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First published online January 1, 2008

Relevance of Openness as a Personality Dimension in Chinese Culture: Aspects of its Cultural Relevance

Abstract

The Openness factor was missing from the original Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI). We used a combined emic—etic approach to generate six culturally relevant Openness scales. In Study 1, the Openness scales were added to the revised CPAI and standardized using a representative sample of 1,911 adults in China and Hong Kong. Factor analysis showed that the Openness scales merged with the original factors of the CPAI. In Study 2, 1,094 Chinese college students took the CPAI-2 and NEO-FFI. Joint factor analyses showed that four of the CPAI-2 Openness scales loaded with the Openness factor of the NEO-FFI. Implications on the meaning of Openness as a personality factor in Chinese culture were discussed.

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1.
1. We adopted four criteria to screen out invalid protocols in the restandardization study: (1) cases younger than 18 or older than 70, or who had attained lower than Grade 6 educational level; (2) if 10% or more of the 600 items were not answered; (3) cases with peculiar response patterns (e.g., more than 30 continuous yes or no answers); (4) cases who scored 12 or higher on the Infrequency scale, or scored 3 or lower on the Response Consistency index, which were two of the original validity scales of the CPAI.
2.
2. Different formats or fonts of the same Chinese characters are customarily used in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Simplified Chinese characters were printed in the Mainland China version and traditional Chinese characters were printed in the Hong Kong version of the questionnaire.
3.
3. The table of the factor analysis of the CPAI-2 is available from the first author.
4.
4. The table of the five-factor solution of the joint factor analysis is available from the first author.
5.
5. We thank a reviewer of an earlier draft for suggesting this approach.
6.
6. The table of the five-factor joint factor analysis using Procrustes rotation is available through the first author.

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Article first published online: January 1, 2008
Issue published: January 2008

Keywords

  1. CPAI-2
  2. Chinese personality
  3. openness

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Authors

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Fanny M. Cheung
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, [email protected]
Shu Fai Cheung
Jianxin Zhang
Chinese Academy of Science
Kwok Leung
City University of Hong Kong
Frederick Leong
Michigan State University
Kuang Huiyeh
Academia Sinica Taiwan

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