Who I am and who I want to be: The positive effect of self-concept clarity on purpose, life satisfaction, and personal meaning among Chinese and Indonesian emerging adults.

Background: The importance of self-concept clarity to oneself has been shown in prior studies among Western communities. However, few studies have investigated self-concept clarity and its outcomes cross-culturally in the Asian context. Therefore, we assessed self-concept clarity in relation to purpose in life, life satisfaction, and personal meaning among Chinese and Indonesian samples.

Participants and procedure: The survey participants were 248 Indonesian undergraduates and 311 Chinese, aged 18-25 years, recruited through convenience sampling. An online survey was distributed to universities in Hong Kong and in Indonesia in which all participants gave written informed consent. Reliability and confirmatory factor analyses of each scale were performed in each sample. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test the invariance of the analysis of the data.

Results: The findings of the study demonstrate a consistent and significant positive impact of self-concept clarity on purpose in life, which subsequently predicts life satisfaction and personal meaning in both groups. Interestingly, only in the Chinese sample did self-concept clarity exhibit a direct positive correlation with personal meaning. Meanwhile, in the Indonesian sample, there was no significant effect of self-concept clarity on meaningfulness. In other words, the Indonesian sample emphasizes the need to shape goals after achieving self-concept clarity to make a meaningful life.

Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of fostering self-concept clarity among students in both countries to shape their goals and aims for better well-being.