Response Bias and Public and Private Self-Consciousness in Chinese

Based on the assumption that a strong norm of moderation is socialized in Chinese respondents, rates of midpoint responding to personality items were examined. Since self-report on personality characteristics induces self-awareness, it was predicted that high Public Self-Consciousness will produce higher rates of moderate responding than low public self-consciousness. High public self-consciousness results in an individual being concerned about how he or she appears to others and the moderation norm of Chinese will be more salient for these respondents. The self-ratings on personality items for 181 employment training volunteers in Hong Kong substantiated the prediction. The results also were in line with previous findings that high private self-consciousness leads to greater response consistency over a series of test items. The implications and limitations of the results are discussed.