Abstract
This investigation compares and contrasts the personality make-up of young Chinese adults in Taiwan, urban and rural China. Utilizing the California Psycho logical Inventory, we assessed their degree of internality, norm-abiding tendency, and self-actualization. Given the presence of greater Western influence, opportunities and tolerance for deviation in Taiwan versus the PRC, and in urban versus rural China, it was hypothesized that Taiwan respondents would show the greatest deviation from traditional Chinese traits (ie. score most externally-oriented, least norm-abiding and most actualized), followed by urban Chinese, with rural Chinese remaining the most traditional. We found the three groups to differ in the expected direction on norm-abiding tendency, reflective of differential exposure to and tolerance for deviation from prevailing norms in the three settings. The Taiwan sample scored more actualized than the PRC samples, reflective of the presence of greater opportunities in Taiwan. The three groups did not differ on internality, but all showed increasing externality, approximating the level reported by young European American adults.
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