Abstract
Collectivism remains a dominant force in the Chinese society and schooling is a process to instill collectivistic values in the students, although there has been a noticeable increase in individualistic orientation among Chinese youth. Because China’s meritocratic educational system endorses high individualism to enhance academic competitiveness and performance, the Chinese educational system is contradictorily both collectivistic and individualistic. Within meritocratic educational systems, academic performance influences students’ psychosocial adjustment. However, the role of students’ individualistic orientation and collectivistic orientation on their psychosocial adjustment and the role of them on the link between academic performance and psychosocial adjustment are not well understood. To address this issue, we obtained survey data from 1003 6–12th grade Chinese students on their academic performance, individualistic orientation, collectivistic orientation, and psychosocial adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, peer relations, and parent–child relationship quality). Results showed the students’ academic performance scores predicted scores for all five psychosocial adjustment subscales in expected directions; higher collectivistic orientation scores predicted lower depression scores, higher parent–child relationship quality scores and peer relation scores, while higher individualistic orientation scores predicted higher self-esteem scores and higher depression scores. Finally, the influence of academic performance on anxiety symptoms was moderated by the students’ individualistic orientation.
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Tan, T.X., Yi, Z., Camras, L.A. et al. The effect of academic performance, individualistic and collectivistic orientation on Chinese youth’s adjustment. Soc Psychol Educ 24, 1209–1229 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09650-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09650-x