The aim of Study 1 was to qualitatively explore the inherent structure and personal significance of Xin within Chinese culture, specifically conceptualizing it as a multifaceted and stable personality trait. By examining how individuals perceive, experience, and embody Xin in their lives, we sought to construct a foundational model of its psychological architecture from an emic perspective.

Grounded theory is a classical paradigm in qualitative research. It is a methodological approach through which researchers, without predefined theoretical assumptions, conduct gradual inductive analysis of firsthand observational data, form a three-tiered coding system, and ultimately develop theoretical constructs (Liu et al., 2019). In accordance with the recommendations of Lincoln and Guba (1985), who suggested that a sample size of more than 12 participants is necessary for in-depth interviews in qualitative research, the current study selected a total of 22 interviewees. This sample size is consistent with the requirements for qualitative research sample adequacy (Chen et al., 2016). The sample included 15 males and 7 females, with ages ranging from 26 to 65 years. Participants were drawn from diverse occupational backgrounds, including university professors, corporate employees, civil servants, self-employed business owners, psychological counselors, and retired professors.

A digital voice recorder and the qualitative research analysis software NVivo 14.0 (hereinafter referred to as N14) were utilized. N14 is a powerful tool designed to facilitate the indexing, searching, and theorizing of non-numerical and unstructured textual data (Wang et al., 2019). Specifically, it supports researchers in conducting tasks such as coding and searching, generating rules, creating indexes, establishing logical relationships, building conceptual networks, and constructing theoretical models. These capabilities are particularly relevant for elucidating the construct of Xin and its structure within the context of Chinese culture. During the data analysis process, we employed a continuous comparative approach, iteratively refining and revising the emerging theory until theoretical saturation was achieved.

The design of the interview outline followed the principle that “interview questions should be as open-ended as possible for the interviewees” (Wang et al., 2021). That is, based on clear question settings, the interview aimed to maximize interviewees’ desire to express themselves. The final four interview questions were as follows: (1) When it comes to Xin in Chinese culture, what comes to mind? (2) How do you understand the concept of Xin in Chinese culture? (3) How do you think Xin affects your daily life? (4) If you compare Xin with “unity of knowledge and action,” “unity of psyche and body,” “unity of universe and man,” or “supreme sincerity,” “supreme goodness,” and other concepts, do you think they are related? How do you understand them?

The interviews were structured. During the interviews conducted by the researcher every effort was made to ensure that each interviewee was able to answer all four questions fully, providing as much detailed information as possible. The interviewer (i.e., the researcher) adhered to an interview time of 15–30 min, depending on the familiarity and interest of the interviewees in the topic. Owing to time and location constraints, the interview format was categorized into face-to-face and online interviews. Online interviews were conducted using WeChat voice and video calls, Zoom or Voov Meeting. Before starting the interview, the interviewer used a Xunfei recorder to record the interview with the consent of the interviewees. At the end of the interviews, the audio material was transcribed into text and saved in the researcher’s personal laptop folder for use as interview material for this study.

This study followed a grounded theory research approach and used content analysis for data interpretation. After organizing and proofreading the transcripts and other materials, they were imported into N14 software in the form of electronic texts. Based on the degree of abstraction of the textual data, three rounds of coding were conducted to abstract and categorize the concepts and connotations of Xin in Chinese culture.

Supporting open coding was applied to the concept, connotations, and impact of Xin on life in Chinese culture. Each sentence was coded using keywords from the original materials, resulting in 21 codes and 64 reference points. This process was completed independently by a single researcher.

Axial coding was used to sort the internal connections of the open coding results and merge codes with similar meanings. Three researchers reviewed the original materials and discussed them establish category definitions. Five categories were identified from the 21 open codes: cosmic Xin, archetypal Xin, social and cultural Xin, self- Xin, and Xin of connection.

Selective coding consists of the iterative process of reading and reflecting on textual data by combining axial codes into a core category. Based on the coding results, a preliminary theoretical model of Xin and its structure in Chinese culture was developed.

Table 1 shows that 21 codes with 64 reference points were obtained in the open coding stage. In the axial coding stage, the 21 codes were merged into 5 main categories according to their content and meaning, namely “cosmic Xin,” “Xin between humans and social culture,” “self-Xin of individuals,” “archetypal Xin of individuals,” and “Xin of connection.” In the selective coding stage, the five categories were integrated to establish the core category, Xin in Chinese culture and its structure.

Once the coding was completed, the researcher conducted a theoretical saturation test using uncoded interview transcripts,. The results indicated that no new theoretical nodes emerged when the uncoded new material was analyzed and coded, all the content could be covered by the existing five main categories, indicating a high degree of theoretical saturation. Simultaneously, the researchers evaluated the coding model using the expert evaluation method (Chen, 1999) which can be used to assess the validity of qualitative research. The researchers invited two experts to read and discuss the verbatim interviews and the coding results at each level. Finally, they concluded that the results of the qualitative study on Xin and its structure within Chinese culture were valid.

Study 1, through a rigorous grounded theory approach, successfully delineated a complex, multi-dimensional psychological structure of Xin in the Chinese cultural context. The derived five-factor model—encompassing Cosmic Xin , Xin between humans and social culture, Self-Xin, Archetypal Xin , and the Xin of connection—moves beyond a fragmented understanding of Xin as mere behavioral honesty or situational trust. Instead, it presents a coherent framework that captures Xin as a pervasive and organizing principle within the individual’s inner world. A closer examination of the dimensions reveals characteristics that are highly suggestive of a stable personality system rather than a collection of isolated beliefs.

The construct of Cosmic Xin denotes the connection and interactivity between humans and all entities within the universe. This dimension provides a transcendent, meaning-making framework, reflecting an individual’s sense of connection, harmony, and faithful alignment with the Cosmic order and nature. It is a definite and authentic objective reality, reflecting the transcendent, foundational, future-oriented, inclusive, nurturing, and certain nature of the relationship between humans and heaven and earth, the universe, and nature. However, it is also primal, deeply embedded between humans and heaven and earth, to the extent that it may even operate unconsciously. The process of recovering Cosmic Xin is essentially a practice of aligning human actions with the natural order, a process of “harmonizing humans with heaven.”

The Xin between humans and social culture refers to the connection of Xin between humans and social culture, which is an uncertainty. Social-Cultural Xin governs its expression in relational contexts. In the sociocultural context, Xin serves as an intermediate link in human social interaction (Liu et al., 2025). This dimension captures the interpersonal and normative facet of Xin as a personality trait. It involves the inclination to adhere to social norms of honesty, fulfill roles and commitments, and engage in trustworthy behavior within societal structures.

The dimension of self-Xin of individuals refers to the intrinsic Xin that exists within a person’s inner world. Self-Xin forms the stable, internal anchor of the personality. The dimension focus on self-awareness, self-consistency, and intrinsic authenticity, aligns closely with the core of personality, representing the internal, stable anchor of one’s identity.

The Archetypal Xin of individuals represents an eternal and unchanging form of Xin that has persisted from ancient times to the present. This dimension points to the deepest, often unconscious, layer of Xin within the personality structure. The conception of archetypal rooted in Jungian theory (Jung, 1968), the Archetypal Xin represents the profound, motivational underpinnings of individuals. It refers to innate, universal patterns related to trust, faith, and the potential for wholeness, which guide the individual’s psychological development. It serves as the wellspring from which heartfelt influence and transformation arise, converting the potential for life into life itself, and evolving individuals from an incomplete self to a complete and whole Self.

The dimension of Xin of connection signifies the role that Xin plays in integrating the individual’s inner world with the external environment, and bridging the relationship between heaven and earth and the individual self. This is the dynamic, integrative force that ensures coherence across these layers, making Xin a unified and operative trait. Specifically, Xin serves as a crucial link between an individual’s moral knowledge and moral practice, enabling the manifestation of inner goodness in external actions.

The resonance of this five-factor structure with traditional Chinese frameworks, particularly the Five Elements theory, is not merely symbolic but theoretically significant. Figure 1 visualizes the five core dimensions of Xin conceptualized within a Chinese cultural framework, mapped onto the Wu Xing (五行and Five Elements) system. In traditional Chinese thought, the Five Elements have been correlated with the Five Virtues and concepts from the study of the I Ching. Scholars often map the four hexagram statements of Qian (“乾”): “Yuan, Heng, Li, Zhen (元亨利贞)”, onto the elements of Wood(“木”), Fire(“火”), Metal(“金”), and Water(“水”), which in turn represent spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These symbolize the four stages of development: initiation, flourishing, benefit, and steadfastness, embodying the moral connotations of benevolence (“仁”), propriety (“礼”), righteousness (“义”), and wisdom (“智”). Specifically, Yuan(“元”) corresponds to the benevolence of spring, Heng(“亨”) to the propriety of summer, Li(“利”) to the righteousness of Metal (autumn), and Zhen(“贞”) to the wisdom of winter (Water). Earth(“土”), possessing the capacity for transformation and generation, serves as the precondition and dynamic force enabling the transition among the four seasons, and is thus distributed throughout them (Li, 2016).

The connections within the five-dimensional model correspond accurately to the theoretical mappings and conceptual meanings outlined above. The model illustrates the dynamic, systemic nature of Xin as a personality construct: Wood corresponds to Self- Xin; Fire corresponds to Cosmic Xin; Earth corresponds to Xin of connection; Metal corresponds to Archetypal Xin of individuals; and Water corresponds to Xin between human and social cultural. It should be noted that this correspondence represents a preliminary and speculative alignment drawn from cultural theory, and has not been subjected to systematic empirical validation. Although the model is just a hypothesis, it has not yet undergone rigorous verification. The interrelationships among these dimensions, governed by the generative (相生) and restrictive (相克) cycles of the Five Elements, form an integrated psychological system that maintains dynamic equilibrium and facilitates personal development.

This congruence suggests that the identified structure of Xin is not an arbitrary construct but is deeply embedded within the indigenous cultural worldview. It reflects a culturally salient way of organizing fundamental aspects of human experience and disposition. The fact that an empirically derived psychological model aligns with a foundational cultural paradigm greatly strengthens the ecological validity of the construct and bolsters the argument that we are mapping a central aspect of “personhood” as conceived within Chinese culture.

In conclusion, the qualitative findings of Study 1 provide a rich, nuanced, and theoretically grounded model of the psychological structure of Xin. While it stops short of definitive empirical validation as a personality trait, the nature of the dimensions—spanning from transcendent relationality to deep intra-psychic processes—lends compelling qualitative support to the thesis that Xin embodies the complexity, stability, and organizational function characteristic of a core personality construct. This model, therefore, serves as an indispensable theoretical foundation. It not only captures the profound cultural connotations of Xin but also explicitly frames it as a viable target for personality psychology research, thereby paving the way for the quantitative operationalization and hypothesis testing undertaken in Study 2.

Participants in this study were aged 18 years or older and residing in mainland China. The sample was divided into two cohorts. For Sample One, a total of 260 questionnaires were administered, with 29 excluded due to incomplete or invalid responses, resulting in 231 valid responses (response rate = 88.8%). The gender distribution of Sample 1 included 102 males (44.16%) and 129 females (55.84%). For Sample Two, 862 questionnaires were distributed, with 48 excluded for similar reasons, yielding 814 valid responses (response rate = 94.4%). Sample Two included 362 male (44.47%) and 452 (55.53%) female participants.

The main measurement instrument of this study was a questionnaire on Xin in Chinese culture and its structure. The initial items of the questionnaire were developed using the following steps:

Step 1: A researcher and a professor from a university’s psychological counseling center (Ph.D. in Applied Psychology) independently compiled items based on the structure, dimensions, and keywords obtained from Study 1, resulting in a total of 75 items.

Step 2: The researcher invited graduate psychology students (three master’s and five doctoral students) and non-psychology majors (two students) to discuss the questionnaire items. Using clarity of meaning and expression as the criteria, they discussed, modified, and preliminarily screened the 75 items.

Step 3: Three psychology professors were invited to conduct expert reviews of the questionnaire’s dimensions and items. They rated the relevance (or representativeness) of each item to the corresponding content dimension on a 4-point scale (1 for “irrelevant,” 2 for “weakly relevant,” 3 for “moderately relevant,” and 4 for “very relevant”). Items scoring 1 or 2 were deleted, those scoring 3 were considered for retention, and those scoring 4 were retained.

A total of 52 items were selected for the initial questionnaire. The questionnaire used a Likert 5-point scale, where 1 means “strongly disagree,” 2 means “somewhat disagree,” 3 means “do not know,” 4 means “somewhat agree,” and 5 means “strongly agree” (Zhao et al., 2017). Higher scores indicated a greater degree of the individual’s understanding and identification of Xin within Chinese culture.

To ensure the data collected from Sample One were suitable for factor analysis, an initial suitability test was conducted. Subsequently, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed using principal component analysis on the data from Sample One. The EFA was initially conducted on 47 items. The sample data were analyzed using the maximum likelihood estimation method with AMOS 26.0. Based on model fit criteria established in prior research, items with factor loadings less than 0.5 were removed, specifically items 22, 32, and 38. This resulted in all remaining factor loadings being greater than 0.6, indicating a satisfactory standard. Additionally, items with multiple excessively high modification indices (MI) in the regression analysis of the same factor were also deleted, namely, items 21 and 28, leaving a total of 42 items. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then conducted on the 42 items. Finally, the reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s α coefficient.

The primary aim of study 2 was to create a reliable and valid measurement tool. The high internal consistency and good model fit indices confirm that the questionnaire meets standard psychometric requirements. Crucially, the instrument’s demonstrated ability to reliably measure variations across the five dimensions provides the necessary means to treat Xin as a measurable psychological construct that exhibits key properties of a personality trait—namely, individual differences and temporal stability. The questionnaire does not merely assess transient attitudes but captures a more enduring personal quality, as evidenced by the coherent and stable structure that persists across different samples. Therefore, while Xin can be consciously cultivated, its core, as measured, appears to function as a relatively stable lens through which individuals perceive and engage with the world, others, and themselves.

The empirical emergence of a stable five-factor structure is not only a psychometric achievement but also a finding of profound theoretical relevance. It resonates significantly with the philosophical importance of the number five in the I Ching philosophy (Richard, 1977), which symbolizes the Five Elements and represents a fundamental, holistic structure of the universe within Chinese cosmology. This congruence is not coincidental; it suggests that the measured psychological structure of Xin is deeply embedded within the Chinese cultural worldview. This alignment enhances the ecological validity of the model and strongly implies that we are capturing a culturally salient and meaningful organization of individual psychology. The fact that this empirical structure mirrors a core cultural paradigm lends considerable weight to the argument that Xin represents a central, culturally-grounded psychological characteristic with the potential to function as a stable personality disposition.

The questionnaire met the psychometric requirements, making it a reliable and valid measurement tool. The higher the score for each factor, the greater the understanding and recognition of the corresponding factor dimension. The degree to which the Xin’s personality level leans towards this dimension is also higher. In summary, this study provides researchers with a scientifically sound instrument to quantify individual differences in the psychological construct of Xin. The demonstrated reliability and validity of the measure are paramount. They lay a crucial foundation for future research to systematically investigate Xin’s nomological network—specifically, its relationship with established personality models (e.g., the Big Five), its predictive power over behavior and well-being, and its development across the lifespan. By establishing a robust measurement model, this research effectively bridges a profound cultural concept with the empirical field of individual differences, opening the door for rigorous inquiry into Xin as a pivotal personality quality within Chinese culture.

Study 3 used the questionnaire on Xin in Chinese culture and its structure to explore the current understanding and perception of Xin among Chinese people, focusing on its connotations and psychological significance. It also seeks to offer insights, directions, and inspiration for the practical application of Xin in psychological analysis.

This study conducted a questionnaire survey among adults aged 18 years and older in China. A total of 860 questionnaires were distributed by random sampling, with 807 valid responses corresponding to an effective response rate of 93.8%. Questionnaires were sent to individuals from different provinces and cities, ethnic groups, age groups, educational levels, and occupations across the country to ensure a diverse and representative sample. The final data results show that, except for Taiwan and the Tibet Autonomous Region, the data cover 32 provinces nationwide.

Of the participants, 548 (67.9%) were female and 259 (32.1%) were male. Age distribution was as follows: 189 participants aged 18–25 years (representing 23.4% of the sample), 111 aged 26–30 years (13.8%), 188 aged 31–40 (23.3%), 208 were aged 41–50 (25.8%), and 111 aged over 50 years (13.8%). Regarding ethnicity, 727 participants were Han Chinese (90.1%) and 80 were from other ethnic minorities (9.9%). In terms of educational level, 50 participants had a high school diploma or lower (6.2%); 98 had an associate degree (12.1%), 414 had a bachelor’s degree (51.3%), and 245 had a master’s degree or higher (30.4%).

In accordance with the research hypothesis, descriptive statistical analysis, t-test analysis, and one-way analysis of variance were conducted on the 807 valid data collected using the SPSS (version 26.0) software.

The application of the newly developed questionnaire in Study 3 provides a preliminary mapping of how the psychological structure of Xin is understood and embodied within a contemporary Chinese sample. The moderately high overall level of recognition (M = 4.09) suggests that Xin, as a multifaceted personal quality, retains significant relevance in the modern Chinese psyche. These results create a notable paradox: while explicitly endorsed as a valued trait at the conceptual level, its behavioral manifestation is weakened in everyday practice (Zhang, 2016). One participant’s poignant remark—“It is not that Xin itself lacks importance; rather, in today’s society, no one pays it any heed”—reflects a social reality where this foundational personality quality has been culturally marginalized into a kind of “dormant virtue.”

More revealing from a personality assessment perspective is the observed response pattern during measurement. Some participants reported difficulty grasping items pertaining to deeper dimensions of Xin. Notably, these participants displayed a marked “acquiescence bias,” systematically selecting “agree” to “strongly agree” options. This measurement artifact suggests a psychologically significant phenomenon: when navigating trait-relevant judgments, individuals’ self-perception appears susceptible to social desirability, complicating authentic trait expression.

The resulting “pseudo-faith”—a temporary psychological alignment constructed through self-persuasion—may function as a defense mechanism, which aligns both internally and externally. While serving short-term adaptive purposes, this phenomenon ultimately signifies a rupture between trait cognition and trait-consistent behavior, revealing a structural fragility in the personality system itself. These observed fragilities find further elaboration in the systematic patterns of differential recognition across Xin’s dimensions and demographic groups. The significant variations in how different aspects of this personality disposition are recognized offer profound insights into the complex interplay between its psychological structure and the contemporary socio-cultural environment.

The global resurgence of interest in Chinese cultural paradigms necessitates a deeper understanding of its psychologically relevant constructs (Ting et al., 2019). Our research demonstrates that Xin can be systematically conceptualized and measured as a multifaceted personality trait, bridging philosophical discourse with empirical psychology. This represents a fundamental shift from viewing Xin as merely an external moral injunction to recognizing it as an internal, structural component of personality organization. Once internalized and valued, this trait can become a cornerstone for navigating psychological conflict and facilitating personal transformation.