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Personality factors as cultural specific predictors of anxiety among mainland Chinese and Caucasian American college students

Xie, Dong
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1090422955

Abstract Details

2004, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Psychology.
The present study investigated the cultural specificity of a number of personality constructs in predicting anxiety across 324 Mainland Chinese and 333 Caucasian American college students. The dependent variables were state and trait anxiety, and social anxiety. The personality constructs that were selected and hypothesized to be cultural-specific predictors were (a) harmony, face, family orientation, modernization, and Ah-Q mentality (Defensiveness), (b) membership, private, public, and identity collective self-esteem, (c) independent and interdependent self construal, and (d) self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribe perfectionism. On between group comparisons, the results indicated that Chinese students scored higher on trait anxiety and social anxiety than Caucasian American students, with the largest effect size on social avoidance. The two groups did not differ on state anxiety. On the Chinese personality constructs, Chinese students scored higher on harmony, family orientation, and modernity. On collective self-esteem, Chinese students scored higher on public collective self-esteem but lower on membership, private, and identity collective self-esteem than Caucasian students. On self-construal, Chinese students scored higher on interdependent self-construal but lower on independent self-construal. Chinese students also scored lower on self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism. With respect to within-group relationships, socially prescribed perfectionism was a stronger predictor of trait anxiety for Caucasian students and a stronger predictor of social anxiety for Chinese students. Self-oriented perfectionism only predicted anxiety for Caucasian students but in a negative direction. Independent self-construal predicted anxiety better for Caucasian students than for Chinese students. For collective self-esteem, membership collective self-esteem was a stronger negative predictor of anxiety for Chinese. For the selected Chinese personality constructs, harmony only predicted social avoidance positively for Chinese students. Interestingly, face was a strong predictor of almost all the anxiety measures for Caucasian students, but it did not predict any of the anxiety measures for Chinese students. These results were discussed in terms of cultural variations that reflect the influences of general social-cultural factors on the self. A differential and dynamic perspective was recommended for future research on cross-cultural relevance of personality constructs. Implications regarding counseling were also discussed in terms of providing more culturally responsive treatments of anxiety problems among college students.
Frederick Leong (Advisor)
ANXIETY; CHINESE; trait anxiety; perfectionism; construal; CAUCASIAN; collective self-esteem

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Xie, D. (2004). Personality factors as cultural specific predictors of anxiety among mainland Chinese and Caucasian American college students [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1090422955

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Xie, Dong. Personality factors as cultural specific predictors of anxiety among mainland Chinese and Caucasian American college students. 2004. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1090422955.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Xie, Dong. "Personality factors as cultural specific predictors of anxiety among mainland Chinese and Caucasian American college students." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1090422955

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.