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This study examined the circular structure of values in China. The circular structure is a central element of Schwartz value theory and visualises the idea that some values are similar while others conflict with one another. Whereas numerous studies addressed the question whether the circular structure of values can be generalised cross‐culturally, results for China are inconclusive. In this paper, we argue that taking a closer look at China provides a challenge to the circular structure and allows for drawing conclusions regarding the limits versus generalizability of Schwartz' theory. For this purpose, we first conduct a re‐analysis of Chinese data from a former meta‐analysis (Study 1) and second, present results from a large study of 10,652 Chinese college students (Study 2). Results of Study 1 revealed that graphical representation of the circular structure matched theoretical expectations but five out of six samples showed relatively bad fit to the theorised structure. By contrast, data in Study 2 showed a good model fit. As an overall conclusion, the circular structure is well supported in the Chinese context, and small sample sizes in previous studies might have caused the imperfect match to the prototypical circular structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, rapid economic growth and increasing social problems constitute two basic characteristics of contemporary social change. During the process of dramatic social change, an emerging question is how adolescents’ mental health has changed across birth cohorts. The present paper reviews four studies of crosstemporal meta-analysis conducted by us. By meta-analysis of previous literature, we examined changes in mean scores on mental health measures over time (from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s). It was found that since the early 1990s, Chinese adolescents’ mental health deteriorated across birth cohorts, shown in increased scores on the negative indicators of mental health (e.g. mental problems, anxiety, and depression), whereas self-esteem as a positive trait decreased. The dropping trend in Chinese adolescents’ mental health could be attributed to social change, especially increasing social problems. Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to potential influences of social change on individuals’ psychological development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the results of three studies that investigated the nature of forgiveness, its measurement, and personality correlates in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Study 1 involved in-depth interviews with 27 PRC cultural scholars about the concept of forgiveness and factors influencing the tendency to forgive in Chinese philosophy and everyday life. The respondents supported the relevance of this concept for Chinese societies and were able to give examples both from classical Chinese texts and their own lives. However, they also considered that preserving group harmony was the main reason to forgive and discounted the personality or religious influences commonly reported in the Western literature. Study 2 reported the adaptation of a Western forgiveness questionnaire for use with PRC respondents. Study 3 involved administering this questionnaire together with measures of self-esteem, anxiety, impression management, and culturally appropriate constructs of face, relationship orientation, and harmony to 336 college students and 432 teachers from the PRC. As predicted, it was the latter two constructs that had the strongest correlations with the tendency to forgive in both samples. It was concluded that, in the PRC, willingness to forgive is influenced largely by social solidarity needs rather than the individualistic personality variables or religiosity reported in Western research. We hypothesize that this is due to the collectivist nature of PRC society and the results may well generalize to other collectivist cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces the articles included in the special of issue of the "International Journal of Psychology" on Chinese psychology. Unique perspective on psychology and psychological issues; Papers reporting contributions made by Chinese psychologists in different fields of psychology; Developmental psychology; Cognitive neuroscience; Chinese language and mathematics learning; Biopsychology.