| “At the individual level, values express broad, trans-situational motivational goals, affecting individuals’interpretation of situations, preferences, choices, and action”(Knafo, Roccas,&Sagiv,2011). The study ofinter-/cross-cultural values is one of the inner cores of inter-/cross-cultural communication studies. The study ofvalues from the perspective of cross-cultural psychology mainly aims to identify the differences and similaritiesof structures of psychological constructs at the individual or country level (e.g., Hofstede,1980,2010; Schwartz,1992,2006a; Schwartz et al.,2012). Besides searching for universals in values structure or differences in valuedimensions, studies by employing a lexical approach to study the culture-specific structures of values in differentcultures/languages have increased in recent years (Aavik&Allik,2002; Renner,2003a; De Raad&VanOudenhoven,2008).Within this academic context, this doctoral dissertation, from the perspective of indigenous andcross-cultural psychology, has investigated the individual-level values dimensions and structure of Chinesepeople in a bottom-up way by administering a psycholexically-based near-exhaustive Chinese Values Inventory topost-90s undergraduate students and then compared the lexically derived structure with the universal structuredeveloped by Shalom Schwartz so as to identify the culture-specifics of Chinese values. The lexical approach isbased on this lexical hypothesis: Those individual differences that are most salient and socially relevant inpeople’s lives will eventually become encoded into their language (Galton,1884, cited in John, Angleitner,&Ostendorf,1988, p.174). Individual differences like personality and values will be encoded and sedimented in thelanguage in which they reside.Based on critical evaluation of previous studies on the Chinese values structure, the dissertation proposestwo general hypotheses.H1: Like in the study of personality traits, clearly interpretable dimensions of Chinese values could be foundon the basis of the lexical approach.H2: The indigenously-derived dimensions of Chinese values partially overlap with Schwartz’s universalframework, demonstrating the culture-specifics.To put it in the form of questions, the dissertation addresses three broad but interrelated questions withsucceeding studies:RQ1: With the lexical analysis used, what values can be selected from modern Chinese language,specifically the Dictionary of Modern Chinese?(Study One)RQ2: What factors or dimensions characterize the population of young adult Chinese (Chineseundergraduate university students)? How are Chinese values structured? Are there any differences on thesefactors across gender？(Study Two) Can this structure be confirmed in a new dataset?(Study Three)RQ3: In what way does the new structure differ from or agree with Schwartz’s well-established universalvalue theory? Are there any cultural-specifics that the universal values fail or only partly to include?(StudyFour)The body of the dissertation was composed of four interrelated studies. Study One is analytic, andqualitative. It first broadly identified315value expressions from a representative Dictionary of Modern Chinese to develop an initial Chinese Values Inventory. Study Two conducted a PCA with half of the data (n=429) andmeanwhile used the other half of the data (n=407) to examine whether the factors derived in the previous studycould be replicated. Only on the basis of successful replication of stable factors, further PCA analyses wereconducted for each factor to derive sub-factors. A lexically-based Chinese Values Scale was constructed byextracting5-10marker values with high loadings from each sub-factor. After that, gender differences on eachfactor and sub-factor were examined. Study Three ascertained the structure of the emic LCVS with a new dataset.Study Four related the emically-derived scale LCVS with the etic scale SVS (n=427). All the self-rating datawere analyzed by SPSS18.0, Hudap6.0and AMOS7.0.The results indicated that:1. Three hundreds and fifteen value expressions were identified from a representative dictionary of Chineseeveryday language, which virtually covers the full domain of values of in the Chinese language or represented ina dictionary.2. The Chinese values structure is composed of five factors and ten sub-factors: Factor I Moderation andCollectivism (Factor I-1Moderation and Factor I-2Collectivism), Factor II Warmth (Factor II-1InterpersonalWarmth and Factor II-2Familial Warmth), Factor III Enterprise (Factor III-1Aggressiveness and Factor III-2Inclusivity, Factor IV Prestige and Power (Factor IV-1Achievement and Factor IV-2Power), and Factor VConservatism and Contentment (Factor V-1Conservatism and Factor V-2Contentment). The stability of thefactorial structure was confirmed by the replication study and also the confirmatory factor analysis in Study Three.Based on407responses to the Chinese Values Inventory developed for the study, a65-item Lexically-basedself-report Chinese Values Scale (LCVS) was developed by retaining5-10marker values with high loadings fromeach sub-factor. The scale was turned out to have acceptable reliability, divergent, and convergent validity.3. Gender had a significant impact on Factor III Enterprise, Factor IV Prestige and Power, Factor III-1Aggressiveness, Factor IV-2Power, and Factor II-1Interpersonal Warmth. Men scored significantly higher thanwomen on Factor III Enterprise, Factor IV Prestige and Power, Factor III-1Aggressiveness, Factor IV-2Powerwhile women scored significantly higher than men on II-1Interpersonal Warmth.4. Schwartz’s individual-level cross-cultural values theory was basically confirmed though with somedeviations. The Schwartz two-dimensional structure was also confirmed by the culture-specific measure LCVS.That indicates that though the ways of grouping LCVS and SVS items were different, they overlap at thehigher-order level.5. Factor I Moderation and Collectivism and Factor V Conservatism and Contentment were not wellpredicted from Schwartz’s value types while Schwartz’s value types Hedonism and Self-direction were not wellpredicted from the LCVS scales. The Schwartz SVS aims to measure the universality of basic human valuecontents and structure while the LCVS aims to examine the culture-specifics of Chinese values structure.Though different in terms of values content, they overlap to some extent.The innovation of this dissertation is: It attempted to combine language, culture (values) andpsychological structure together to study cross-cultural values study from an indigenous and cross-culturalpsychological perspectives, breaking away from the trend most of the studies in China’s IC circle typically focusaround languages to study IC; It first derived an emic structure of Chinese values, and then related the emicallyderived culture-specific values structure with the etic framework proposed by Shalom Schwartz to test and complement his theory. Methodologically, a lexical approach was applied to the Chinese values research.The major contributions are: The research proposed a lexically-based dimensionality of Chinese values,which confirmed Schwartz’s individual-level cross-culturally and empirically tested values theory on thehigher-order level. The Lexically-based Chinese Values Scale developed on the basis of a stable structure of fivebroad factors and ten sub-factors can identify and demonstrate culture-specifics of Chinese values. Thoughdifferent in terms of content coverage and ways of grouping, the LCVS and SVS have the same underlyingtwo-dimensional structure. |
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