Personal Growth And Self-Construal:the Impact Of A Group Psycho-Educational Program On The Self-Construal Of Chinese Adolescents

The main focus of this study is two relatively new concepts introduced by Markus and Kitayama (1991):the independent and interdependent self-construal, and their relationship with personal growth. The independent self-construal refers to the view of the self that emphasizes’separateness’from the collective,’internal attributes, and uniqueness of individuals’; the interdependent self-construal refers to the view of the self that stresses ’connectedness, social context and relationships’(Singelis1994). The cross-cultural research gives a great importance to the distinction between these two different self-views, since individuals with one and the other type of self-view differ from each other in cognition, affect, motivation and behavior, and each of these two types of self-construal were found more common in individualistic and in collectivistic cultures respectively. However, a growing body of research supports the idea that individuals may hold both of these two images of the self simultaneously (Singelis et al.1999).The central assumption of the present research is that the independent self-construal can be related to personal growth of an individual as an autonomous person, and the interdependent self-construal can be related to personal growth of an individual as a member of a group:the more mature an individual is-as both an autonomous person and a member of a group, the more will view him/herself as both autonomous (independent) and related to the group (interdependent).To test this assumption, a quasi-experimental research study was designed. The experimental group of49adolescents in Mainland China attended a group psycho-educational program called’B-and-B Program’. Its goal was to facilitate the personal growth of its participants. The contents of the program included cognitive-behavioral techniques, visual arts, music, drama and game activities. There was also a highly comparable control group of47adolescents. Before and after the experimental group attended the’B-and-B Program’, both groups completed the six measurement instruments of the study:the Self-Construal Scale (SCS)(Singelis1994), a revised Self-Construal Scale (revised in order to increase the scale’s consistency from a developmental point of view), the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg1979), the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al.1998), the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS)(Law et al.2004), and the Cross-Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory-Adolescent version (CPAI-A, Form A)(Cheung et al.2005).The results support the central assumption of the study:the experimental group scored significantly higher on both independent and interdependent self-construal scales at the post-test, when controlled for pre-test, than the control group. Moreover, the self-construals were positively associated with selected markers of personal maturity, namely Self-Esteem, Trait Emotional Intelligence, Novelty, Enterprise, Diversity, Divergent Thinking, Leadership, Extraversion, Social Sensitivity, Responsibility, Relationship Orientation, Harmony, Self-Acceptance and Optimism. However, contrary to the expectations, when the original Self-Construal Scale was used, the independent self-construal was positively associated also with Defensiveness, and when the revised Self-Construal Scale was used, the interdependent self-construal was positively associated also with Need for Attention. The last two relationships might be related to measurement limitations.In addition, the independent self-construal measured by the revised Self-Construal Scale had stronger positive associations (without statistical significance) with more markers of personal maturity than the independent self-construal measured by the original Self-Construal Scale. There was no difference in this regard between the interdependent self-construal subscales. It can be concluded that the revised Self-Construal Scale responded slightly better to the expectations made from the developmental point of view than the original Self-Construal Scale. The Conclusion includes implications, especially for psycho-education, and suggestions for further research.