MEASURING OPTIMISTIC SELF-BELIEFS - A CHINESE ADAPTATION OF THE GENERAL SELF-EFFICACY SCALE

General self-efficacy, measured by a 10-item scale, is a widely used c onstruct in cross-cultural research. The present paper describes a Chi nese adaptation of the scale. Within a sample of 293 university studen ts, the internal consistency was .91. The scale had also been complete d by a bilingual sample of 43 Chinese students who filled out the Engl ish as well as three weeks later the Chinese version. The lagged corre lation between both versions was .71. Further psychometric properties are described that underscore the usefulness of the inventory. It was found that men scored on average higher in general self-efficacy than women which is in line with results from previous samples. Preliminary norms are given to encourage further field testing of this scale.