The onslaught of COVID-19 and corresponding public health control measures significantly disrupted nearly every segment of the human population across the world (1–3). Among populations, the psychological adjustment of university students who were moving from their home contexts to new local cultural contexts in China was also affected when they suddenly faced unexpected conditions and were put under psychological stress, anxiety, and fear (4–6). Often their anticipated adjustment to new university city and local life there was rendered physically or psychologically impossible by travel restrictions, lock downs, required online education, and other restrictive measures (7). These preventive measures persisted three unusually long years in China until the country ended its “Zero COVID” policy in December, 2022, after which most restrictions were correspondingly lifted, and life was allowed to start returning to a “new normal”.

University students were gradually able to visit or return to campuses in person across different regions of China without intermittent COVID imposed interruptions in the new semesters of, 2023. However, the influences of COVID-19 on China have been reported to continue with some pandemic-related changes in the culture (8); and even after the lifting of restrictive measures the widespread circulation of the virus caused new losses, anxiety (9), and ongoing public health concerns throughout, 2023 (10). In this post-COVID-19 era, research in China revealed that mental health problems related to the pandemic among university students persisted and demanded serious attention (11). Because COVID imposed mental stress and illness, it is important to seek to understand whether some students have the personality traits needed to help them adjust adequately to different local conditions. Studies are needed to identify what student dispositions contribute positively to psychological adjustment, a mental health disposition, which, if not properly dealt with, can lead to stress, emotional suffering, and poor academic or communicative performances (12, 13), especially at this juncture immediately after the relatively long and abnormal period of COVID-19 restrictions in China.

China is a multicultural mosaic, consisting of highly linguistically, religiously, ethnically, culturally diverse groups in an area similar in size to continental Europe (14, 15). It is a country with a wide range of “small cultures” and the differences between them can be profound (16, 17). While existing studies tend to treat national boundaries as defining different cultures (18), it has also been shown that numerous individual-level cultural differences within a national culture can be far greater than those across different national cultures (19) and that more cultural differences can exist within a single national culture than in cross-national comparisons (20). In this case, Shanghai represents a viable site to assess university students’ psychological adjustment as it has numerous well-ranked universities that attract applicants from all over the country.

Students moving to such universities and studying in relatively new and unfamiliar cultural conditions are confronted with a wide range of psychological, sociocultural, behavioral, and academic challenges (21–25). Studies have shown that individuals respond differently regarding communication and adjustment during intercultural encounters (26–28). A significant predictor of an individual’s intercultural adjustment has been shown to be personality (29–31). In intercultural contexts, multicultural personality traits have been both theorized and shown to be salient for adjusting to a relatively new culture (32–34).

Existing studies have explored the dynamics of multicultural personalities and students’ adjustment to local conditions in varied ways (21, 35–42). Such studies are mainly focused on international students’ adjustment to local cultures (38, 40, 42) and local students’ effectiveness when travelling abroad (39, 41). Some investigations on smaller countries have shown that certain multicultural personality characteristics of students have effects on some aspects of their performance in local life (41, 42). Recent research seems promising to apply to larger contexts for assessing psychological adjustment (43, 44). However, nominal attention has been given to local students’ multicultural personality traits that represent their in-country intercultural adjustment and its impact on their psychological adjustment to different cultural contexts within a large country (45, 46). The city of Shanghai is an ideal place for such a study due to its cultural diversity; students here have more interactions with people from various cultural groups compared to other parts of China (47–49).

To assess the multicultural personality traits across cultures, the most widely used tool is the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) (34). It was initially developed in the Netherlands and has been applied mostly to international student participants to measure their multicultural effectiveness (34, 50). It has solid cross-cultural psychological properties and has been robustly applied in and across distinct contexts (51). The original version of the MPQ had five dimensions expressed in 91 items and every single dimension (confirmed sub-scales) is treated as one multicultural personality trait (34, 50).

Though internationally robust, an earlier Chinese translated version of the full MPQ failed to provide desired results (the factors extracted could only explain 35.59% of cumulative variance) in the cultural context of China (52). Critical examination of that study revealed that the most common problems were with item translation, item validity, and the uniqueness of Chinese culture (53) not duly considered in the design. Since then, the MPQ has not been tested in Chinese contexts.

Recently, another short-form version of the MPQ (MPQ-SF) was introduced and successfully tested by the researchers that developed and widely tested the original. The short form confirmed the same five dimensions (using eight item sub-sales for each dimension), reducing the MPQ-SF to only 40 items (28). These five personality traits include: cultural empathy, flexibility, social initiative, emotional stability, and open-mindedness (28, 34, 50). The MPQ-SF has been successfully validated in different cultures and contexts (28, 51, 54), but not yet in China. Prior studies concerning the MPQ-SF have also established the valid and salient relationships of its five factors affecting psychological adjustment of individuals in different contexts across national borders (38, 39). However, neither the MPQ-SF or a validated localized version has yet been tested or applied to students’ psychological adjustment to local cultures in China.

The current study aims to develop and verify the validity and reliability of the Chinese version of MPQ-SF (MPQ-SF-C) in a Chinese context. For this reason, the 40-item MPQ-SF was carefully translated, back-translated, checked for equivalence, then circulated to test and examine the multicultural personality traits of university-level students in China. The resulting MPQ-SF-C was then analyzed to determine which dimensions impact the psychological adjustment of university students in Shanghai in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present study aimed to identify Chinese university students’ multicultural personality characteristics and examined how they influenced psychological adjustment to life in a distinct region of this large country immediately after several years of limitations due to COVID-19 and related restrictions. As an important predictor of individuals’ adjustment in a wide range of contexts, personality (29–31) and specifically, in cases of intercultural encounters, multicultural personalities (32, 33) have been employed by former researchers to explore their relationships with students’ adjustment to local conditions in many ways (34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42).

As noted, literature in this area has mostly focused on cross-country adaptation of international students and that of local students travelling abroad. Although a limited number of studies in smaller countries have revealed that certain multicultural personality traits were related to some aspects of students’ performances in local conditions (41, 42), not enough attention has been given to such traits and their relationships with students’ adjustments across cultural regions in a large country. This study aimed to bridge such a gap by adapting and validating the latest version of the robust MPQ measuring multicultural personalities (51) in a Chinese context and examining how its variables predicted university students’ adjustment in the aftermath of COVID-19 in China when they could finally engage in a new local context with fewer pandemic-related psychological challenges and physical restrictions.

To develop and validate the MPQ-SF-C, the original MPQ-SF items were translated into Chinese, back-translated, and carefully discussed to ensure both content validity and the semantic consistency. After a sample of 1,099 university students in Shanghai was collected, items were analyzed via t-tests, skewness, and kurtosis values to ensure that every item was well discriminated and normally distributed. Several rounds of EFA and CFA procedures yielded a MPQ-SF-C comprising 26 items divided into 5 dimensions. Appropriate tests revealed good model fit, validity, and reliability of this new scale. 4 dimensions of MPQ-SF-C maintained the same names as 4 MPQ-SF dimensions because items confirmed in these new dimensions were consistent with corresponding ones in the original MPQ-SF. One dimension failed in this Chinese context (social initiative), and one new dimension (3 items) was separated from the original flexibility dimension and renamed certainty seeking.

It is not uncommon for scale dimensions to change in cross-cultural validation (64, 65). The new dimension that emerged was reflected in the initial MPQ design (34, 50) but suggests that the Chinese view flexibility differently. The Chinese are culturally taught to be flexible but tend to seek certainty in difficult situations (66, 67). The certainty seeking orientation might have been accentuated due to the uncertain period just experienced through the pandemic, or it might also be explained by the uncertain economic prospects brought about by a relatively long and costly period of COVID-19 impact in China (68).

In addition, the social initiative factor of MPQ-SF was not confirmed in MPQ-SF-C. That is probably because the Chinese traditionally refrain from taking direct initiatives in social contacts; they are generally regarded as preferring a high-context communication style that features restrained ways of making social contact (69). The Chinese also generally make clear distractions between ingroup and outgroup members, usually warmer and more interactive with ingroup members but relatively indifferent towards or refraining from interacting with those outside their circle (52).

After the MPQ-SF-C was developed and validated, a multivariate regression analysis was performed to examine whether or how Chinese university students’ multicultural personalities had effects on their psychological adjustment. Former studies in cross-country settings showed that emotional stability, social initiative, and cultural empathy had direct effects on students’ psychological adjustment to local conditions, whereas flexibility and open-mindedness either had indirect effects on psychological adjustment or did not have effects at all (38, 39). The current research partially confirmed their findings, within a large country, by also establishing direct effects of emotional stability and cultural empathy on psychological adjustment. Different from prior findings, this study also revealed that open-mindedness had a significant influence on adjustment. The newly named variable certainty seeking, confirmed in this Chinese context, also influenced adjustment. These findings suggested that, in the post-COVID-19 period, an individual’s multicultural personality traits can help predict psychological adjustment to new local conditions. Studies of intercultural encounters of this kind within large countries should be given more attention to.

The study further examined the influence of demographic variables on multicultural personality characteristics. Gender was statistically significant on emotional stability, suggesting men were more likely to stay stable emotionally in intercultural contexts. Open-mindedness and cultural empathy were related to hometown size, suggesting that individuals from cities were more likely to be open-minded and empathize with those from culturally different backgrounds.

In summary, COVID-19 related psychological depression, stress, anxiety (70), fear, and restrictions prevented university students all over China from opportunities to adjust to new locations for almost three years. This research explored the multicultural personality features of Chinese university students. Validating and testing the new MPQ-SF-C allowed examination of what multicultural personality traits helped them adjust psychologically after they were finally able to leave the cultural contexts of their home for university studies in a major city after the lifting of various COVID pandemic restrictions.

The aim of this study was to examine the characteristics of Chinese students’ multicultural personality and their effects on students’ post-COVID-19 psychological adjustment to local conditions when they could finally be fully exposed to local life in a different urban context. Unlike findings of the previous study, the new Chinese language instrument developed by this research, MPQ-SF-C, demonstrated excellent validity and reliability. It also showed that different cultural contexts might construe similar items with different associations (such that Chinese responses did not confirm the domain of social initiative, and also considered flexibility in narrower terms as seeking certainty). Four out of five dimensions from MPQ-SF-C predicted students’ psychological adjustment, which not only partially confirmed those of previous studies but also extended this line of research to cross-cultural contexts within a large country for the first time. Additionally, gender and the size of hometown were shown to be related to students’ multicultural personality that might have further influenced their adjustment.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving humans were approved by Institutional Ethics Review Committee of the SISU Intercultural Institute (SII), Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), China (2023-SII/IRB-0801). The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

HF: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft. MN: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing. SK: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing.