Research On The Self-construction Of Chinese Cultural Convergence

Since the rising of cultural psychology,Chinese self-construals have become an important topic in the field of psychology.This paper starts with the dispute over the Chinese regional self-construals,systematically reviews literatures on Chinese selfconstruals.Basing on the logical chains of “theory construction—tool development—current situation survey—relationship verification—function exploration”,this paper explores theme of Chinese polycultural self-construals at multiple levels and reveals the status quo of Chinese self-construals,and illustrates the relationship between Chinese self-construals and cultures,and explores their related functions.The main contents of this paper include the following five parts:(1)Constructing a polycultural theory of self-construals.Analyzing the relationship between cultures and individual,we find that there are two types of relationship: cultural domination perspective and interaction perspective.Based on polyculturalism,from interaction perspective,we construct a theory of self-construals that integrated individual-centered culture,relation-centered culture,and socialcentered culture.Focusing on interaction between subject and multicultural objects,we argue that the definition of polycultural self-construals mainly include five aspects: personal,relationality,collectivity,autonomy and equality,then demonstrate their rationalities.The theory of polycultural self-construals is multi-dimensional that goes beyond the “independent / interdependent” two-dimensional self-construals theory and can illustrate the Chinese self-construals accurately.(2)Developing one new type polycultural self-construals scale.Based on the theory of the polycultural self-construals,adopting in-depth interview method and psychometric method,we get datas of nationwide samples and compile a set of selfconstruls scale through steps of development of the primary item pool,pre-testing,exploratory factor analysis,and confirmatory factor analysis.The core indicators reflecting the scale are explained,such as coefficients of internal consistency,criterionrelated validity,common method bias,and measurement invariance,etc.These indexes illustrate the reliability and validity of the scale.(3)Measuring Chinese polycultural self-construals.Using the polycultural selfconstrual scale,a nationwide survey of Chinese self-construals is conducted.The results show that Chinese people have the highest scores in relationality factor.Scores are reduced one by one on collectivity factor,autonomy factor and equality factor,and the lowest is personal factor.There are no significant differences in personal factor and relationality factor between the North and the South.The North is higher than the South in terms of collectivity factor,autonomy factor and equality factor.The central and western region is higher than the eastern region in terms of collectivity factor.The basic state of Chinese self-construals are also explained in terms of gender,age,growth environment,education levels,etc.In addition,we also analyze limitations of regional GDP per capita index,rice cultivation index and climato-economic index,which all try to explain Chinese self-construals.(4)Exploring mechanisms between culture and self-construals.Based on the two main research forms of cultural identity and culture priming,using psychological tests,cultural icon priming method and content analysis method,we explore the relationship mechanism between cultures(Confucian culture,Socialist culture,and Western culture)and self-construals in three studies.The comprehensive results show that Western culture mainly affects the personal factor and equality factor,Confucian culture mainly affects relationality factor and equality factor,and Socialist culture mainly affects collectivity factor.The multi-components of the polycultural self-construals are difficult to give a holistic interpretation basing on one kind culture.Three cultures have specific and shared effects on Chinese self-construals.Chinese self-construals have characteristics of polyculturalism.(5)Exploring the wise function of the polycultural self-construals.This section contains two studies.Study 1 finds a close positive relationship between collectivity factor and wisdom as well as equality factor and wisdom,while relationships between personal factor and wisdom,relationality factor and wisdom,autonomy factor and wisdom all are relatively low.Study 2 explores the role of self-construals in interpersonal conflicts and wisdom based on context-based experiments.It finds that both collectivity factor and equality factor of self-construals can significantly mediate the relationship between conflict types and wisdom,and both affect the occurrence of Solomon's paradox.Therefore,the polycultural self-construals have the function of affecting wisdom.In summary,this paper may have two major contributions:(1)Analyzing Chinese self-construals early research history systematically could contribute to the history of psychology;(2)A new theory of self-construals explored with theoretical and empirical methods could provide new knowledge for understanding Chinese self-construals.