Cross-Cultural Study On The Dis/Similarities Of Cultural Values Between Chinese And British Youths

With the rapid development of globalization, cooperation and exchanges between China and Britain have increasingly deepened in recent years. However, cultural differences, especially the differences of cultural values, have inevitably resulted in disagreement and difficulties during their cross-cultural communication. Thus, awareness of the differences of cultural values between two nations matters a lot to their exchanges. Nowadays, international youth hostels have been the gathering places of young people from various countries in the world and one of the most frequent places where cross-cultural communication takes place. Taking Chinese and British youth customers in int’l youth hostels as research subjects, the present thesis attempts to explore the similarities and differences of cultural values between Chinese and British youths.With methods of web text content analysis and questionnaire survey, the author first explored the model of perceived value dimensions of Chinese and British youth customers, then identified the similarities and differences of cultural values between Chinese and British youths through analyzing the similarities and differences of the levels of importance of perceived value dimensions between two groups of subjects, at last explained the cultural reasons for the dis/similarities with theories of Hofstede’ value dimensions and the Kluckhohns and Strodtbeck’s value orientations.Through content analysis, independent-samples t-test, and comparative study, the main results of the current thesis are as follows: the similarity of cultural values between two groups of subjects is that both Chinese and British youths are easily affected by halo effect; the differences are that Chinese youths lay stress on holistic view, emotions, safety, the harmony with nature, and fuzzy verbal expressions; while British youths emphasize the details, utilities, equality, exchange activities, and accurate verbal expressions.To sum up, the present thesis has enriched empirical research of youth cultural values in the field of cross-cultural communication and has provided suggestions for youth hostels and a good reference for the future study of youth cultural values.