Abstract: Self-supporting （自立） is a traditional concept in Chinese culture and is regarded as an essence of the Chinese national spirit. The self-supporting personality is a typical personality construal and refers to the excellent personality traits of self-supporting people. The concept of self-supporting personality differs from Western concepts such as independence and autonomy because the self-supporting personality is a dialectic personality factor. In other words, self-supporting personality is the unification of personal independence and interpersonal connection, which are opposites.
According to the results of a series of studies, the structure of self-supporting personality was constructed as a first-order model with 10 factors. Further, the 10 factors should be classified into two theoretical categories: personal self-supporting and interpersonal self-supporting.
On the basis of the theoretical hypothesis, the self-supporting personality scale for adolescent students (SSPS-AS) was developed using five tentative surveys. The scale included the personal self-supporting subscale and interpersonal self-supporting subscale. The scale was administered to 1723 valid subjects. These subjects were divided into two samples, and an exploratory factor analysis was performed on one sample, while a confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the other sample. Based on the results of the analyses, 48 items were confirmed for the scale.
The results of the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis showed that (1) the personal self-supporting subscale and interpersonal self-supporting subscale were first-order models with 5 factors; (2) there was no significant difference among the structure models of the self-supporting personality of college, senior high school, and junior high school students. (3) The 10 factors of the self-supporting personality were relatively independent of each other.
The 10 factors of the self-supporting personality were personal independence, personal initiative, personal responsibility, personal flexibility, opening, interpersonal independence, interpersonal initiative, interpersonal responsibility, interpersonal flexibility, and interpersonal acceptance

Key words: self-supporting, self-supporting personality, structure of self-supporting personality, scale development