Horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism of Chinese migrant university students and their relationships with adjustment: A scale validation and exploratory investigation

Abstract

China is widely regarded as a large multicultural country where migrating within its borders usually necessitates cross-cultural adjustment, especially for university students who leave their familiar hometowns for new environments. Over decades, numerous variables have been identified as predictors of cross-cultural adjustment, but major value patterns have received nominal attention in this area. This study investigates the relationships of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism with domestic migrant university students’ cross-cultural adjustment after first validating the individualism and collectivism scale (INDCOL) and the academic and social adjustment scale in contemporary Chinese contexts. A questionnaire survey was administered among 1296 migrant university students in the culturally diverse city of Shanghai. First, the adapted Chinese version of the above two scales were tested via exploratory factor analyses (EFA), confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), validity tests, reliability tests, and measurement invariance tests. Then, the differences between the four value dimensions in the Chinese version of the INDCOL (INDCOL-C) were examined. Finally, multivariate regression analyses were performed by using these four value dimensions as independent variables and two ingredients of cross-cultural adjustment (academic and social adjustment) as dependent variables. The aforementioned two instruments were validated in Chinese contexts. Horizontal individualism were shown to be the strongest value tendency among Chinese university students today. Horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism were all revealed to predict cross-cultural adjustment of internal migrant university students.