ARE INDIGENOUS CHINESE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS CULTURE-SPECIFIC? An Investigation of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory in Chinese American and European American Samples

The cross-cultural generalizability of Chinese personality dimensions—in particular, the Interpersonal Relatedness dimension of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI)—was investigated in samples ofChineseAmericans (n = 201) and EuropeanAmericans (n = 236). FourCPAI factors, including Interpersonal Relatedness, replicated very well in a Chinese American sample and fairly well in a European American sample, indicating that these dimensions are not unique to Chinese populations. Lowacculturation Chinese Americans, but not high-acculturation Chinese Americans, averaged higher than European Americans on the Interpersonal Relatedness dimension. This suggested that the Interpersonal Relatedness dimension, although not culture-unique, is more salient in or characteristic of individuals who retain or identify with traditional Chinese culture. Contrary to previous interpretations of the Interpersonal Relatedness dimension in terms of interdependent self-construals, the dimension was only modestly correlated with relational and collective aspects of self, two aspects of interdependent self-construals.