Personality Trait Structure of Shanxi Business-tycoons in the Chinese Ming and Qing Dynasties

Taking lexical hypothesis of personality trait theory as methodology, this paper attempts to give a quantitative analysis on the personality structure of Shanxi business-tycoons in the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties (PSSM) from psychology views. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of data from a sample of 152 effective questionnaires shows that their personalities consisted of four factors, including “honest and righteous”, “wise and confident”, “calm and persevering” and “determined and promising”. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of data from another sample of 305 effective questionnaires further confirmed PSSM factorial validity, and fitting indexes were all reasonable. The above results have indicated the cultural inheritance of personality trait as well as the uniqueness and continuity of regional personality trait.