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Christopher H K Cheng, PhD City University of Hong Kong “Understanding Hong Kong Youth Symposium”

How do they see themselves: Assessing the self-concepts of Hong Kong young people in a cosmopolitan context. Christopher H K Cheng, PhD City University of Hong Kong “Understanding Hong Kong Youth Symposium”

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Christopher H K Cheng, PhD City University of Hong Kong “Understanding Hong Kong Youth Symposium”

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  1. How do they see themselves:Assessing the self-concepts of Hong Kong young people in a cosmopolitan context Christopher H K Cheng, PhD City University of Hong Kong “Understanding Hong Kong Youth Symposium” The Eighth International Conference on Language and Social Psychology, July 10-14, 2002, Hong Kong.

  2. Outline Part 1: How do Hong Kong young people see themselves? • Content structure (configuration) of self-concept • Age and gender characteristics Part 2: Comparing the self-concept of young people from three cosmopolitan cities: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia

  3. General Self-Concept General: Academic and Non-Academic Self-Concept: Academic Self-Concept Social Self-Concept Emotional Self-Concept Physical Self-Concept Subareas of Self-Concept: English History Math Science Peers Significant Others Particular Emotional States Physical Ability Physical Appearance Evaluation of Behavior in Specific Situations: Shavelson et al.’s (1976) model of self-concept

  4. Configuration of Hong Kong Adolescents’ Self-Concept • Emic and qualitative approach Considerations: • Potential “imposed etic” problem of imported scales • Cultural sensitivity and validity (use of language?) • Psychmetric properties (Berry, 1980; Bochner, 1994; Hui & Triandis, 1985; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Yang & Bond, 1990)

  5. Assessing the Self • From the talks and written responses to the classical “Who Am I” procedure (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954), a number of self-descriptors categories were generated.

  6. Appearance & Attractiveness 肥瘦高矮、四眼（帶眼鏡）、身材好、樣子甜美、醜樣 Filial piety 尊敬老人家、聽父母話、激父母、亂「洗」父母錢、孝順 Personality 開朗、活躍、文靜、被動、內向/外向 Family relations 關心家人、喜歡和家人一起、不想講我屋企人 Physical & Non-academic abilities 身體弱/強、健康、喜歡游泳、反應快、有音樂天份 Social relations 有義氣、齊齊玩、「八卦」、不合群 Academic abilities 成績普通、老師成日針對我、沒有進步、不能升預科 Social manner 文靜、斯文、大方得體、儀態得體、有禮貌 General intellectual abilities 記性好、醒目、富創作力、蠢、聰明、有分析力 Rule-abiding, self discipline 情緒化、脾氣差、有耐性、做事有原則、無厘頭 Academic attitude & orientation 有恆心、上堂留心、心散，不專心上課、有上進心 Virtues & Conduct 不貪心、為人誠實、有責任心、為人著想、對人坦白、心地善良、老實 General 失敗、有自信、獨特、信自己 Social skills 口材好、有幽默感、害羞、廣結朋友、不曉得與人溝通

  7. General Self-Esteem Physical Self Social Self Family Self Intellectual Self Moral Self Physical Attractive-ness Sport & Physical abilities Social relations Social Skills Family Relations Filial piety Academic abilities Intellectual abilities Virtue & Conduct Discipline & Self-Control Altruism A conceptual structure of Hong Kong adolescents’ self-concepts.

  8. The CASES • Based on the content analysis of the emic study, through vigorous instrumentation procedures, a measuring instrument called the Chinese Adolescent Self Esteem Scales (CASES) was developed.

  9. Scales No. of Items Cronbach’s Alpha General 8 .82 Social 10 .83 Intellectual 10 .81 Appearance 8 .81 Moral 8 .80 Family 8 .83 Physical/sport 8 .89 Total 60 .93 Table 1: Means, SD, and Internal Consistency Reliability of CASES N=558

  10. The CASES • Testing the measurement models (i.e. the conceptual structure that the CASES measures) – SEM using LISREL • One general factor or multiple factors? • How many? One level or hierarchical?

  11. Moral General Physical Appearance Family Social Sport and Physical Abilities Intellectual General Self-Concept

  12. Family Social Physical Appearance General Sport & Physical Abilities Intellectual Moral

  13. Model * c2 d.f. Dc2/d.f. CFI NNFI RMSEA M1: One general factor model 3029.39 349 n/a .597 .564 .117 M2: First order six correlated factors model 1369.70 335 118.55 .845 .825 .0745 M3: First order seven correlated factors model 767.65 329 100.34 .934 .924 .0489 M4: Hierarchical seven correlated factors model 802.70 338 3.89 .930 .922 .0497 Table 2: Goodness-of-fit statistics of CASES competing models * M2: Six-factors model formed by combining Physical Appearance and Physical/Sports Abilities to one factor. * M4: Hierarchical model formed by the General Self scale at the apex with the six domain-specific scales at the base, all seven factors were correlated. Dc2/d.f. (Ratio of the differential chi-square to differential degrees of freedom) was obtained by comparing the differential statistics between the said model and the preceding model. A statistic of 6.63 and 3.84 is deemed to be significant at .01 and .05 significance levels respectively.

  14. Confirmatory Factor Analysis(Structural Equation Modeling) Confirmed: • Six domain specific factors and one general factor • Hierarchical model supported

  15. Intellectual Self Social Self Moral Self General Self Family Self Physical Appearance Self Physical Abilities & Sport Self Structural Model of the CASES

  16. General Social Intellectual Appearance Moral Family Physical General 1.0 Social .64 1.0 Intellectual .81 .55 1.0 Appearance .77 .52 .62 1.0 Moral .49 .45 .39 .40 1.0 Family .39 .30 .29 .31 .34 1.0 Physical/Sport .48 .37 .44 .49 .20 .21 1.0 Table 3: Correlation between latent factors of the CASES (Hong Kong sample) *All coefficients significant at p<.01, and were obtained by LISREL.

  17. Age Groups Scales 11-13 14-15 16-17 18-20 F-tests General 4.43 4.43 4.48 4.44 .15 ns Social 6.01 6.05 5.97 5.82 1.38 ns Intellectual 4.29 3.98 4.14 4.19 3.36 * Appearance 3.90 3.97 3.98 4.04 .52 ns Moral 4.57 4.61 4.88 5.04 11.84 * Family 4.80 4.86 4.93 4.93 .66 ns Physical/Sport 4.19 4.12 4.23 4.18 .65 ns Age Differences Table 4: Age Differences on Multiple Self-Concepts * p < .01, d.f.=1, 829 ns = non-significant

  18. Age Differences • Moral self increased with age (linear contrast significant) • Intellectual self changed in a quadratic fashion – rapid drop from age 12 to age 14 (i.e. F.1 to F.3), then some recovery in higher forms

  19. Scales Boys Girls F-tests General 4.56 4.36 7.63 * Social 5.91 6.05 3.25 ns Intellectual 4.13 4.12 .01 ns Appearance 4.12 3.85 14.96 * Moral 4.64 4.85 11.37 * Family 4.77 4.98 8.24 * Physical/Sport 4.66 3.85 77.99 * Gender Differences Table 5: Gender Differences on Multiple Self-Concepts * p < .01, d.f.=1, 829 ns = non-significant

  20. Boys high: Physical self-concepts (incl. appearance & physical abilities) General self-esteem Girls high: Moral self-concept Family self-concept ~ similar levels in Social Self and Intellectual Self ~

  21. Comparing the self-concepts of young people from three cosmopolitan cities: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney

  22. Scales Australia M(s.d.) Singapore M(s.d.) Hong Kong M(s.d.) F-tests General 4.32(.93) 4.09(.93) 3.49(.93) 49.60* Social 4.02(.77) 3.89(.77) 3.31(.78) 58.08* Intellectual 3.34(.93) 3.47(.93) 3.03(.93) 14.21* Appearance 3.37(.87) 2.98(.87) 2.88(.87) 19.54* Moral 4.34(.71) 4.14(.71) 3.50(.70) 92.72* Family 3.18(.87) 4.04(.87) 3.45(.87) 59.12* Physical/Sport 3.80(1.19) 3.47(1.18) 3.30(1.12) 10.38* Table 6: Comparing the multiple self-concepts across Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong Notes: All multivariate tests (Pillai’s, Wilks, Hotelling’s) significant at p<.001. *p< .01, N(Singapore)=249, N(Australia)=211, N(Hong Kong)=251, d.f.=2,708 # Post-hoc tests of the underlined pairs were non-signficant, all other pairwise comparisons were significant at p<.01.

  23. Comparing young people in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia

  24. Reflection 1:Developmental Differences Intellectual Self shows a clear drop from F.1 to F.3, then some recovery from F.4 onward, similar to other research (e.g. Cole et al., 2001; Lau, 1990; Marsh, 1989) • Physical, cognitive, social transitions: Educational transition can be detrimental (Cole et al., 2001; Harter, 1998) Moral Self shows a linear rise: consistent with cognitive development (from concrete to formal operations), i.e. adolescents are becoming more confident of their moral/ethical selves during their maturation But no significant changes in other facets (incl. general self-esteem) – quite stable

  25. Reflections 2: Gender Differences Consistent with gender-role stereotypes, but boys tend to have higher general self-esteem • Social desirability of masculine stereotypes? • Impacts of the new secondary school placement allocation (SSPA) system?

  26. Reflection 3: Challenges Self-concepts of H.K. youth rather low but not entirely grim, e.g. similar to Singapore youth in family and physical self-concepts (incl. appearance & abilities) • Need to note the weak facets – in particular intellectual & social self-concepts (academic pressure? peer’s acceptance? self-expectation and parent’s aspiration?) • More work on enhancing self-esteem and self-efficacy in these facets is necessary (Note: enhancing specific facets will automatically enhance general self-esteem)

  27. Thank You

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