知家人。 是 否

39 与离过婚的人结婚是没有什麽不光彩的。 是 否

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40 我过去一向运气太差，否则的话，我在各方面会把许多人比下去。 是 否

41 我力行「家和万事兴」的原则。 是 否

42 尽管我有时知道自己错了，我也不很愿意当众认错。 是 否

43 有时家人对我诉说的一些琐事，使我感到很厌烦。 是 否

44 子女选择婚姻对象，不必听从父母之命。 是 否

45 别人批评我时，我总觉得他们实在是小题大作，其实他们犯的

错比我还要多

是 否

46 我内心平静，没有什麽欲望。 是 否

47 即使对最亲密的朋友，我也不愿意谈起自己的弱点。 是 否

48 我觉得我有许多话不便和家人讲。 是 否

49 对女子而言，贞节比她的生命更为重要。 是 否

50 若别人没有邀请我叁加他们的聚会，我会认为是他们的损失。 是 否

51 我很少和家人吵架。 是 否

52 有时候，即使借钱买，也应该送亲友一件像样的礼物。 是 否

53 节日假期，我常常和家人一起娱乐。 是 否

54 养儿防老的想法巳经过时了。 是 否

55 如果别人拒绝了我的邀请，我会觉得这个人真是不识抬举。 是 否

56 「以和为贵」这句话十分有道理。 是 否

57 我很留意别人对我的态度。 是 否

58 我家有很多张全家福合影照片。 是 否

59 教育是一种神圣的工作，因此教师不应该去计较待遇的高低。 是 否

60 如果别人嘲弄我的话，我会觉得这个人很卑鄙，不值得理睬。 是 否

61 凡事忍让是一种美德。 是 否

62 在外面吃饭时，如果其他人都放下碗筷，即使我还没有吃饱，我也会装

出吃饱了的样子，一起放下。

是 否

63 我的父母对我很好。 是 否

145

64 为了维持纯朴的风俗，奇装异服、古怪发型应该严格取缔。 是 否

65 我认为很多比我有成就的人，大多数是采取了说谎或欺骗的手段。 是 否

66 我处世以「知足者常乐」为原则。 是 否

67 即使我很穷，我也要设法买一件体面的外衣。 是 否

68 如果不是靠"忍"的话，我家会经常不得安宁。 是 否

69 就是正人君子也不可能完全没有邪念。 是 否

70 我失败了许多次，但都不是由於自己的原因造成的。 是 否

71 当我的朋友争吵时，我会感到十分不安。 是 否

72 我与陌生人交往时，常担心会说话不够得体。 是 否

73 我常常宁愿和知己朋友在一起，也不愿意与家人在一起。 是 否

74 电视或影片的内容如果与中国文化不符合，就应一律予以剪除。 是 否

75 人怕出名猪怕肥，所以成功并没有好处。 是 否

146

APPENDIX M

自我描述问卷

说明：下面的问题涉及人们在各种情境下的各种情感和行为。请认真阅读这些问题，并如

实按你同意或不同意的程度在每个句子旁标出相应的数字。 强烈的 有些 即不同意 有些 强烈的 不同意 同意 不同意 也不不同意 同意 同意 同意 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1.我喜欢在许多方面上都与众不同。 2.我能与初次见面的人坦率交谈，即使这人年纪比我大很多也一样。 3.大家在一起的时候，即使我与其他人的意见分歧很大，我也避免与他们争论。 4.我尊重与我交往的权威人物。 5.我只专心做自己的事情，不管别人怎么看。 6.我尊重那些谦虚的人。 7.我认为能独立对我来说很重要。 8.我会牺牲自己的个人利益来成全集体利益。 9.我情愿坦率地向别人说“不”，也不愿被人误会。 10.我认为生动的想象对我来说非常重要。 11.当涉及到我的教育或事业计划时，我会考虑父母的意见。 12.我觉得我和周围的人的命运是息息相关的。 13.我喜欢坦诚对待初次见面的人。 14.与他人合作时我觉得愉快。 15.我不在乎单独被表扬或奖励。 16.如果我的姐妹或兄弟失败了，我会感到我有责任。 17.我经常觉得我和别人的关系好不好比我个人的成就更重要。 18.在上课或开会时发言对我来说没有问题。 19.在公共汽车上我会把座位让给我的老师或上司。 20.不管和谁在一起，我都是同一种表现。 21.我的幸福取决于我周围的人是否幸福。 22.我认为身体健康比其他任何事情都重要。

147

23.如果大家需要我，我就会和大家在一起，即使我不喜欢他们。 24.我尽力做对自己最好的事情而不管这样做会如何影响其他人。 25.照顾好自己是我关心的首要事情。 26.我认为尊重由集体作出的决定很重要。 27.我个人的独特个性对我来说很重要。 28.与我所在的团体保持和谐的关系对我来说很重要。 29.我在家里的行为方式和我在学校或工作的行为方式都是一样的。 30.在决定做某件事时，我通常听从大家的决定，即使我想做别的。

148

APPENDIX N

自我与社会知觉问卷

说明：我们都是社会中各种不同群体和部门的成员。这些群体和部门通常与我们的背景，

如性别、籍贯、宗教、社会经济地位有关。其他社会群体包括你所在的宿舍、班、学院或

大学，以及你所在的校内或校外的群体，如社团等。下面的一些句子都是有关社会群体的

问题，请你根据你平时对你所在团体的态度来回答。这些问题的答案无所谓对错。我们只

想知道你的真实态度和看法。请认真阅读每一个句子并根据下面的量表，选择一个最能代

表你真实看法的数字，填在左边的空格上。

强烈的 有些 即不同意 有些 强烈的

不同意 不同意 不同意 也不不同意 同意 同意 同意

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.我是我们集体中的一个有价值的成员。

2.我经常会为我是某些社会团体中的一员而感到后悔。

3.总的来说，别人认为我所在的社会团体是不错的。

4.总的来说，无论我处于何种社会群体，都不会影响我对自己的看法。

5.我觉得我没太多可以贡献给我所处的社会群体。

6.总的来说，我很高兴能成为我所在的社会群体中的一员。

7.总的来说，大多数人认为我所在的团体不如其他团体有能力。

8.我所处的社会群体反映了我是怎样的一个人。

9.我所处的社会群体里，我是个积极合作的一员。

10.总的来说，我认为我所处的社会群体不值得我为之努力。

11.整体来说，别人能尊重我所属的社会群体。

12.我所在的社会团体对我怎么看自己并不重要。

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13.我常觉得自己对我的集体毫无用处。

14.我对我所在的社会群体感觉不错。

15.整体来说，别人认为我所属的社会群体一无是处。

16.整体来说，归属于社会团体是我自我形象的一个重要部分。

150

APPENDIX O

一般行为测量表

说明：下面的一些句子用于描述人们的一般行为特点。请仔细阅读每个句子，并就它们是

否符合你的行为特点作出你同意或不同意程度上的判断。如果你强烈地同意，就在“7”

上划圈；如果你强烈地不同意，就在“1”上划圈。如果你同意的程度在这两者之间，就

请你在“1”和“7”之间选择一个数字并划圈。如果你觉得你持中立态度或不能作出判断

，就请在“4”上划圈。

强烈的 即不同意 强烈的

不同意 也不不同意 同意

1.通常我要等到把事情做得尽善尽美后心里才会觉得轻松………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2.我不大会因为别人轻易防弃某事而批评他………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3.与我关系密切的人，他们成功与否，对我来说并不重要………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4.我很少因为我的朋友们甘心于当第二而责备他们………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5.我发觉我很难达到别人对我的期望………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6.我人生的目标之一是所有的事情都要做的完美无瑕……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7.别人所做的一切事情都必须尽善尽美……………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8.我从不以把工作做得十全十美作为目标…………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

9.我周围的人知道我也会犯错误……………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10.如果与我亲近的人没有尽绝对的努力去把事情做好，

那也不要紧……………………………………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11.我做得越好，别人对我的期望就越高………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

12.我不觉得要有十全十美这个必要……………………………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

13.我所做的事情要是有一点点缺陷，

我周围的人就会认为是糟糕透了………….……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

151

14.我力求使自己尽可能地完美…………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

15.我尝试做的每件事情必须要十全十美，这点很重要…………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

16.对我来说非常重要的人，我对他们的期望也很高……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

17.我努力把我所做的每件事情都做得最好………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

18.我周围的人期望我所做的一切都成功…………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

19.我对周围的人要求并不高………………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

20.我要求我的一切都完美…………………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

21.即使我并非各方面都出色，别人还是喜欢我…………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

22.我不喜欢和那些不思进取的人在一起…………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

23.如果工作出错，我会忧虑不安…………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

24.我对朋友的要求不高……………………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

25.要成功就意味着我必须要更加努力让别人高兴………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

26.如果我叫别人做某事，我会希望他做得没有任何差错………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

27.我不能容忍与我亲近的人犯错…………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

28.在制定我的目标时，我有完美主义倾向………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

29.对我重要的人应该从来都不让我失望…………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

30.即使不成功，别人也认为我不错………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

31.我觉得别人对我的要求太过苛求了……………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

32.我必须一直都要尽全力工作……………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

33.我的一点疏忽也会让人失望，即使他们可能不表现出来……1 2 3 4 5 6 7

34.我不用事事都争第一……………………………………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

35.我的家人期望我成为一个完美出色的人….……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

36.我对自己没有什么很高的目标…………….……………………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

37.我父母很少期望我在一生中所有的方面都出色….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

38.我敬重平凡的人…………………………………….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

39.人们总是期望我做事情不出任何差错…………….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

40.我给自己制定的标准很高………………………….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

41.人们对我的期望超出我力所能及的范围………….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

42.在学习或工作上我都必须永远成功……………….……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

152

43.当我的好朋友没有尽最大努力做某件事情时，

我并不在乎这一点………………………………….…………….1 2 3 4 5 6 7

44.即使我出了错，别人还是认为我是很有能力的……………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

45.我很少期望别人不论做什么都能做得出色……….…………1 2 3 4 5 6 7

153

APPENDIX P

个性特点问卷

说明：下面的句子与人的个性特点有关。请认真阅读每个句子，并就每个句子是否与你的

个性相吻合在“是”或“否”上划圈。

1 有时如果没有别人的鼓励，我很难坚持把我的工作做完。 是 否

2 当我不能按自己的意愿做事时，我会感到不满。 是 否

3 有那么几次，我认为自己的能力太低而防弃做一些事情。 是 否

4 有好几次，我都想站出来反对那些权威人士，甚至我知道他们是对的。 是 否

5 无论与我交谈的是何人，我永远都是一个很好的倾听者。 是 否

6 有些时候我会利用别人。 是 否

7 当我做错了，我总是乐于承认。 是 否

8 如果别人占了我的便宜，我会想办法找回来，而不会原谅别人或忘记这件事。 是 否

9 即使对那些不招人喜欢的人，我也总是彬彬有礼。 是 否

10 即使别人与我的意见分歧很大，我也从不会觉得烦恼。 是 否

11 有好几次，我嫉妒别人的好运气。 是 否

12 有时别人向我求助，我会觉得被烦扰。 是 否

13 我从没有故意说一些伤害别人感情的话。 是 否

154

APPENDIX Q

个人一般资料

1. 性别： ____男 ____女 2. 年龄：_________________ 3. 民族：____汉族 ____壮族 ____回族

____其他（请注明）__________________ 4. 婚姻状况：____未婚 ____已婚 5. 家庭居住地 （省，市或城镇）：__________________ 6. 家庭月总收入 ____低于人民币二千元 ____人民币二千元至三千元 ____人民币三千元至四千元 ____人民币四千元至五千元 ____人民币五千元至六千元 ____高于人民币六千元 7. 教育程度:

____小学 ____大学一年级 ____大学肄业 ____初中 ____大学二年级 ____学士 ____职业高中 ____大学三年级 ____硕士 ____大专 ____大学四年级 ____博士

8. 父亲受教育程度 ____小学 ____大学一年级 ____大学肄业 ____初中 ____大学二年级 ____学士 ____职业高中 ____大学三年级 ____硕士 ____大专 ____大学四年级 ____博士

9. 母亲受教育程度 ____小学 ____大学一年级 ____大学肄业 ____初中 ____大学二年级 ____学士 ____职业高中 ____大学三年级 ____硕士 ____大专 ____大学四年级 ____博士

10. 专业：__________________ 11. 你是否接受过心理咨询？ _________ 是 ___________ 否

155

APPENDIX R

TABLES

156

Demographics Chinese

N %

Caucasians

N %

Gender Male Female Age 18-19 20-22 23 or above Not Reported Marriage Married Unmarried Not reported Class Rank First year Sophomore Junior Senior Academic Majors Sciences Arts Medical Undecided Not declared Counseling Exp Yes No Not Reported Family Income*

Below 2000 2000-4000 4000-6000 Above 6000 Not Reported

137 42.3

187 57.7 102 31.6 210 64.7

12 3.7 0 0.0

2 0.6 319 98.5 3 0.9

111 34.3 133 41.0

61 18.8 19 5.9

185 57.1 130 40.1 6 1.9 N/A N/A 3 0.9

83 25.6 241 74.4 0 0.0 103 31.8 143 44.1

33 10.2 41 12.7

4 1.2

Below $10000 $10000-$30000 $30000-$50000 Above $50000 Not Reported

124 37.2 209 62.8 277 83.2 47 14.1

3 0.9 6 1.8 2 0.6

326 97.9 5 1.5

265 79.6 39 11.7 22 6.6 7 2.2 78 31.4

143 42.9 43 12.9

65 19.6 4 1.2

81 24.3 251 75.4

1 0.3

39 11.7 33 9.9 54 16.2

171 51.4 36 10.8

*Family income for Chinese is monthly income (numbers are in RMB Yuan) Family income for Whites is annual income (numbers are in US dollars) One US dollar is equal to about 8.28 RMB Yuan

Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Chinese and Caucasian Students

157

Variables

Chinese

M

(N=324)

SD

α

Caucasians

M

(N=333)

SD

α

Dependent Variables

State and Trait Anxiety Inventory Trait Anxiety State Anxiety Social Avoidance and Distress Scale Avoidance Distress

Independent Variables Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation Modernization Defensiveness Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed Social Desirability

42.89 38.91 35.88 36.83 10.64 7.98 10.62 12.18 4.11 21.50 21.92 22.61 16.70 4.77 4.89 4.52 3.58 3.64 7.50

8.33 9.05 8.88 9.60 2.52 3.19 2.72 2.41 2.71 3.77 4.07 3.53 4.11 0.63 0.68 0.95 0.70 0.67 2.10

0.89 0.90 0.82 0.88 0.65 0.72 0.70 0.67 0.69 0.66 0.78 0.70 0.46 0.67 0.77 0.86 0.72 0.74 0.56

40.53 38.20 29.43 31.82 8.45 7.88 9.56 11.02 4.16 22.97 22.70 21.80 18.67 4.96 4.59 4.73 3.92 3.69 5.70

10.69 12.19 8.95 9.06 2.61 3.05 3.13 2.19 2.49 3.29 3.49 3.57 4.38 0.67 0.61 0.98 0.60 0.81 2.19

0.92 0.94 0.88 0.89 0.57 0.68 0.77 0.52 0.61 0.73 0.72 0.73 0.65 0.75 0.69 0.89 0.69 0.84 0.69

Table 2: Means, Standard Deviations, and Internal Consistency of Study Variables for Chinese and Caucasian Students

158

Dependent Variables

SA TA AV DS

State Anxiety (SA)

Trait Anxiety (TA)

Social Avoidance (AV)

Social Distress (DS)

Social Desirability (SD)

---

.69***

.29***

.38***

-.29***

---

.37***

.44***

-.38***

---

.79***

-.27***

---

-.33***

*** p <0.001 a

Dependent Variables

SA TA AV DS

State Anxiety (SA)

Trait Anxiety (TA)

Social Avoidance (AV)

Social Distress (DS)

Social Desirability (SD)

---

.73***

.33***

.32***

-.29***

---

.44***

.45***

-.35***

---

.83***

-.22***

-.24***

*** p <0.001 b

Table 3: Intercorrelations among Dependent Variables and Social Desirability for Chinese

Students (a) and Caucasian Students (b)

Independent Variables

HAR

FAC

FAM

MOD

DEF

MEM

PRV

PUB

IDT

INDT

INTR

SOP

OOP

SPP

CPAI HAR FAC FAM MOD DEF CSE MEM PRV PUB IDT SCS INDT INTR MPS SOP OOP SPP SD

--- .10 .38*** -.20*** -.06 .11* .20*** .14** .25*** .01 .47*** .01 -.13** .10 .28***

--- -.15** -.22*** .32*** -.21*** -.16** -.19*** .16** -.16** .15** .24*** .16** .42*** -.33***

--- -.17** -.13* .30*** .32*** .22*** .07 .06 .24*** -.04 -.13* -.22*** .34***

--- -.19** .06 . 09 .17** -.14* .15** -.13* -.09 -.04 -.14** .01

--- -.11* -.23***-.21***-.06 .02 -.06 .18** .21*** .28*** -.28***

--- .44*** .36*** .17** .10 .24*** .01 .03 -.28*** .29***

--- .57*** .24*** .25*** .30*** -.08 -.14** -.26*** .32***

--- .15** .23*** .25*** -.03 -.18** -.27*** .25***

--- -.10 .32*** .05 .06 .06 -.02

--- .28*** .08 .05 -.23***.09

--- .00 -.15** -.01 .20***

--- .45*** .29*** -.14**

--- .37*** -.19**

--- -.30***

159

*p<0.05; **p<0.01; *** p <0.001 (two tailed). CPAI: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory CSE: Collective Self-Esteem SCS: Self-Construal Scale MPS: Multiple Perfectionism Scale SD: Social Desirability ScaleHAR: Harmony MEM: Membership INDT: Independent SOP: Self-Oriented Perfectionism FAC: Face PRV: Private INTR: Interdependent OOP: Other-Oriented Perfectionism FAM: Family Orientation PUB: Public SPP: Social Prescribed Perfectionism MOD: Modernization IDT: Identity DEF: Defensiveness

a Table 4: Intercorrelations among independent variables and social desirability for Chinese (a) and Caucasian students (b)

Table 4 continued: Intercorrelations among independent variables and social desirability for Chinese (a) and Caucasian students (b)

Independent Variables

HAR

FAC

FAM

MOD

DEF

MEM

PRV

PUB

IDT

INDT

INTR

SOP

OOP

SPP

CPAI HAR FAC FAM MOD DEF CSE MEM PRV PUB IDT SCS INDT INTR MPS SOP OOP SPP SD

--- .29*** .15** -.37*** .25*** -.04 .06 .06 .15** .09 .47*** .12* .04 .17** .17**

--- -.19*** -.16** .35*** -.25*** -.15** -.02 .14* -.18** .34** .24*** .09 .44*** -.29***

--- -.27*** -.25*** .18** .23*** .26*** .12* .09 .14* .00 .02 -.24*** .19**

--- -.21*** .07 . 06 .01 -.09 -.07 -.28*** -.07 -.09 -.07 -.08

--- -.18** -.26***-.21***-.03 -.07 .10 .04 .17** .29*** -.23***

--- .68*** .52*** .34*** .32*** -.02 -.03 .01 -.29*** .21***

--- .57*** .36*** .24*** .00 .03 -.06 -.30*** .23***

--- .32** .29*** .10 .14** .00 -.20*** .17**

--- .08 .22*** .10 .20*** -.04 .03

--- .13* .12* .06 -.08 .23***

--- .19*** .01 .17** .02

--- .32*** .47*** .06

--- .27*** -.02

--- -.16**

160

*p<0.05; **p<0.01; *** p <0.001 (two tailed) CPAI: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory CSE: Collective Self-Esteem SCS: Self-Construal Scale MPS: Multiple Perfectionism Scale SD: Social Desirability ScaleHAR: Harmony MEM: Membership INDT: Independent SOP: Self-Oriented Perfectionism FAC: Face PRV: Private INTR: Interdependent OOP: Other-Oriented Perfectionism FAM: Family Orientation PUB: Public SPP: Social Prescribed Perfectionism MOD: Modernization IDT: Identity DEF: Defensiveness

b

DVs IVs

State

Anxiety

Chinese Trait

Anxiety

(N=324) Social

Avoidance

Social

Distress

State

Anxiety

Caucasians Trait

Anxiety

(N=333) Social

Avoidance

Social

Distress CPAI HAR FAC FAM MOD DEF CSE MEM PRV PUB IDT SCS INDT INTR MPS SOP OOP SPP

-.12* .20*** -.23*** -.05 .18** -.28*** -.29*** -.21*** -.07 -.21*** -.05 .12* .16** .31***

-.13* .29*** -.35*** -.03 .14* -.40*** -.37*** -.26*** .05 -.24*** .08 .22*** .20*** .40***

.04 .21*** -.20** -.08 .22*** -.45*** -.42*** -.26*** -.08 -.32*** -.18** .03 .10 .35***

-.03 .30*** -.24*** -.10 .20*** -.43*** -.34*** -.22*** .03 -.32*** -.09 .04 .14* .37***

-.08 .29*** -.23*** .01 .06 -.35*** -.29*** -.31*** -.06 -.29*** .02 .03 .01 .32***

-.09 .40*** -.28*** .05 .09 -.41*** -.34*** -.30*** -.05 -.33*** .06 .07 -.04 .42***

-.02 .23*** -.22*** -.06 .18** -.42*** -.27*** -.42*** -.19*** -.44*** -.07 -.07 .07 .20***

.00 .32*** -.20*** -.05 .18** -.35*** -.20*** -.38*** -.11* -.40*** .00 -.05 .08 .21***

161

*p<0.05; **p<0.01; *** p <0.001 (two tailed). CPAI: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory CSE: Collective Self-Esteem SCS: Self-Construal Scale MPS: Multiple Perfectionism ScaleHAR: Harmony MEM: Membership INDT: Independent SOP: Self-Oriented Perfectionism FAC: Face PRV: Private INTR: Interdependent OOP: Other-Oriented Perfectionism FAM: Family Orientation PUB: Public SPP: Social Prescribed Perfectionism MOD: Modernization IDT: Identity DEF: Defensiveness Table 5: Intercorrelations between Independent Variables (IVs) and Dependent variables (DVs) for Chinese and Caucasian Students.

Variables

Chinese

M

SD

Caucasians

M SD

F

η2

Dependent Variables

State and Trait Anxiety Inventory Trait Anxiety State Anxiety Social Avoidance and Distress Scale Avoidance Distress

42.89 38.91 35.88 36.83

8.33 9.05 8.88 9.60

40.53 38.20 29.43 31.82

10.69 12.19 8.95 9.06

23.02*** 9.62** 0.66 85.96*** 47.40***

.124 .02 .00 .12 .07

162

*** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01

Table 6: Between-group Comparisons on Dependent Variables for Chinese (N=324) and Caucasian (N=332) Students

Variables

Chinese M

SD

Caucasians M SD

F

η2

Independent Variables Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation Modernization Defensiveness Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed

10.64 7.98 10.62 12.18 4.11 21.50 21.92 22.61 16.70 4.77 4.89 4.52 3.58 3.64

2.52 3.19 2.72 2.41 2.71 3.77 4.07 3.53 4.11 0.63 0.68 0.95 0.70 0.67

8.45 7.88 9.56 11.02 4.16 22.97 22.70 21.80 18.67 4.96 4.59 4.73 3.92 3.69

2.61 3.05 3.13 2.19 2.49 3.29 3.49 3.57 4.38 0.67 0.61 0.98 0.60 0.81

28.70*** 119.03***

.15 21.38*** 42.04***

.05

28.43*** 6.90** 8.61** 35.26*** 14.28*** 20.68*** 8.01** 44.21*** .93

.40 .15 .00 .03 .06 .00 .04 .01 .01 .05 .02 .03 .01 .06 .00

163

*** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01 Table 7: Between-group Comparisons on Means of Independent Variables for Chinese (N=324) and Caucasian (N=333) Students

Predictors

∆R2

Chinese ∆F

β

∆R2

Caucasians ∆F

β

Z

Block 1: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed

.17

22.13 ***

.11 .01 .37***

.22 30.03***

-.13* -.14** .52***

2.87** 2.00* 1.96*

Block 2: Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent

.03

5.62 **

-.17** .03

.07 17.11***

-.28*** .03

1.58 --

Block 3: Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem

.13

14.87 ***

-.30*** -.19** .02 .09

.06 6.93***

-.22*** -.04 -.07 .12*

.92 1.68 -- --

Block 4: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation

Modernization Defensiveness

.05 4.50**

-.11 .04 -.16** .05 -.02

.08 8.48***

-.19*** .25*** -.08 .01 -.09

1.12 2.68** .97 -- --

Total R2

.37

.42

164

Note: (1) *** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01; * p < .05. (2) β is standardized regression coefficients Table 8: Hierarchical Regression for Predictors of Trait Anxiety and Comparison of Regression Coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians Students

Predictors

∆R2

Chinese ∆F

β

∆R2

Caucasians ∆F

β

Z

Block 1: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed

.10 11.72***

.02 .05 .29***

.13 15.73***

-.15* -.05 .41***

1.90 -- 1.42

Block 2: Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent

.02 3.82*

-.15** .00

.06 12.00***

-.25*** .01

1.30 --

Block 3: Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem

.07 7.06***

-.19** -.18** .01 .10

.05 5.39***

-.18* .00 -.14* .09

.10 1.80 1.62 --

Block 4: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation

Modernization Defensiveness

.03 2.15-.13* -.02 -.06 .02 .08

.05 4.29**-.15** .19** -.08 -.03 -.10

.22 2.68 -- -- --

Total R2

.22

.28

165

Note: (1) *** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01; * p < .05. (2) β is standardized regression coefficient Table 9: Hierarchical Regression for Predictors of State Anxiety and Comparison of Regression Coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians Students

Predictors

∆R2

Chinese ∆F

β

∆R2

Caucasians ∆F

β

Z

Block 1: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed

.13 15.99***

-.08 .01 .37***

.08 9.25***

-.23*** .07 .29***

1.71 -- 1.05

Block 2: Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent

.07 12.99***

-.21*** -.12*

.16 34.81***

-.41** -.03

2.69 1.16

Block 3: Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem

.15 17.25***

-.31*** -.22*** .08 -.03

.11 13.81***

-.27*** .20** -.24*** -.08

.50 4.65*** 3.84*** --

Block 4: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation

Modernization Defensiveness

.03 2.78*

.16** .00 -.05 .03 .13*

.03 3.54**

-.05 .12* -.09 -.09 .07

2.61** 1.47 -- -- .83

Total R2

.37

.39

166

Note: (1) *** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01; * p < .05. (2) β is the standardized regression coefficient

Table 10: Hierarchy Regression for Predictors of Social Avoidance and Comparison of Regression Coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians Students

Predictors

∆R2

Chinese ∆F

β

∆R2

Caucasians ∆F

β

Z

Block 1: Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale Self-oriented Other-oriented Socially prescribed

.14 17.82***

-.09 .04 .38***

.08 8.83***

-.20** .07 .29***

1.30 -- 1.14

Block 2: Self-Construal Scale Independent Interdependent

.06 10.82***

-.24*** .02

.14 27.90***

-.38*** .03

1.89 --

Block 3: Collective Self-Esteem Membership Esteem Private Esteem Public Esteem Identity Esteem

.13 15.31***

-.34*** -.17** .09 .05

.09 10.47***

-.24*** .25*** -.26*** -.03

1.16 4.47*** 3.84*** --

Block 4: Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory Harmony Face Family Orientation

Modernization Defensiveness

.02 1.71-.01 .08 -.06 .01 .09

.05 5.32***

-.08 .24*** -.06 -.06 .05

-- 1.88 -- -- --

Total R2

.34

.35

167

Note: (1) *** p < 0.001; ** p <0.01; * p < .05. (2) β is standardized regression coefficient Table 11: Hierarchical Regression for Predictors of Social Distress and Comparison of Regression Coefficients between Chinese and Caucasians Students

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