Self-concept clarity of Hong Kong university students: Measurement and relations to psychological well being

Self-concept clarity, defined as "the extent to which the contents of an individual's self-concept are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent and temporally stable" (Campbell Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavallee, and Lehman, 1996, p.141), is a psychological construct tapping the structural aspect of the self. It relates to but conceptually differentiable from self-esteem (which is an evaluative component of the self). To assess self-concept clarity, a self-report measure known as Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS) was developed and this instrument was shown to be psychometrically sound with samples of Canadian university students. In a number of studies with western samples, SCCS correlated positively with indicators of adaptive psychological well being and negatively with indicators of maladaptive psychological well being. To enrich our knowledge on this construct, it is necessary to extend the scope of research beyond boundary of western culture. This chapter reported a replicating study of self-concept clarity using a Chinese version of SCCS with a sample of Hong Kong university students. Results suggested that the psychometric properties of SCCS (its internal consistency reliability and factorial validity) could be preserved when it was translated into Chinese and used with Hong Kong university students. It also provided empirical evidence to the claim that self-concept clarity and self-esteem were distinguishable constructs tapping different aspects of the self. It further confirmed that high self-concept clarity was associated with better psychological well being. Implications for further research were discussed. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.