Personality And Cross-cultural Adaptation:a Study Of Chinese Mainland Students In Taiwan In China

Higher education is becoming more and more intercultural as an increasing number of students decide to study in a new cultural context to acquire cutting-edge knowledge and broaden their horizons.Researchers in the field of cross-cultural communication begin to realize the importance of cross-cultural adaptation and conduct corresponding studies so as to better understand the cross-cultural study experiences of those students.Previous studies have focused on exploring social variables such as social support,cultural distance,homestay experiences and other demographic factors that affect an individual’s cross-cultural adaptation while failing to reach a consensus in terms of their predictive power.Some scholars put forward that some other variables might be able to explain the process of cross-cultural adaptation and pay attention to personality traits.In order to keep up with this trend and fill the research gap,the current study aims at investigating the general situation of cross-cultural adaptation among Chinese mainland students in Taiwan and probing into the exact relationship between personality traits and cross-cultural adaptation.The research questions are as follows.(1)What is the overall situation of cross-cultural adaptation among Chinese mainland students in Taiwan?(2)What is the relationship between personality traits and cross-cultural adaptation among Chinese mainland students in Taiwan?The current study invites a total of 111 Chinese mainland students in Taiwan as research subjects to evaluate their situation of cross-cultural adaptation and their personality traits.Cross-cultural adaptation covers their sociocultural and psychological adaptation.Personality traits are measured by using a six-factor model,HEXACO,which include honesty-humility,emotionality,extraversion,agreeableness,consciousness and openness to experience.A total of 97 valid samples are collected.Descriptive analysis and Pearson correlation analysis are conducted to figure out participants’overall situation of cross-cultural adaptation and the relationship between their personality traits and cross-cultural adaptation.Based on previous studies,it is hypothesized that honesty-humility,emotionality,extraversion,agreeableness,consciousness and openness to experience are significantly related to cross-cultural adaptation among Chinese mainland students in Taiwan.Results indicate that the sociocultural and psychological adaptation of Chinese mainland students in Taiwan is quite good.Besides,results also reveal that extraversion,agreeableness and openness to experience are significantly associated with sociocultural adaptation while honesty-humility,emotionality and consciousness barely have effects on it.As for psychological adaptation,it is concluded that all the six factors are meaningfully linked with this facet of cross-cultural adaptation.In short,results from the current study could provide suggestions for teachers at the offices of Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan affairs at both the sending and receiving universities and Chinese mainland students in Taiwan.