Cross-cultural validity of the masculine and feminine gender role stress scales

The objective was to examine the usefulness of Dutch versions of the Masculine Gender Role Stress (MGRS; Eisler & Skidmore, 1987) Scale and the Feminine Gender Role Stress (Gillespie & Eisler, 1992) Scale in The Netherlands. Undergraduate students (N = 2,239) completed both gender role stress scales. A subgroup (n = 508) also completed questionnaires about masculinity-femininity and daily hassles. With regard to both gender role stress scales, results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the original 5-factor structures and revealed no cross-sex differences on the factor models. Reliability and homogeneity indexes were all well within acceptable to satisfactory limits. Further evidence of construct validity was found in (a) medium to large correlations with daily hassles, (b) sex differences on the FGRS scale, and (c) small to medium correlations with masculinity-femininity. The major discrepancy with previous studies was that for Dutch female and male students, the MGRS scale was not sex specific. Taken together, this study sustained the utility of both gender role stress scales for use in The Netherlands.     

A comparative study of personality in adults and children: Hong Kong vs England

The 90-item adult version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was translated into Chinese and administered to 270 male and 462 female subjects in Hong Kong. In a second study the 81-item version of the Junior EPQ (JEPQ) was translated into Chinese and given to 698 boys and 629 girls.Reasonably valid scales for use in Hong Kong are suggested for both adult and junior forms of the questionnaire. In a direct comparison of British and Chinese (Hong Kong) groups, using reduced scales comprising only items both scoring keys had in common. Hong Kong adults scored higher on Psychoticism and Social Desirability and lower on Extraversion than the British while children from Hong Kong scored lower on Extraversion and Neuroticism but higher on Social Desirability than their British counterparts. Indices of factor comparison were universally high, indicating that the major dimensions of personality were very similar in Hong Kong Chinese as in British subjects.     

Measuring Hong Kong Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Towards Transpeople

Hill and Willoughby’s (Sex Roles, 53:531–544, 2005) Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS), originally developed in Canada, was examined with a Hong Kong sample. Undergraduate students, 82 female and 121 male (total n?=?203), completed a Chinese version of the instrument. Overall scores and factor structure of the Hong Kong sample were compared with Hill and Willoughby’s Canadian data. Gender differences in transphobia were investigated, both in terms of the participants’ gender as well as the gender of the gender variant persons to whom GTS items referred. Transphobia was higher in Hong Kong than in Canada. The factor structure for Hong Kong differed from Canada. Five factors were identified (with a gender effect on Factors II and V). They were: I, Anti Sissy Prejudice; II, Anti Trans Violence; III, Trans Unnaturalness; IV, Trans Immorality; and V, Background Genderism. Hong Kong men were more transphobic than women. Gender variance in men was viewed less favourably than in women.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FEMININE GENDER ROLE STRESS, BODY IMAGE, AND EATING DISORDERS

The Feminine Gender Role Stress (FGRS) scale was used in two studies to determine whether eating disorders could be linked to the cognitive tendency among women to appraise specific situations as highly stressful because of rigid adherence to the traditional feminine gender role. Study 1 showed the FGRS scale could distinguish eating disorders from other psychiatric disorders in an inpatient setting and from normal college women. This suggests that women who have eating disorders report higher than usual levels of stress as a result of rigid adherence to the traditional feminine gender role. Study 2 looked at cardiovascular reactivity to a "feminine" (i.e., body image threat) and a control stressor and determined the FGRS scale could predict which women are threatened by feminine stressors. Results from these studies suggest feminine gender role stress may be the missing link between cultural values of femininity and vulnerability for eating disorders.     

Gender differences in life satisfaction and spiritual health among the junior immigrant and local Hong Kong secondary students

This article examines differences in life satisfaction and spiritual health (SH) between male and female and between immigrant and local Chinese junior secondary students in Hong Kong. Both the Multi-Dimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) and Spiritual Health and Life Orientation Measure (SHALOM) were employed. The sample comprised 6917 junior secondary students, aged 12–15. Results indicate that gender differences exist in specific domain scores of MSLSS and SHALOM. Overall, girls reported higher levels of life satisfaction and SH than boys. Segmented and differentiated interaction effects were identified. Greater interaction effects with regard to religious affiliation were noted among SA students compared to Hong Kong Chinese and CIS. Religious Chinese immigrant boys scored higher on their personal–communal combined life satisfaction but lower on their transcendental well-being compared to their Hong Kong counterparts. Significant parental education and family income moderation effects were only observed on the SH of local Chinese girls.     

Psychometric comparison of Chinese and English versions of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire with bilingual Hong Kong Chinese students

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) assesses two emotion regulation (ER) strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Researchers have used the ERQ in cross-national studies, such as with participants in Hong Kong. There is inconsistency in psychometric equivalence data for the ERQ in Chinese among adults, and prior research in Hong Kong contradicted the ERQ's original factor structure (Matsumoto et al., 2008). The present study examined the factor structure, reliability and validity of a translated Traditional Chinese-ERQ and the English-ERQ with Hong Kong college students. Results revealed that both versions replicated the original two-factor structure of the ERQ (Gross & John, 2003). Evidence of the measure's convergent, discriminant and predictive validity was obtained as well. Implications for cross-cultural scale validation particularly with Hong Kong Chinese students are discussed.     

Responses to Injustice in Popular Chinese Sayings and among Hong Kong Chinese Students

Abstract

Three studies were conducted in an investigation of how people in Chinese societies react to injustice. In Study 1, 293 Chinese sayings concerning injustice coping were subject to content analysis. In Study 2, 10 male and 10 female Hong Kong Chinese high school students indicated whether they had heard of the sayings in Study 1 and whether they agreed with them. In Study 3, 342 Hong Kong Chinese college students reported how they felt and what they did to reduce the injustice feeling they recently came across concerning an injustice. In Study 1, responses to injustices suggested by the Chinese sayings were dominated by cognitive reappraisal and alignment with external, metaphysical forces to maintain the perception of a just world; confrontation was generally discouraged. In Study 2 and Study 3, even among the highly Westernized Hong Kong Chinese students, the pattern of justice coping revealed in the popular sayings still prevailed.     

Chinese Short Form of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire: Construct and Concurrent Validity

This paper evaluated the construct and concurrent validity of a Chinese short form of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, which measures instrumentality and expressivity as independent traits. In Study 1, 293 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates completed the scale. Factor analysis revealed two independent factors, instrumentality and expressivity. In Study 2, 269 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates completed the scale together with the dominance and nurturance scales of the Personality Research Form and Gudykunst’s Self-Construal Scale. Exploratory factor analysis replicated the bidimensional structure of the scale. Instrumentality correlated with independent self-construal and dominance, whereas expressivity correlated with interdependent self-construal and nurturance. Gender differences in item scores overall conformed to theoretical expectations. The findings indicate that the scale produces valid and reliable scores.     

Clinical validation of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory

The clinical validity of the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI; F. M. Cheung, K. Leung, et al., 1996) was examined in 2 studies involving a group of 167 male prisoners in Hong Kong and a group of 339 psychiatric patients in China. Elevated scores on the clinical scales were obtained for the clinical samples. Logistic regression analyses confirmed that the CPAI scales were useful in differentiating between male prisoner and the Hong Kong male normative sample and between psychiatric patients and a random sample of normal adults in China. Multivariate analyses of variance results showed significant differences on the CPAI clinical scales and personality scales among subgroups of psychiatric patients with diagnoses of bipolar, schizophrenic, and neurotic disorders. The usefulness of an indigenous personality inventory is discussed.     

Psychometric properties of Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gay Men Scale with Chinese university students

The 10-item Attitudes Towards Lesbian and Gay Men Scale was translated into traditional Chinese, with slight modification in item wordings (by replacing the words such as "lesbians" with "female homosexuals" and "gay men" with "male homosexuals"). Data were collected with a convenient sample of 462 Chinese undergraduate students in social work training programmes from three Hong Kong universities. Analysis of the data showed responses to the scale and its two subscales were internally consistent and a one-factor structure was found on the total scale and separately on each of its two subscales. Differences by religious belief and sex were observed using the total scale scores, as in previous studies using this scale. Researchers could consider using this scale with Hong Kong Chinese and in subsequent cross-cultural studies involving a wider range of Chinese respondents.     

Characteristics and Predictors of Romantic Relationships in Late Adolescence and Young Adulthood in Hong Kong and Australia

The aim of this study was to examine occurrence of romantic relationships and relationship break‐ups among young adults in Hong Kong and Australia and to explore associations between relationship style, identity status, negative affect, cultural group, and relationship experiences. Data were collected from Chinese tertiary students in Hong Kong (n = 279) and Anglo‐Australian tertiary students in Melbourne, Australia (n = 204). Participants completed a questionnaire including demographics, romantic relationship items, the Love Schemas Scale measuring romantic relationship style, the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. Secure relationship style and more mature identity statuses were associated with having had a romantic relationship. Among those young people with romantic relationship experience, break‐ups were less common for those with a foreclosed identity status, skittish (avoidant) relationship style, and Hong Kong Chinese background. Negative mood was higher among those for whom a break‐up had been recent. Hurt experienced following a break‐up was greater when the break‐up was partner initiated and among those with less secure relationship styles and identity statuses. Overall, individual factors were stronger predictors of relationship status than cultural factors.     

Measuring post-traumatic stress: A psychometric evaluation of symptom- and coping questionnaires based on a Norwegian sample

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the Norweigian versions of the Impact of Event Scale, the Post Traumatic Stress Scale-10 item version and General Coping Questionnaire-30 item version. A group of 40 male and 56 female medical students was tested one week and four months after having started dissection of cadavers for the first time. The results showed that all scales had good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The student sample scored lower on the IES and PTSS-10 than comparable groups of traumatized subjects. A gender difference emerged, with female subjects scoring higher than male subjects. The factor analysis of the instruments indicated good construct validity for the symptom scales. The analysis of content validity related to DSM IV criteria indicated that the IES and PTSS-10 may have some limitations in their predictive validity of PTSD. Taken together, the three scales have shown good psychometric properties and could be used in future research and clinical work.     

Measuring sex-role stereotypes: Attitudes among Hong Kong Chinese adolescents and the development of the Chinese sex-role inventory

A cross-cultural study of adolescent sex-role stereotypes illustrates possible methodological solutions to problems in measuring sex-role identification. A study was conducted with a sample of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents to develop a rating scale that would (1) define the sex-role stereotypes held by adolescents in Hong Kong and (2) serve as a measure of identification with sex-role stereotypes valid for use with Hong Kong samples. The Chinese Sex-Role Inventory (CSRI) was constructed, therefore, following the procedures of Bem in the creation of the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Creation of the CSRI illustrates the feasibility and value of using such procedures in research with adolescents in any society.This report is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the faculty of Harvard University. The research was supported by a National Research Service Award, National Institutes of Health Grant 5-T32-MH14088, awarded to Beatrice and John Whiting to support graduate research in cross-cultural child development.     

Relationship Between Work Performance and Personality Traits in Hong Kong Organizational Settings

Four hundred and thirty‐seven employees from four Hong Kong organizations completed the Traditional Chinese versions of the Fifteen Factor Personality Questionnaire Plus (15FQ+) and the Cross‐Cultural Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI‐2) (indigenous scales) and provided objective and memory‐based recent performance appraisal scores. A number of significant bivariate correlations were found between personality and performance scores. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that a number of the scales from the 15FQ+ contributed to significantly predicting four of the performance competency dimensions, but that the CPAI‐2 indigenous scales contributed no incremental validity in performance prediction over and above the 15FQ+. Results are discussed in the light of previous research and a call made for continued research to further develop and increase the reliability of the Chinese instruments used in the study and to enable generalization of the findings with confidence.     

Life Satisfaction and Self-Assessed Health Among Adolescents in Hong Kong

Self-assessed health in four items of the Health Related Quality of Life Scale, overall health, physical health, mental health, and activity limitation, and perceived life satisfaction in six domains of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale, overall life, family life, friendships, school experience, myself, and where I live were examined among 4,502 Chinese adolescent secondary school students in Hong Kong. Relative to the US adolescents in Youth Risk Behavior Survey the Hong Kong adolescents had very low levels of self-assessed health and life satisfaction. Among the different domains, family and school life were associated with the lowest satisfaction level. There were strong male advantages in self-assessed health and migrant disadvantages in life satisfaction. Age was negatively related to both health and life satisfaction. Two-parent family was a positive factor for adolescents’ quality of life but economic well-being was not a relevant factor.     

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

This study was designed to examine the impact of sexual harassment on Hong Kong Chinese women in the workplace and in college. Questionnaires assessing sexual harassment incidents experienced by self, perceived prevalence of sexual harassment in the organization, job or study satisfaction, and organizational commitment were completed by 77 female secretaries and 84 female college students in Hong Kong. Consistent with our hypotheses, personal experience of sexual harassment was found to be negatively associated with respondent satisfaction with their jobs or studies. However, these experiences were found to be unrelated to organizational commitment. In addition, most of the coping strategies adopted by the harassment victims tended to be nonassertive in nature. As one of the few systematic sexual harassment studies on Chinese working women and female students, we interpret our findings from an indigenous perspective and discuss both theoretical as well as applied implications for research in this area.     

Interrelationships between anxiety,lifestyle self-reports and fitness in a sample of Hong Kong University students

Although anxiety in university students has been well documented, the influence of lifestyle and fitness status in relation to anxiety has not been investigated from a cultural perspective previously. To make recommendations regarding the avoidance or management of anxiety in this anxiety-prone cohort that are rationally based, this preliminary investigation examined the interrelationship between anxiety, lifestyle self-reports and aerobic fitness in Hong Kong Chinese University students. The State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y-2) and a lifestyle questionnaire were completed by 213 students. Female students were more anxious than male students. Subjects with high anxiety reported more deleterious lifestyle behaviours including higher salt consumption and lower levels of exercise; in addition to more frequent symptoms of anxiety such as headaches and daytime somnolence. The extremes of this sample were stratified into a low anxiety group (n = 17) and a high anxiety group (n = 14) to compare their fitness status. Although both groups had below normal aerobic capacity, the higher systolic blood pressure observed for the high anxiety group is consistent with signs of anxiety, or greater deconditioning in this group or both. The results of this study have highlighted anxiety as a concern in Hong Kong University students and identified some lifestyle and fitness correlates. Understanding lifestyle and pathophysiological correlates of anxiety in Hong Kong University students that may have a cultural basis, is a crucial step toward averting or managing anxiety when these students are studying either in Hong Kong or abroad.     

Gender Role Internalization, Multiple Roles, and Chinese Women's Mental Health

The influence of gender role internalization as a moderator in the relationship between women's multiple roles and psychological distress was investigated. Study 1 identified three components of gender role internalization, which were labeled "Traditional Ideal Person,""Self-sacrifice," and "Competence without Complaint," and found that it did not overlap with existing gender-typed measures among 128 female Chinese university students. The multidimensionality of gender role internalization was confirmed in Study 2 among a sample of 225 women in the paid Hong Kong workforce. As expected, role quality was a better predictor of psychological distress than role quantity. Gender role internalization accounted for significant portions of explained variance even after taking role quality into account. Internalization of Traditional Ideal Person and Competence without Complaint messages exacerbated distress in certain areas when role quality was low. However, internalization of Self-Sacrifice messages mitigated distress for Chinese women with low work quality.     

香港中学生人格特质的性别差异及其发展性分析

本文报告了新近发展的跨文化（中国人）个性测量表－青少年版（CPAI-A）对香港中学生人格特征的性别差异评估结果。CPAI-A是在CPAI-2（成人版）基础上发展而来的。研究发现性别是影响香港中学生人格特质的关键因素,并且性别差异在不同年龄组之间存在明显的延续性和发展性趋势。结合对已有研究的比较分析,文章从发展角度讨论了人格特质的性别差异特性在青少年不同年龄组之间的情形。文章还基于CPAI-2中国人常模的数据,比较分析了青少年与成人之间人格特征性别差异的特点。文章最后认为性别差异特征是体现人格特质在青少年期的不同年龄阶段,以及从青少年到成人阶段的发展性与稳定性的重要内容     

Humour styles,gelotophobia and self‐esteem among Chinese and Indian university students

This study examined the relationship between humour styles, gelotophobia and self‐esteem among 102 Indian and 101 Hong Kong university students. The Humour Styles Questionnaire, the GELOPH‐15 Scale and the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale were used. Indian students rated the importance of humour significantly higher than Hong Kong Chinese students and considered themselves as being significantly more humorous as well. Both Indian and Hong Kong Chinese students engaged in significantly more affiliative and self‐enhancing humour. Indian students engaged in significantly more affiliative and self‐enhancing humour and reported less gelotophobia than Hong Kong students. Gelotophobia was negatively correlated with self‐esteem and affiliative humour in both samples and was positively correlated with self‐defeating humour in the Indian sample only. Affiliate humour mediated the relationship between self‐esteem and gelotophobia in both samples whereas self‐defeating humour mediated the relationship in the Indian sample only. Taken together, both Indian students and Hong Kong students valued adaptive humour, but Indian students valued humour more than Hong Kong students. This study is a pioneering study of its kind conducted in a Chinese‐Indian sample.