Description of personality traits by Chinese adjectives: A trial on university students

Studies on personality-related Chinese adjectives suggest either a five-factor or seven-factor structure. In the current investigation, we selected a bigger adjective pool of personality-related adjectives, and tested them on the university students in Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern China. In Study 1, we administered the the self-rating scales of the 650 adjectives in 610 subjects. Five factors emerged clearly, and named as "Intelligent", "Emotional", Conscientious", "Unsocial" and "Agreeable". We then selected 20 adjectives with highest target loadings for each factor to develop a short version of the self-report rating scales, the Chinese Adjective Descriptors of Personality (CADP). In study 2, we administered the 100-adjective CADP to 720 university students in the four areas of China. Again, five-factor structures were confirmed. Loadings of the individual adjectives on the target factor were satisfactory, and the internal alphas for each personality scale were high. Most CADP scales were intercorrelated. There were, however, no significant gender differences in regard to CADP scales. The five-factor structures found in our report were comparable to the Openness to Experiences (or Intellect), Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness found in other cultures. The normative data of the CADP is presented.