Abstract
The present study empirically verified the theoretical model of Chinese interpersonal relationships (guanxi) proposed by C. F. Yang (1995, 1999). Yang suggested that guanxi can be distinguished between ascribed guanxi and interactive guanxi; and interactive guanxi is consisted of the affective and instrumental dimensions. 20 respondents were interviewed to develop a comprehensive list of 34 guanxi in the education domain and 38 guanxi in the daily-life domain. 48 guanxi were theoretically derived in the family domain. 101 university students then sorted these guanxi in these three domains separately. They also rated these guanxi on nine attributes including level of obligations, expressiveness, instrumentality, etc. The data were analyzed by multidimensional scaling. Results showed that guanxi in the family domain consisted of three dimensions, namely affectiveness, perception of bei, and reciprocity. However, guanxi in the education domain consisted of affectiveness and perception of hierarchical difference, and guanxi in the daily domain consisted of affectiveness and instrumentality. In general, these results supported Yang’s model that affectiveness is a common factor in categorizing guanxi while different dimensions were used to categorize guanxi in different domains.
| Keywords: | guanxi; affectiveness; perceived bei difference; instrumentality; multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) |
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