An assessment of the relational orientation framework for Chinese societies: Scale development and Chinese relationalism

Abstract

How to capture the role of culture in individual behavior is a difficult question, in part because it is often embedded in the research approach. Many researchers have stressed the entrenched ethnocentrism of mainstream psychology approaches. In response, some Chinese scholars have turned to sociology theories to create a relation-centered approach for investigating the psychology of Confucian societies. Scholars in Asia recently have proposed a theoretical model of psychological functioning in Chinese societies that encompasses the individual's sociocultural environment, which they labeled the relational orientation framework (ROF). The ROF is comprised of a structural-relational factor grounded in sociological structuration theory with five dimensions that shape the individual's position in the social network, and a relational agency factor based on social exchange theory with four dimensions that capture the individual's orientation to exchange aspects of relationships. This study assesses the proposed theoretical structure of the model with empirical data. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with two independent samples from universities in mainland China (N = 601, M age = 20.8 years) supported the structural-relational factor with the expected five dimensions and the relational agency factor with a modified version of the four dimensions with acceptable reliability and validity scores and good levels of model-data fit. We provide recommendations for refining conceptualization of the two factors for future development of an assessment tool.