| After 155 years of British colonial rule,Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 and became the special administrative region of People's Republic of China(PRC)under the principle of “One Country,Two Systems”.In the 20 years' period of time since the reunion,with the economic,political and cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and the Mainland China deepening,frictions and conflicts between people of the two regions have occurred.This has drawn widespread attention from media and academia.The Hong Kong's youth shoulder the heavy responsibility of developing Hong Kong in the new era.Their pursuit of ideals has a direct bearing on the future prosperity of Hong Kong and the peaceful unification of China.Therefore,it is an inevitable goal to promote the mutual understanding and integration of the youth of today between both regions through exchanges and activities,and especially to promote the Hong Kong youth's understanding of Chinese culture and current reality.Taking the intergroup contact theory and Common Ingroup Identity Model as the theoretical bases,this thesis aims to explore the impact of the intergroup contact between local Hong Kong university students and the mainland Chinese on HK students' attitudes towards the mainland Chinese as well as the conditions and mechanisms for this effect to occur.In the study,local university students in Hong Kong are selected as the research subjects.A total of 77 questionnaires were collected and then analyzed by SPSS,a statistical tool.The findings of the study are as follows.Firstly,Hong Kong students tend to hold a slightly positive attitude towards mainland Chinese and show a moderate level of national identity.By Independent Sample T-Test and one-way ANOVA,it is found that undergraduate students have more positive intergroup contact,stronger national identity and better perspective taking than students with other education background.Meanwhile,the scores students who were born in mainland China get show significantly better tendency in all tested variables than students who were born in Hong Kong.Secondly,given that contact research in China is scarce,this study applied intergroup contact theory into the context of China and proved that contact with the mainland Chinese has positive impact on the Hong Kong university students' attitude.Furthermore,it is quality of contact rather than Contact Quantity that is the more robust predictor of positive outgroup attitudes.Thirdly,it is found that intergroup anxiety,perspective taking and national identity mediate the relationship between positive contact and intergroup attitude.When participants feel less anxious,stand in the mainland Chinese's shoes to think and have strong sense of national identity,intergroup contact will have a positive impact on their attitudes.Fourthly,the study revealed that anxiety and empathy are negatively related.This suggests that increased intergroup anxiety is related to lessened perspective taking.Lastly,the current findings indicated that Hong Kong university students' national identity is positively correlated with their attitude towards mainland Chinese.The strong national identity they identify themselves,the more positive attitude they will hold.Based on the above findings,this paper proposes to further strengthen the cultural exchange activities between young people in Hong Kong and Mainland China.It is also recommended to promote national education and enhance Hong Kong Chinese national identity.Finally,to raise the intercultural communication skills and the civility of the mainland Chinese who come to Hong Kong can not be ignored as well.These measures will be conducive to promoting good communication between the youth in Hong Kong and mainland Chinese and contribute to the improvement of cross-Strait relations. |
PDF Full Text Request