The Structure And Features Of Interpersonal Responsibility In Modern Chinese

A part from survival and competition,the ability to cooperate and help each other is also human nature which distinguishes humans from other primates.That’s why humans could unity together,and we could enjoy well-developed material civilization and cultural and ideological progress in modern times.In order to promote social advance and harmonious progress,humans developed the theory of mutual benefit and win-win notion,which advocates taking the interest of others into account,being thoughtful and caring for others’ feelings,and being altruistic to gain benefit on the whole.Confucianism convinced this long ago and made good use of it,especially that Confucius pursued the ideological system of ―Li‖(courtesy),which made kindness and responsibility for other people an passed down social morality which going back to ancient times in Chinese culture.Generally speaking,look after and plan for others,offering help,all could be considered as being responsible to others.Due to such interpersonal responsibility,individuals would be caring and considerate,and be aware of the potential influence of their words and behaviors on other people.Hence interpersonal responsibility would benefit interpersonal harmony,which makes it an important aspect of the development of socialization.O n the other hand,following the roaring economic growth in China,the contradiction and coexistence of Eastern and Western culture diversified people’s values.Young people started to focus more and more on the self with the responsibility for others decreased gradually.Given that interpersonal responsibility is embodiment of C hinese traditional virtue and significant personal quality for interpersonal harmony and social adaption,systematically exploring the content,structure and development characteristics of interpersonal responsibility of the modern C hinese,not only serves the needs of sinicizing psychology research,benefits selection for individuals with strong interpersonal responsibility,but also provides guidance for educators cultivating healthy personality of adolescents.However,this issue has not aroused much attention of the psychology academic community,few empirical research has been done.For one thing,the cultural foundation of C hinese interpersonal responsibility are self-other responsibility notions of three levels.The traditional Chinese philosophy values unity of human and cosmos and forms an interdependent responsibility view.The ethics-centered ideology sets a keynote orientation of self-restraint and altruism,with a hierarchy of responsibility for others proposed by Liang Shuming.The strength and form of interpersonal responsibility within specific relationships depends on the construct of c haxu geju(differential mode of association)proposed by Fei Xiaotong,it is structured in a differential mode with the distribution of responsibility rippling away from the center of self.In addition,there is essential distinction between tradition Chinese culture and Western culture on the the prime motivation of being responsible for others.As a result,it is necessary to take traditional C hinese culture and social changes in modern C hina into account when studying interpersonal responsibility.For another,from traditional culture values,social responsibility to altruism personality and other related concepts,we could see the issue of interpersonal responsibility lies along.However,neither any specific definition nor proper and targeted measurement tools were found on the issue.Therefore,based on traditional Chinese culture and historical context,our study tried utilizing qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore the content and structure of C hinese interpersonal responsibility.The thesis focuses on the general interpersonal level of responsibility which is relatively stable across different relational contexts.From the personality trait perspective,our research define interpersonal responsibility as the attitude that individuals hold due to realizing one’s responsibility to others and relationships,which involves willingly caring to take actions and facing consequences for the needs and benefits of others.In the end,we tentatively explored brain functional activity features of interpersonal responsibility.The research design contains three parts,including six studies.The first part addresses the development of Interpersonal Responsibility Questionnaire for C hinese adults,which consisted of two studies.In Study 1,utilizing the the five tenets of Confucianism(benevolence,righteousness,courtesy,wisdom and trustworthiness)as analytical frame,a content analysis of pertinent corpus collected from ancient books was proceeded to summarize the traditional connotations of Chinese interpersonal responsibility.Results showed that the pursuit of benevolence of Confucianism produced a keynote for interpersonal responsibility,and the five tenets reflected different aspects of interpersonal ethics,all of which reflect the core Confucian value orientation of self-restraint and altruism.The traditional connotations of interpersonal responsibility could be summarized as loving others and be altruistic,cherishing relationship and be accountable,respecting others and show courtesy,and be sincere and keep good faith.Study 2 aimed to combine traditional culture and society fact in order to develop Interpersonal Responsibility Questionnaire(IRQ)suitable for modern C hinese.Based on the content analysis results of ancient books and ope n-ended questionnaire survey,the theoretical structure frame of the IRQ came into being.According to the theoretical construct,the preliminary version of IRQ was made and tested for psychometrics suitableness in C hinese adults from different provinces a ll over the country.After item analysis and exploratory factor analysis,results showed that t he formal version of IRQ consisted of 29 items which fall into six dimensions,namely respect and avoidance of interference,concern and consideration,accountability for righteousness and offering helping,treasuring and commitment to relationship,avoidance of trouble and impairment for others and reliability and integrity.The α coefficients of the IRQ and its sub-dimensions were between 0.698 and 0.933;the coefficients of test-retest reliability of the IRQ and its sub-dimensions were between 0.633 and 0.859.Correlation coefficients of the IRQ and its sub-dimensions were between 0.517 and 0.878,and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the structure of IRQ was reasonable.Correlation analysis indicated that IRQ and its sub-dimensions were positively correlated with conscientiousness,agreeableness,social connectedness,prosocial tendency and three sub-dimensions of empathy,negatively correlated with one sub-dimension of egocentrism.In short,the internal consistency reliability,test-retest reliability,construct validity,convergent validity,discriminant validity and criterion-related validation of the IRQ were statistically suitable.The second part composes three studies which investigated C hinese interpersonal responsibility with different perspectives.Study 3 is a survey of adults with different age and jobs,the data was collected from 30 provinces all over the country.Results showed that the interpersonal responsibility of modern C hinese is relatively high,the scores of different dimensions from top to bottom is avoidance of trouble and impairment for others,reliability and integrity,respect and avoidance of interference,treasuring and commitment to relationship,concern and consideration and accountability for righteousness and offering helping.O n the whole,the general level of interpersonal responsibility grew as individuals’ age grew;relationship status would influence interpersonal responsibility,people who are married or ever been married generally scored higher than the unmarried ones.O n accountability for righteousness and offering helping,those with no more than a high school education scored significantly higher than those with a bachelor or higher degree,those with associate degree scored significantly higher than those with a master degree;and those with no more than a high school education scored significantly higher on the whole scale than those with a master degree;suggesting that interpersonal responsibility would not get stronger as education level upgrades.Conducting in-depth interview with 19 respondents,Study 4 aimed to dig deep with actual and informative persons in real world for other potential important aspects of interpersonal responsibility on modern Chinese.Adopting the approach of grounded theory,the results deepened our understanding of how interpersonal responsibility was formed and manifested on modern C hinese.Apart from drawing out the emotional and rational premise of interpersonal responsibility,depending on the difference on initiative of being responsible for others,the pose of interpersonal responsibility could be differentiate as passively sticking to social norms and positively take responsibility.On the other hand,various forms and contents of being responsible for others could be divide into two basic orientations,intentions and behaviors that promote the well-being of others,and intentions and behaviors that avoid possible damage to others.In this way,the six core components of interpersonal responsibility could all fit in the two-dimensional model.The results made important supplement on the taking premises and deep dynamic of interpersonal responsibility for Chinese,and provided add itional evidence for the results acquired from previous studies on a more general level.In Study 5,we investigated the possible influence of interpersonal responsibility on subjective well-being and found that interpersonal responsibility was a positive predictor of subjective well-being excluding effects of gender,age,relationship status and education level.Compassionate interpersonal goals and self-efficiency played mediate roles between interpersonal responsibility and subjective well-being,the intermediate size effect were 28.24% and 47.70% with no significant difference.The third part focused on the brain functional characteristics of interpersonal responsibility of C hinese individuals.Utilizing the technique of resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging,Study 6 tentatively explored the brain functional activities relating to interpersonal responsibility.Several brain areas were correlated with different dimensions of interpersonal responsibility,especially the ones involving mirror neurons,mental theory,empathy and emotion regulation.In addition,superior frontal gyrus was significantly correlated with respect and avoidance of interference,concern and consideration,accountability for righteousness and offering helping,treasuring and commitment to relationship,avoidance of trouble and impairment for others.This indicates that on neurophysiological level components of interpersonal responsibility differs from each other while certain common basis exists.In the section of general discussion,the reliability and validity of IRQ,connotations and rationality of the six-dimension structure and were discussed,and we summarized both the continuity of tradition cultural ingredients and the epochal character of interpersonal responsibility emerged from different studies we conducted.Measurement improvement,potential type of interpersonal responsibility and other deficiency of the study were pointed out followed by future research prospects.Specific suggestions on interpersonal responsibility cultivation for modern C hinese were proposed,and the significance of the research findings were briefly outlined.Our research yield the following conclusions:(1)Interpersonal responsibility of C hinese is a personality characteristic which is relatively stable across different relational contexts,it is combined with both traditional property and epochal character and is consisted of six core components,namely respect and avoidance of interference,concern and consideration,accountability for righteousness and offering helping,treasuring and commitment to relationship,avoidance of trouble and impairment for others and reliability and integrity.(2)Certified with eligible reliability and validity,the multidimensional Interpersonal Responsib ility Q uestionnaire is suitable for measuring interpersonal responsibility for modern Chinese.(3)For modern Chinese,interpersonal responsibility become stronger as individuals’ age grow but not by the upgradation of education level;relationship status influences interpersonal responsibility,people who are married or ever been married generally scored higher than the unmarried ones.(4)interpersonal responsibility could positively predicts subjective well-being,mediated through compassionate interpersonal goals and self-efficiency.(5)different dimensions of interpersonal responsibility are correlated with brain areas involving mirror neuron,empathy and theory of mind.Summarizing all the results,there is originality both in theory and method.In the aspect of theory,for the first time,our study constructed and tested the multidimensional structure model of interpersonal responsibility for modern Chinese,evidence collected from group level,functional effect level,individuals in real life,and neurophysiological approach all supported the model.In the aspect of method,utilizing qualitative and quantitative research means,the Interpersonal Responsibility Questionnaire for modern C hinese was developed with adequate reliability and validity,it could be used to measure C hinese interpersonal responsibility in further research.In future,we would carry on our work with research from the perspective of cultural comparison,exploring whether the multidimensional model structure is universal for individuals from different cultural backgrounds,also investigating how interpersonal responsibility is shaped and manifested for individuals with typical bicultural minds.