Master of Arts (Counselling & Guidance)

This study aims to examine the correlation between self-construals and conflict management styles among Chinese counselling professionals. A survey design was used. Data collection was carried out through the internet by adopting on-line questionnaires. Participation was voluntary, with participants recruited from convenient and snowball sampling. A total of 97 valid data were collected, most of them from Singapore and mainland China. A few of the data were from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan. The research question was, “What is the relationship between self-construals and conflict management styles among Chinese counselling professionals?” Variables were measured by the Self-Construal Scale (SCS; Singelis, 1994) and Rahim’s (1983) ROCI-II (Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory – II). A Pearson correlational analysis was conducted to measure the strength of the relationship between self-construals and conflict management styles. The hypotheses on the relationship between self-construals and conflict management styles were partially supported by the study. Only integrating styles significantly correlated with independent self-construal (IndSC) and interdependent self-construal (InterSC). No significant correlations were found between self-construals and the remaining four conflict management styles. Results also showed that age correlated negatively with the obliging styles for mainland Chinese counselling professionals, and working experience correlated positively with dominating styles among mainland Chinese counselling professionals.