DOI:10.6129/CJP.202103_63(1).0004
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2021, Vol.63, No.1, 73-98
Hidden rules preference in Chinese society: An Exploration of the Concept and the Construction of its Scale
Han-Yu Hsu（School of Social Development, East China University of Political Science and Law）；Li-Li Huang（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Kuang Kuo Hwang（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）
Abstract
Besides the ‘on the table’ rules which could be openly discussed such as laws and other social norms, there are also another series of rules which is called Hidden Rule ( 潛規則 in Chinese), that only could be discussed ‘under the table’ about how to interact with others in Chinese society, that constituting dual rule structure along with the ‘on the table’ social order. In the view of functioning, individuals’ preference towards Hidden Rule could maintain the social order on the surface while benefit individuals’ self-interest with the methods under-table, which has the functional correspondence with the two level of conservatism presented by Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation. This research begins with the phenomena of hidden rule in daily life, then backtracks the traditional Chinese philosophical and historical origin. During the empirical study, we use the concept of ‘rule preference’ to construct the measurement of hidden rule preference, and establish the reliability and validity of the new measurement by using other measurements and behavior indexes. The result shows that 1) the new constructed measurement has good reliability, 2) the hidden rule preference and other measurements, including Right-Wing Authoritarian, Social Dominance Orientation, are interrelated but different concepts with each other, 3) and the hidden rule behavior indexes are significant related to the hidden rule preference, presenting the good validity of the hidden rule preference scale.
Keywords: conservatism, hidden rule, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation.
