The Performance of Chinese and Canadian Early and Middle Adolescents on the Individual Differences Questionnaire

Abstract

A reworded version of the Individual Differences Questionnaire (Paivio & Harshman, 1983) was administered to 857 early and middle adolescents in Victoria, Canada and was translated into Mandarin Chinese and given to 600 early and middle adolescents in Shanghai, China. The finding of three imaginal and three verbal factors in the Canadian sample replicated the Paivio and Harshman study; the two major imaginal and verbal factors were replicated in the Chinese sample. Both the Chinese and Canadian adolescent samples, however, indicated an endorsement of imaginal styles of thinking over verbal styles, a finding incongruent with the Paivio and Harshman research measuring Canadian adults who demonstrated a verbal rather than an imaginal preference.