Exploring the Dimensions of Chinese Person Perception with Indigenous and Imported Constructs: Creating a Culturally Balanced Scale

Abstract

This research compares the relative effectiveness of imported and indigenous measures of personality perception for Hong Kong Chinese. The first study reports on the extraction of six factors of self‐perception using bipolar, adjective rating scales from the U.S.A. tapping the Big Five (Digman, 1990), and Openness to Experience (McCrae & Costa, 1985; 1987). The second study reports on the extraction of six factors of self‐perception derived from scales developed indigenously by Chinese psychologists. In the third study, the overlap of the imported and the indigenous dimensions is examined, and their relative power in explaining various criterion measures is assessed. The imported factors adequately explained all but one of the indigenous factors, although in complex combinations. Neither scale was better than the other in predicting the criterion variables. Imported measures may cut the phenomenal world differently from indigenous measures, but still enable scientists to predict behaviours just as effectively. In consequence, if replicated with other criterion variables, the present results would challenge the investment required to develop local instrumentation on scientific grounds.

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