In addition to primarily focusing on intrapersonal dimensions in western mainstream personality psychology, some personality scholars (e.g., Freedman et al., 1951; Leary, 1957; Wiggins, 1979; Kiesler, 1996; Pincus, 2005) have highlighted interpersonal attributes and suggested that two orthogonal dimensions underlie interpersonal traits, attitudes, and behavior in both normal and disrupted personality development: agency (or social dominance) and communion (or nurturance or affiliation). Conceptually, agency is clearly related to the self-definition (autonomy) dimension, whereas communion is congruent with the relatedness/sociotropic dimension. The interpersonal models assume that normal personality development involves a balance between agency and affiliation (Laforge et al., 1954; Wiggins, 2003; Pincus, 2005). The two-factor model can be arranged in a circumplex model comprising four quadrants (Freedman et al., 1951; Leary, 1957), and this model is empirically supported in the literature of western personality. For example, studies have demonstrated that anaclitic or sociotropic individuals are located in the friendly-submissive quadrant, evidencing high levels of dependency and low levels of dominance, whereas introjective or autonomous individuals exhibit the opposite pattern, being located in the hostile-domineering quadrant (e.g., Pincus, 2005; Ravitz et al., 2008).

Blatt and colleagues (Blatt and Blass, 1996; Blatt, 2008; Luyten and Blatt, 2011, 2013) have argued that personality develops through a complex dialectic transaction between two fundamental psychological developmental dimensions: interpersonal relatedness—the development of increasingly mature, intimate, mutually satisfying, and reciprocal interpersonal relationships—and self-definition—the development of an increasingly differentiated, integrated, realistic, and essentially positive sense of self or identity. This model further emphasizes the importance of interpersonal relationships on the basis of focusing on the self-construction of personality. Blatt (2008) argued that interpersonal relatedness and self-definition, two fundamental developmental processes, evolve through a life-long dialectic transaction such that progress in relatedness (anaclitic) or self-definition (introjective) development facilitates progress in the other. The two main lines of development and the two personality dimensions are independent but also promote each other. For example, meaningful and satisfying relationships may contribute to self-construction, and a defined self may lead, in turn, to more mature levels of interpersonal relatedness (Luyten and Blatt, 2011, 2013).

Like in the aforementioned work in the western field of personality, Beck (1983, 1999) defined two central dimensions for deconstructing personality and emphasized the interpersonal aspect of personality as well as the intrapersonal aspect. Beck’s model highlights a favorable balance between autonomy and sociotropy as the hallmark of adaptive personality functioning. According to Beck (1983, p. 273), sociotropy (or social dependency) reflects “the person’s investment in positive interchange with other people…including passive-receptive wishes (acceptance, intimacy, understanding, support, guidance).” Sociotropic individuals care particularly about other people’s attitude toward them, and they often try to please others and maintain their attachments (Robins and Block, 1988). By contrast, autonomy (or individuality) reflects “the person’s investment in preserving and increasing his independence, mobility, and personal rights; freedom of choice, action, and expression; protection of his domain…and attaining meaningful goals” (Beck, 1983, p. 272). Autonomous, achievement-oriented individuals are mainly concerned about the possibility of personal success and often try to maximize their control over the environment to reduce their probability of failure.

The distinction between the anaclitic/sociotropic/relatedness and introjective/autonomous/self-definition personality dimensions has been widely validated in both clinical and non-clinical samples (Clark and Beck, 1999; Matsumoto, 1999; Zuroff et al., 2004; Blatt, 2008). These models have also been conceptually and empirically linked to contemporary interpersonal approaches (Freedman et al., 1951; Wiggins, 1991, 2003; Pincus, 2005; Ravitz et al., 2008), attachment theory (Sibley, 2007), and self-determination theory (Shahar et al., 2006). Empirical investigations have indicated consistent differences in current and early life experiences (Blatt, 2008), and basic character and relational style (Zuroff et al., 2004) associated with these two dimensions. In addition, the three two-dimension models overlap to a certain extent.

Recently, Luyten and Blatt (2013) broadly reviewed empirical evidence supporting the two-dimension model and concerning the neurobiological and evolutionary foundations (e.g., Beebe et al., 2007; Simeon et al., 2011). Luyten and Blatt (2013) also reported the effects of developmental factors, gender, and sociocultural issues on the development of interpersonal relatedness and self-definition (e.g., Fraley and Roberts, 2005; DiBartolo and Rendón, 2012). The two polarities model provides theoretical and empirical utility concerning normal and disrupted personality and its development, which is largely influenced by evolutionary, biological, and sociocultural factors and their interactions.

Although different theoretical labels are used in these various theories, there is remarkable theoretical and empirical overlap. Moreover, emerging evidence indicates that these theories, which have been developed within differing theoretical approaches, assess aspects of the two fundamental dimensions (relatedness and self) at different levels of abstraction, indicating that the extant two-dimensional models of personality organization and development can be hierarchically organized (Sibley, 2007; Sibley and Overall, 2007; Luyten and Blatt, 2013). However, the dualistic structure of personality has historically been slightly overlooked in the mainstream of personality psychology.

Since the early 1990s, they developed various CPAI measurements, including the adult version (CPAI), the revised version (CPAI-2), and the adolescent version (CPAI-A) (Cheung et al., 2008b, 2013; Fan et al., 2008) with a combined emic–etic approach (Cheung et al., 2011). In the personality model assessed using the CPAI inventories, a Chinese indigenous personality dimension, interpersonal relatedness, is measured. This dimension evaluates the characteristics associated with the relationships between people (with society, family, and relatives) in the personality structure. Interpersonal relatedness reflects “a strong orientation toward instrumental relationships; emphasis on occupying one’s proper place and engaging in appropriate action; avoidance of internal, external, and interpersonal conflict; and adherence to norms and traditions” (Cheung et al., 2001).

Interpersonal relatedness encompasses not only the connotations of an individual’s intrinsic characteristics related to interpersonal communication and the subjective attitude toward relationships with people (related sub-dimensions such as discipline, graciousness, traditionalism, thrift), but also the external behavior shown in daily interpersonal communication (related sub-dimensions including renqing, social sensitivity, interpersonal tolerance, and harmony). Specifically, for example, graciousness measures how kind and broad-minded people are in their dealings with others. One item of graciousness is “When someone offends me, I will always bear that in mind (reversed).” Renqing measures the individual’s adherence to cultural norms regarding reciprocal interactions such as courtesy rituals, exchanging resources, maintaining and utilizing useful ties, and nepotism. For example, one item of renqing is “If a friend or relative was hospitalized, I would definitely go to visit him/her.”

The rest three factors in the CPAI model assessed using the CPAI measurements are largely correlated with Big Five factors, which mainly reflect an individual or intrapersonal orientation (Cheung et al., 2001, 2003, 2008a). For example, the social potency/expansiveness factor in the CPAI-2 and CPAI-A evaluates the personality traits of individuals pursuing change, innovation, self-development, and the realization of individual values, which are largely related to openness and extraversion in the Big Five. The core meaning of emotional stability in the CPAI-A lies in the emotional stability and adjustment of self-cognition and attitude; emotional stability is partially related to neuroticism within the Big Five. The core meaning of dependability in the CPAI-2 and CPAI-A is evaluation of reliability, seriousness, and responsibility, and dependability is strongly related to sense of responsibility and neuroticism within the Big Five. In addition, accommodation in the CPAI-2 mainly assesses an individual’s attitude toward society or others and may reflect intrapersonal relatedness or social cognition—how a person relates to society or others.

Subsequent cross-cultural research has suggested that the CPAI personality framework is relevant across cultures and that the constructs derived from an eastern context—interpersonal relatedness–related personality constructs (e.g., renqing, harmony, social sensitivity, family orientation, and traditionalism)—are not restricted to the Chinese context and can be validated in some western cultures (Cheung et al., 2001, 2003, 2006; Lin and Church, 2004; Born and Jooren, 2009; Iliescu, 2009; Fan et al., 2011, 2012). For example, Lin and Church (2004) discovered that the interpersonal relatedness factor was well supported in both Chinese American and European American samples; moreover, the scores of European Americans on family orientation, which is highly valued in traditional Chinese culture, were significantly higher than those of Chinese Americans. Born and Jooren (2009) surveyed Dutch university students and Iliescu (2009) surveyed a Romanian sample, and found that the CPAI-2′s four-factor structure was largely supported.

Therefore, the personality model assessed by the CPAI (including the updated version CPAI-2 and the CPAI-A) largely reveals two types of personality factor. One type is largely related to or overlaps with some factors in the Big Five model, which was originally derived from western cultures and mainly reflects the intrapsychic dimensions of personality traits highlighted in those cultures. The other type is interpersonal relatedness as defined by Cheung and her colleagues; for this type, a group of interpsychic dimensions of personality traits highlighted in Chinese and most eastern cultures is assessed.

Yang (2006) also developed a four-level conceptual scheme for classifying personality traits under a dual high-order personality structure composed of individual-oriented personality attributes and social-oriented personality attributes, which comprise relational-oriented, group-oriented, and other-oriented attributes. Therefore, Yang actually proposed a binary model for understanding personality on the basis of both dispositional and cultural psychological approaches (Church, 2000).

According to Yang (1995, 2006), a person’s aptitudes, temperament, needs, cognitions, affect, and behaviors, which are relatively enduring characteristics, together form the person’s personality, which results from a particular ecological, social, cultural, and historical milieu. Culture and personality attributes (even aptitudes and temperament) are assumed to be more or less bidirectionally determined and mutually constituted (Markus and Kitayama, 1998). In a specific living environment, a person’s interactions with their personal self (similar to the construct of the independent self proposed by Markus and Kitayama, 1991) construct individual-oriented attributes such as autonomy, independence, agency, and competence in both eastern and western contexts. An individual’s interactions with another person may help form relationship-oriented attributes such as harmony and renqing (Cheung et al., 1996, 2013). A person’s interactions with their family and other groups may yield group-oriented attributes such as family orientation (Fan et al., 2014) and leadership. Finally, an individual’s interactions with real or imagined non-specific unidentified others as the generalized audience in the social environment may form other-oriented attributes such as face (i.e., mianzi in Chinese, Zhai, 2013) and defensiveness (Cheung et al., 1996, 2013).

These four levels of personality traits are composed of a person’s personality structure for people of all cultures, but different dimensions are given differing importance depending on the cultural background of individualism or collectivism. In fact, personality attributes within individualist and collectivist societies may have deep social and cultural explanations. In eastern societies (e.g., China and Japan), people are inclined to comply with social roles, norms, obligations, customs, and practices, and the relational-oriented self acts as the major anchoring and stabilizing center for consistent and coherent personality functioning in everyday life. In western societies (e.g., the United States), people are inclined to assert the self and appreciate their differences from others. The individual-oriented self acts as the major anchoring and stabilizing center for consistent and coherent personality functioning in everyday life, whereas sociocultural factors may be readily changed to suit the person’s needs.

In eastern societies, relationship-oriented, group-oriented, and other-oriented attributes, which have stronger connections with people’s daily life than in western societies, are especially prevalent. However, even people in social-oriented societies (e.g., China) may have certain individual-oriented characteristics in some circumstances (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). For example, when people attend a banquet, they sometimes dress informally and even to stand out. This may reflect a certain individualistic orientation. In western societies, individual-oriented attributes, which have stronger connections with daily life than in eastern societies, are especially prevalent. However, this does not mean that people in individual-oriented societies do not exhibit social-oriented characteristics in some circumstances (e.g., in religious groups and some small towns and rural communities; Bellah et al., 1985; Markus and Kitayama, 1991). For example, in western societies, when people attend a banquet, they often dress formally, which may reflect a certain collectivist orientation.

Therefore, the four levels of personality traits define a dualistic framework of personality comprising aspects of self-construal in personality and aspects of a broader understanding of relatedness–construal in personality in terms of macro and micro societies. Therefore, both Cheung and Yang have separately defined a bi-dimensional structure of personality on the basis of their eastern cultural backgrounds; some details still need to be further verified in theory and practice, however.

Independent self distinguishes and separates a person from others by autonomy and identity coherence. This self is derived from a belief in the wholeness and uniqueness of each person’s configuration of internal attributes (Waterman, 1981; Sampson, 1988; Murray, 1993; Choi and Kim, 2003). The essential aspect of this view involves a conception of the self as an autonomous and independent person (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). The independent self may exhibit certain ego-defense mechanisms (e.g., depression, rigidity, and impulsiveness) to maintain the individual’s identity (Freedman et al., 1951).

Interdependent self reflects the basic function of maintaining a person’s autonomy or identity by considering the person part of an encompassing social relationship. Social environments, especially other people, serve as a mirror-like reflection to show a person’s uniqueness. This interdependent self has the function of establishing the personality self through association between the person and their social environment. Markus and Kitayama (1991), for example, argued that an individual’s behavior is determined by, contingent on, and, to a large extent, organized by what they perceive to be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others in their relationships or social context. The interdependent self may employ certain interaction mechanisms to maintain identity (Freedman et al., 1951).

As shown in Table 1, some personality traits defined in previous models can indicate the characteristics of the independent self—for example, neuroticism and openness in the Big Five model (McCrae and Costa, 2008) and novelty, diversity, enterprise, sensation seeking, and life goals in the CPAI model (Fan et al., 2011; Cheung et al., 2013). Some personality traits defined in previous models may indicate the characteristics of the interdependent self—for example, domination (Freedman et al., 1951), face (Zhai, 2013; also in the CPAI model), lian (Zhai, 2013), and conscientiousness in the Big Five model (McCrae and Costa, 2008).

Particularly, in terms of Church’s (2000) viewpoint regarding the possibility of integration of trait psychology and cultural psychology, some authors have largely distinguished two types of self in light of the framework of individualist and collectivist cultures. For example, after reviewing the relevant empirical literature about the self in western and eastern contexts, Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed two types of self-construal, the independent self and interdependent self, in terms of individualist versus collectivist culture. Generally, individuals in an individualist society, which can be represented by the United States, are more likely to embody the independent self because their social environment requires them to embody self-independence. Western cultures emphasize the inherent separateness of distinct people, who must be independent from others and realize and express their unique attributes (Miller, 1988; Markus and Kitayama, 1991). However, eastern cultures, which can be represented by China, emphasize the fundamental connectedness between human beings; thus, individuals in a collectivist society are more interdependent because their environment requires them to maintain interdependence among individuals (Hsu, 1985; Miller, 1988) and to see themselves as part of an encompassing social relationship.

Yang (2004) argued that the Chinese self is expressed in terms of social orientation and individual orientation. In Yang’s (2004) model, the dimension of individual orientation is similar to the construct of the independent self, whereas social orientation is largely similar to the construct of the interdependent self in Markus’ framework. In fact, some other authors have defined two types of self in terms of the cultural differences between east and west in theoretical or empirical studies (e.g., Gao, 1996; Wang and Li, 2003; Mo, 2012). For example, after conducting an experiment, Mo (2012) reported that in addition to having the independent self in the western cultural sense, Chinese people often include family members or close relatives in their self-construct. In a certain sense, this is a manifestation of the independent self and interdependent self in the personality structure.

Derived from a Chinese setting, face has often been defined as a proper reputation and image in social interactions (Cheung et al., 1996). Accordingly, face reflects the interpersonal self to a certain extent. On the basis of an in-depth interpretation of the concept of face, Zhai (2013) introduced the concept of lian from the Chinese language. Lian further clarifies the interdependent self, showing more details of its function of self establishment in social environment. According to Zhai (2013), lian refers to the mind and behavior that an individual expresses after impression management to cater to an image recognized by a certain social circle, whereas face is the sequential position of an image (namely, lian) already formed in the minds of people in the social circle or others. The work conducted by Zhai (2013) may indicate that making a deconstructive analysis for interpersonal self is necessary when emphasizing the interpersonal relevance of the personal self in a Chinese context.

In addition, from the broader perspective of social psychology, private versus collective or public selves have been proposed in some other theories, such as the socioanalytic development of personality (Hogan, 1982), self-cognition (Triandis, 1989) collective/group/social identity (Schlenker, 1985; Turner et al., 1987; Brewer and Gardner, 1996), and self-verification (Swann, 1984). Private-self cognition reflects an assessment of the self by the self and includes cognitions involving personal traits, states, and behaviors (Fenigstein et al., 1975; Ybarra and Trafimow, 1998). Similarly, Schlenker (1986) argued that the private self has been afforded prestigious status and is usually regarded as having both structure, containing the organized and relatively stable content of personal experiences, and an active process that guides and regulates thoughts, feelings, and actions. The private self is the core of a person’s inner being and reflects basic, enduring, distinctive, and genuine attributes. Self-reflection and self-identify are the main functions through which the private self acquires, crystallizes, or conveys accurate information on the self. This may be an intrapsychic process of defining automatic and independent individual identity.

By contrast, the collective or public self, which is the self as it is projected in a person’s social life, reflects a process of self-disclosure and self-presentation (Schlenker, 1986) aiming to connect the person with their environment through assessment of the self by a specific reference group or collective. The collective self reflects the self-cognitions based on some collective (Triandis, 1989) because social norms and predilections embed us deeply in a matrix of real and imagined other people who influence our ideas and behaviors (Schlenker, 1986). Therefore, the collective self may reflect the interdependent content of the self.

Furthermore, according to the two-location theory proposed by Trafimow et al. (1991), the private self and the collective self are independent of each other, and the retrieval of a specific type of self-cognition depends on, for example, the individual’s specific cultural setting. People from an individualistic culture may retrieve more private-self cognitions and fewer collective-self cognitions than those from a collectivist culture. However, the private and collective selves could be considered complementary facets of self-identity. They are intertwined and equally significant. As argued by Schlenker (1986), considerable interplay exists between these two selves. The two selves reflect a reciprocal relationship between people’ private self-image and their public projections of self. Self-image influences public behavior, which in turn can modify self-image. Accordingly, both the private self and the collective self are pivotal components of the personality self.

Therefore, in sum, although the independent self-construal versus interdependent self-construal, individual-oriented versus social-oriented self, and private self versus collective self are derived from different theoretical perspectives, they all indicate a dualistic interpretation of personality. The self may not be a one-dimensional construction; it should include the construction of the independent self and that of the interdependent self. Both types of selves are embedded in people’s personality across west and east. It is just that individuals are immersed respectively in individualism or collectivism, which leads to ones’ different representation hierarchy in terms of the two selves.

Intrapersonal relatedness reflects how an individual thinks about their social world—their social cognition. This type of relatedness indicates how a person relates his/her self to the social environment. Intrapersonal relatedness reflects the relevance of personality by assessing those characteristics expressing how a person associates themselves with their circumstances. As reported in Table 1, some personality traits defined in previously proposed models may indicate the characteristics of intrapersonal relatedness—for example, agreeableness (McCrae and Costa, 2008), and graciousness, defensiveness, self versus social orientation, veraciousness versus slickness, and discipline in the CPAI models (Fan et al., 2011; Cheung et al., 2013).

Interpersonal relatedness defines how a person relates to the social world through behavior or performance, such as social presentation and social transformation (namely, persona). The interpersonal relatedness reflects the relevance of personality by assessing those characteristics expressing how a person associates themselves with circumstances through external behavior and performance. Similarly, some personality traits defined in previously proposed models may indicate characteristics of interpersonal relatedness (also see Table 1) —for example, cooperation (Freedman et al., 1951), extraversion (McCrae and Costa, 2008), and renqing, harmony, and interpersonal tolerance in the CPAI models (Fan et al., 2011; Cheung et al., 2013).

In addition, as a second key dimension in the literature on personality (e.g., Wiggins, 1979; McCrae and Costa, 1989), the relatedness construct needs to be explained clearly. Several similar terms have been used in the research on personality, such as relatedness, interpersonal relatedness, and interpersonal personality. The set of terms may have been employed with varying meaning or some overlaps by personality scholars from western and eastern contexts. Two types of relatedness could also be understood in terms of Church’s (2000) viewpoint regarding the possibility of integration of trait psychology and cultural psychology with the framework of individualist and collectivist cultures.

When Blatt and his colleagues proposed their two-polarities personality model, they did not always clearly distinguish relatedness from interpersonal relatedness (e.g., Luyten and Blatt, 2013). However, interpersonal relatedness may not be the whole content of the meaning of relatedness (Fan et al., 2008). Although interpersonal relatedness has been addressed in the models proposed by Blatt (2008) and Cheung et al. (1996, 2001, 2008b), the publications by Blatt and Cheung have never cited one another. Accordingly, the interpersonal relatedness construct may have widely different meanings in their corresponding models, or some overlaps may exist between the interpersonal relatedness considered by Blatt and by Cheung as well as their colleagues. Whether there are two types of interpersonal relatedness must be determined.

According to Blatt (2008) and Luyten and Blatt (2013), interpersonal relatedness refers to reciprocal, meaningful, and personally satisfying interpersonal relationships. Clearly, the interpersonal relatedness defined by Blatt and colleagues mainly reflects one type of external (objective) interpersonal behavior or the corresponding pattern in which a person’s individual differences are expressed through communicated behaviors. This may well represent some western personality psychologists’ understanding of interpersonal relatedness.

As we reviewed previously, the definition of “interpersonal relatedness” by Cheung and her colleagues may consist of two types of relatedness. Furthermore, we empirically examined the data from use of the CPAI-A in a Hong Kong standardization study (Cheung et al., 2008b), mainland China standardization studies (Xie et al., 2016; Dong et al., 2020), and recent investigation conducted in Shanghai, China (Li et al., 2019) as well as the data from use of the CPAI-2 in the original standardization study (Cheung et al., 2008a) and recent data obtained from Chinese college students (Zhou et al., 2021). These data reveal a binary structure of relatedness. One type of interpersonal relatedness is similar to that defined by Blatt and colleagues and mainly manifests as objective or external relatedness; this is measured by renqing, harmony, interpersonal tolerance, and social sensitivity subscales. This type of interpersonal relatedness reflects an individual’s persona, social presentation, or social transaction—how the person relates to the social world through actual behavior, expression, or presentation. Therefore, this type of relatedness can be defined as interpersonal relatedness and is similar to the public level of interpersonal personality (Freedman et al., 1951; Leary, 1957), and is assessed by considering the person’s behavior or performance.

Intrapersonal relatedness reflects an individual’s subjective attitude toward relationships with people and intrinsic characteristics related to interpersonal communication. Intrapersonal relatedness is similar to the private level of interpersonal personality (e.g., Freedman et al., 1951; Leary, 1957), and can be assessed through the subject’s descriptions, dreams, values, or other projective outcomes. The concept corresponds to intrapersonal relatedness in the CPAI including graciousness, discipline, thrift, and traditionalism. Intrapersonal relatedness reflects an individual’s social cognition (i.e., how they think about their social world), which is mainly conducted in the mind, hence being termed intrapersonal relatedness.

For another example, although Blatt and Blass (1996) reanalyzed Erikson (1968, 1982) eight-stage linear developmental line together with an additional stage of cooperation versus alienation, trust–mistrust, and cooperation–alienation and intimacy–isolation must not reflect the same type of relatedness. Specifically, trust–mistrust reflects a person’s attitude or cognition regarding the social world (i.e., social cognition), whereas cooperation–alienation and intimacy–isolation reflects how they relate to their social world through specific behaviors and expressions (i.e., persona, social presentation, and social transaction).