Psychological structure of social mindfulness in Chinese culture

Abstract

Social mindfulness refers to the ability of an individual to sense others ’ states during interpersonal interactions, his or her willingness to respect others ’ choices, and his or her ability to transfer rights. Exploring the psychological structure of social mindfulness against the background of Chinese culture is important for cultivating a friendly and harmonious society. This study explored the psychological structure of social mindfulness with a lexical method. In Study 1, 59 high- and 24 low-social mindfulness words were selected by word fre q uency analysis and multiple rounds of discussions. After being evaluated by 43 professionals and 232 nonprofessionals, 40 social mindfulness words were selected. In Study 2, exploratory factor analysis (E F A) with Sample 1 (n = 351) and confirmatory factor analysis (C F A) with Sample 2 (n = 307) were conducted to obtain a three-factor structure for social mindfulness; these structures include kindness and respect, tolerance and understanding, and optimism and open-mindedness. Additionally, a social mindfulness lexical rating scale (SML R S) with 18 words was formed. In Study 3, we used the same method as in Study 2 to explore the structure of social mindfulness (E F A: Sample 1, n = 377; C F A: Sample 2, n = 220) through scenario descriptions. Then, a new 17-item social mindfulness self-report scale (SMS R S) and a model with two second-order factors and four first-order factors for the internali z ation of social mindfulness were