Who is more collectivistic? Hong Kong Chinese or Australian Chinese

Abstract

This study investigated the relative importance of self-esteem and collective self-esteem (CSE) in predicting subjective wellbeing (SWB) for the Hong Kong Chinese and Australian Chinese, with the latter group comprising the first generation and second generation immigrants. By embedding in the homeostatic model of SWB, both self-esteem and CSE predicted SWB variance for all Chinese respondents, though it was intriguing that CSE made stronger prediction for the Australian Chinese than Hong Kong Chinese and that the amount of SWB variance contributed by CSE was the highest for the Australian second generation Chinese immigrants. These results were consistent with the higher level of collectivism measured in the Australian Chinese. Explanations are in the context of migrant status.