Abstract: The present study is aimed at exploring the relationship between the social transformation and personality changes of Chinese people by using so-called indigenous personality measurement of CPAI (Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory). Two sets of CPAI data collected in a 10 year interval were analyzed. At the same time, the CPAI-2 data was analyzed in terms of modernization level of various cities from which the data were collected. It was found in the study that Chinese personality traits do have some changes with the development of social transformation and with the level of modernization. Chinese people tend to be more individualized and open-minded. Besides, the results of the study also suggest that anyone who wants to study the relationship of social change and personality, he must consider both development status and level of modernization of participants’ residence

Key words: social transformation, personality change, CPAI, modernization level, overall city strength