Demographic and psychological factors for interpersonal civility in Mainland China
Li, Lanxing, Zhang, Shuzhi, Lin, Wenwen, Yan, Huiyun, Tang, Agnes, and Gan, Samuel Ken En (2025) Demographic and psychological factors for interpersonal civility in Mainland China. Discover Psychology, 5 (1). 67.
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Abstract
This study aimed to examine how interpersonal civility in Mainland China is related to both demographic and psychological factors. Forni’s Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct was adapted to create a culturally relevant civility inventory. A total of 673 participants, primarily from Shandong and Zhejiang provinces, completed a survey comprising demographic information, the adapted civility inventory, the Self-Consciousness Scale–Revised (SCS-R), and the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI-40). Statistical analyses revealed that civility scores correlated positively with private self-consciousness (r = 0.431, p < 0.01), public self-consciousness (r = 0.517, p < 0.01), rational ability (r = 0.304, p < 0.01), rational engagement (r = 0.215, p < 0.01), and experiential ability (r = 0.330, p < 0.01). However, no significant correlations were observed with other psychological or demographic parameters, including income, age, or education level. Additionally, there were no significant differences in civility scores, self-consciousness, or experiential factors between males and females, even though males demonstrated higher rational ability and rational engagement scores. These findings suggest that self-consciousness, rational ability, and experiential ability are critical psychological dimensions influencing civility in the Chinese context, while traditional socioeconomic factors such as education and income appear less relevant. The results underscore the distinct cultural and psychological landscape of civility in Mainland China and contribute to the growing body of literature exploring civility within non-Western contexts, providing insights for enhancing interpersonal behaviour and communication in culturally diverse settings.
| Item ID: | 88472 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2731-4537 |
| Keywords: | Behaviors, China, Civility, Civilization, Cultural influences, Etiquette, Interpersonal behavior, Interpersonal communication, Politeness, Socio-economic status |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Apr 2026 06:27 |
| FoR Codes: | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5205 Social and personality psychology > 520501 Community psychology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1303 Ethics > 130304 Social ethics @ 100% |
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