The Individual- And Social-Oriented Chinese Bicultural Self: A Subcultural Analysis Contrasting Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese

Abstract

The previously proposed and tested bicultural self theory (Lu, 2007a; Lu & Yang, 2006) was further extended to mainland Chinese in the People's Republic of China, and potential subcultural differences across the Chinese strait were explored. Results indicated that mainland Chinese generally endorsed various aspects of the individual-oriented self more strongly, but the two groups across the strait were not different in their overall endorsement of the social-oriented self. As social orientation is rooted in traditional Chinese conceptualization of the self and the individual orientation is brought in with modern Western influences, this pattern of differentiation was understood in the context of both common heritage and differing phases of societal modernization in mainland China and Taiwan. In addition, a brief version (24 items) of the “Individual- and Social-oriented Self” scale (ISS; Lu, 2007a, 2007b) was successfully constructed, and its reliability and validity mirrored its original full version of 40 items.

The Impact of Intrinsic Motivation on The Effectiveness of Leadership Style towards on Work Engagement

“…The changing view of the self in Chinese societies suggests an individual's needs include autonomy, competence and comradery which can affect an individual's intrinsic motivation (Molix and Nichols, 2013;Guntert, 2015). Thus, the bicultural self may provide a means of explaining a set of needs that must be met for intrinsic motivation to increase (Lu, Kao, Chang, Wu & Zhang, 2008). This situation suggests that modern Chinese organizations would have to make changes (e.g., implement reward systems) to fulfill their employees' needs if they want to improve organizational efficiency and productivity.…”

Culture, Self, and Subjective Well-Being: Cultural Psychological and Social Change Perspectives

“…In a more fine grained examination of the sub-cultural differences between Taiwanese and mainland Chinese on their constructs of the self, we noted that while the two groups were not different in social-oriented self, mainland Chinese endorsed more strongly on individual-oriented self than Taiwanese (Lu, Kao, Chang, Wu, & Zhang, 2008). There is a growing body of literature suggesting that Mainland Chinese are perhaps the most "modern" of the Chinese groups around (Leung & Bond, 2004;Lu & Gilmour, 2004a), and are catching up fast with their newly encountered Western influence.…”

“…Nonetheless, more systematic and fine grained analysis is needed to look at the exact process and dynamism of such cultural integration as well as its functional values. In view of social change and psychological transformation, as the Chinese people are becoming increasingly individual-oriented in general Lu et al, 2008), we may expect that individual-oriented cultural conceptions of SWB will have an increasingly stronger hold on the Chinese mind, and individual-oriented ways to achieve happiness will more evidently manifest in the Chinese behaviors.…”

Two selves and online forums in China

“…In this paper we have presented exploratory content analyses of two of the main Chinese BBS forums with the purpose of investigating how bi-cultural selves are currently emerging in China (Lu, 2008;Lu et al, 2008). Chinese BBS forums are ideal places, as media studies suggest, to explore the quick societal transformations happening in China (Dioale & Seda, 2001;Lu, 1997; Ng et al, 2002; Tsui & Rich, 2002).…”

“…This is a very relevant issue since, as Riesman (1961) wrote, each society builds the social character it needs. Our investigations draw on the development of what this scholar called social character, and in particular on the bi-cultural self model (Lu, 2008;Lu, Kao, Chang, Wu & Jin, 2008). On the basis of this model, we assume that opposite cultural orientations currently coexist in China.…”