Collective Self, Relational Self, And Individual Self Among Chinese

The differences of individuals in diverse cultures are significant and amazing. The root cause of such differences lies in the shaping of a distinct self by a particular culture. According to the connection between a self and his social community, the concept of "self" can be subdivided into three orientations, namely (1) individual self (i.e. regarding oneself as independent, unique and distinct from others); (2) relational self (i.e. emphasizing interpersonal relationship, intimacy and dependence); (3) collective self (i.e. accentuating belongingness to a group, in-group norms, and roles and status set by the group). The "self" can also be explored from the view of implicit and explicit cognition.This study investigated the individual self, relational self and collective self from the point of implicit and explicit cognition among Chinese college students. The results of this study indicated the following:First, the explicit self-orientation of Chinese college students was significantly affected by reference condition or situation, and different measures demonstrated different results. When doing self-description, the subjects showed a tendency of individual orientation, while they shifted to the collective side, when doing the scenario questionnaire. Besides, the results of the scenario questionnaire suggested a distinction between micro-group and macro-group orientations among the subjects, i.e. individual self and relational self were condensed into the micro-group orientation.Second, the subjects displayed a tendency of individual orientation when taking the implicit association test. And there was no significant difference between relational self and collective self, which demonstrates a distinction between "me" and "not me" at the implicit level.Third, the cluster analysis showed that college students' self-types could be divided into three categories:the first category was characterized by scores high on the in-group orientation, low on the collective orientation, and low on the IAT effect of "me" and "not me", which means that individuals with in-group orientation do not separate "me" and "not me" implicitly. The second category scored averagely on the in-group orientation and the collective orientation, and low on the IAT effect of "me" and "not me", which demonstrates that there is no clear-cut between "me" and "not me" implicitly among individuals complying with the Golden Mean. The third category scored high on the collective orientation, low on the in-group orientation, and high on the IAT effect of "me" and "not me", which shows this category is collectivism on the surface, yet individualism in bones.Such result show that the self of Chinese objects is characterized by Chinese culture which could not be explained by individualism and collectivism frame usually adopted in cross-cultural research. And the conclusions of this investigation is enlightening for the further study of Chinese self.