Individualistic And Collectivistic Value Orientations Of Chinese College Students--From The Perspective Of East And West Culture Crossvergence

China was regarded as a predominantly collectivistic or group-oriented country (Gudykunst & Kim,1984;Bond & Hwang,1986;Jia,1997).However,With acceleration of modernization and exchange between eastern and western culture,influx of western individualistic value will undoubtedly exert influence on collectivistic value in China.Considering such sociocultural scenarios of Chinese society,the present study is designed to investigate status quo of value orientations held by college students from the perspective of Eastern and Western culture crossvergence.The research questions are as follows:(1) Are Chinese college students born in 1990s still collectivistic value-oriented?(2)In the course of Chinese modernization,what is the value orientation status quo of Chinese college students?(3)What leads to the value orientation owned by these college students?In present study,we employed Schwartz Value Survey to examine participants' collectivistic and individualistic value orientations at macro-layer,and verbal style questionaire(Whetstone,M.R.,1992;jia 2006) to examine participants' self-enhancement and self-effacement at micro-layer.Hall(E.T.Hall,1991) has classified culture into two kinds of implicit and explicit one.Some scholars(liu 2000; Chen&fan,2008;Robinson,1999) further divided culture at macro and micro-levels. Macro-layer culture was manifested through micro-layer culture(Hofstede,1991; Trompenaars,1997;Levitin,1973;Hu,1988).Self-effacement and self-enhancement verbal styles are reflective of collectivism and individualism respectively(Jia,1997; Fan,2005;Bi,1996;Ting-Toomey,2008). Quantitative and qualitative researches methods were adopted in this study.For quantitative research,76 students from Jiangsu Teachers' University of Technology were randomly selected to examine status quo of their value orientations by Verbal Style Questionnaire at micro-layer and Schwartz Value Survey at macro-layer.Schwartz Value Survey includes ten separated value types of conformity,security,tradition, universalism,and benevolence(collectivistic values),and power,achievement,heroism, stimulation and self-direction(individualistic values).Our major findings of quantitative research are summarized as follows:(1) at the micro-level,although participants still cling to collectivistic values,individualistic values have fabricated into the Chinese society and coexisted with collectivistic values instead of being at two opposite poles.Thus,a crossvergence of both value orientations is confirmed;(2) at the macro-level,conformity and security are two most important collectivistic values,and the rest eight value dimensions are quite similar.In a word, participants have blended the individualistic values with the collectivistic values. Modernization has brought about crossvergence of both cultural value orientations instead of divergence or convergence of value orientations.Thus,these quantitative findings agree to Raltson's cultural crossvergence theory(Ralston,2008;Ralston, et.al.1993).Moreover,six students from 76 participants were interviewed to investigate the reasons leading to status quo of participants' value orientations.Results indicated that students' cultural value orientations were affected by exposure to western culture, intercultural contact,modernization and socioeconomic development,and parental educational styles.It is suggested that modernization and oriental and occidental cultural exchange have brought about a crossvergence of individualistic and collectivistic value orientations,further confirming Raltson's cultural crossvergence theory.In addition,compared to male,female participants assigned a relatively higher priority to conformity,security and benevolence(three collectivistic value types) and achievement(individualistic),further proving Raltson's cultural crossvergence theory.