11506502
The What, How, Why, and Where of Self-Construal
Since the publication of Markus and Kitayama’s pivotal article on culture and the self, the concepts of independent, relational, and interdependent self-construal have become important constructs in cultural psychology and research on the self. The authors review the history of these constructs, their measurement and manipulation, and their roles in cognition, emotion, motivation, and social behavior. They make suggestions for future research and point to problems still to be sorted out. Researchers interested in these constructs have many opportunities to make important contributions to the literature in a variety of fields, including health psychology, education, counseling, and international relations.
13606371
Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.
People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes. As proposed herein, these construals are even more powerful than previously imagined. Theories of the self from both psychology and anthropology are integrated to define in detail the difference between a construal of the self as independent and a construal of the self as interdependent. Each of these divergent construals should have a set of specific consequences for cognition, emotion, and motivation; these consequences are proposed and relevant empirical literature is reviewed. Focusing on differences in self-construals enables apparently inconsistent empirical findings to be reconciled, and raises questions about what have been thought to be culture-free aspects of cognition, emotion, and motivation.
145568190
The Measurement of Independent and Interdependent Self-Construals
Following concepts introduced by Markus and Kitayama, this study describes the theoretical and empirical development of a scale to measure the strength of an individual's interdependent and independent self-construals. These two images of self are conceptualized as reflecting the emphasis on connectedness and relations often found in non-Western cultures (interdependent) and the separateness and uniqueness of the individual (independent) stressed in the West. It is argued that these two images of self can and do coexist in individuals and that they can be measured. A 24-item Self-Construal Scale measuring two dimensions of self-image is presented. The two distinct dimensions of the scale were supported in confirmatory factor analyses of two multiethnic samples of college students. The scale was found to have satisfactory reliability and validity. Its implications and potential applications are discussed.
18670762
The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts
Three aspects of the self(private, public, collective) with different probabilities in different kinds of social environments were sampled. Three dimensions of cultural variation (individualism--collectivism, tightness-looseness, cultural complexity) are discussed in relation to the sampling of these three aspects of the self. The more complex the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the public and private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. The more individualistic the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. Collectivism, external threat, competition with outgroups, and common fate increase the sampling of the collective self. Cultural homogeneity results in tightness and in the sampling of the collective self. The article outlines theoretical links among aspects of the environment, childrearing patterns, and cultural patterns, which are linked to differential sampling of aspects of the self. Such sampling has implications for social behavior. Empirical investigations of some of these links are reviewed.
149640798
Individualism And Collectivism
Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1996, Vol 41(6), 540–542. To truly follow cross-cultural psychology one must know how the terms, individualism and collectivism, are used by an ever-growing legion of users. According to the reviewer, no one is better equipped to
6729779
Who is this "We"? Levels of collective identity and self representations.
Cross-cultural perspectives have brought renewed interest in the social aspects of the self and the extent to which individuals define themselves in terms of their relationships to others and to social groups. This article provides a conceptual review of research and theory of the social self, arguing that the personal, relational, and collective levels of self-definition represent distinct forms of selfrepresentation with different origins, sources of self-worth, and social motivations. A set of 3 experiments illustrates haw priming of the interpersonal or collective "we" can alter spontaneous judgments of similarity and self-descriptions. Until recently, social psychological theories of the self focused on the individuated self-concept—the person's sense of unique identity differentiated from others. Cross-cultural perspectives, however, have brought a renewed interest in the social aspects of the self and the extent to which individuals define themselves in terms of their relationships to others and to social groups (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). Central to this new perspective is the idea that connectedness and belonging are not merely affiliations or alliances between the self and others but entail fundamental differences in the way the self is construed (Brewer, 1991; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Singelis, 1994; Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991; Triandis, 1989; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994). Some of these theories of the social self focus on cross-cultural differences in whether the self is typically construed as individuated or interpersonal. However, all recognize that these different self-construals may also coexist within the same individual, available to be activated at different times or in different contexts. Furthermore, in several theories, achieving an extended sense of self has the status of a fundamental human motivation (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Brewer, 1991). In other words, individuals seek to define themselves in terms of their immersion in relationships with others and with larger collectives and derive much of their self-evaluation from such social identities (Breckler & Greenwald, 1986; Greenwald & Breckler, 1985). The motivational properties of collective identities are systematically documented in Baumeister and Leary's (1995) comprehensive review of the evidence in support of a fundamental "need to belong" as an innate feature of human nature. All of the theories mentioned above draw some kind of distinction between the individuated or personal self (those aspects of the self-concept that differentiate the self from all others) and a relational or social self (those aspects of the self-concept that
552425
Culture, gender, and self: a perspective from individualism-collectivism research.
Individualism and collectivism are often equated with independent vs. interdependent, agentic vs. communal, and separate vs. relational self-construals. Although these same concepts have been used to characterize both cultural and gender differences, a perspective of cultural evolution suggests it is unlikely. A division of labor within society may produce gender differences, but this cannot explain cultural differences. A study of self-construal involving 5 cultures (Australia, the United States, Hawaii, Japan, and Korea) shows that differences between these cultures are captured mostly by the extent to which people see themselves as acting as independent agents, whereas gender differences are best summarized by the extent to which people regard themselves as emotionally related to others.
35875413
The relational-interdependent self-construal and relationships.
Three studies describe the development and validation of a measure of the relational-interdependent self-construal, which is defined as the tendency to think of oneself in terms of relationships with close others. Study 1 reports the development, psychometric properties, and tests of validity of this new measure. Individuals who scored high on the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal (RISC) Scale characterized their important relationships as closer and more committed than did individuals who scored low on this measure (Study 1) and were more likely to take into account the needs and wishes of others when making decisions (Study 2). In Study 3, using a dyadic interaction paradigm with previously unacquainted participants, the partners of persons who scored high on the RISC scale viewed them as open and responsive to their needs and concerns; these perceptions were related to positive evaluations of the relationship.
163364006
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women''s
Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index
40124482
What do men want? Gender differences and two spheres of belongingness: comment on Cross and Madson (1997)
In response to S. E. Cross and L. Madson's (1997) suggestion that men's behaviors reflect a desire for independence and separateness, the authors propose that those same behaviors are designed to form connections with other people but in a broader social sphere. Women's sociality is oriented toward dyadic close relationships, whereas men's sociality is oriented toward a larger group. Gender differences in aggression, helping behavior, desire for power, uniqueness, self-representations, interpersonal behavior, and intimacy fit this view.
143525751
Close Relationships as Including Other in the Self
The cognitive significance of being in a close relationship is described in terms of including other in the self (in Lewin's sense of overlapping regions of the life space and in James's sense of the self as resources, perspectives, and characteristics). Experiment 1, adapting Liebrand's (1984) deco
3173086
The relational self: an interpersonal social-cognitive theory.
The authors propose an interpersonal social-cognitive theory of the self and personality, the relational self, in which knowledge about the self is linked with knowledge about significant others, and each linkage embodies a self-other relationship. Mental representations of significant others are activated and used in interpersonal encounters in the social-cognitive phenomenon of transference (S. M. Andersen & N. S. Glassman, 1996), and this evokes the relational self. Variability in relational selves depends on interpersonal contextual cues, whereas stability derives from the chronic accessibility of significant-other representations. Relational selves function in if-then terms (W. Mischel & Y. Shoda, 1995), in which ifs are situations triggering transference, and thens are relational selves. An individual's repertoire of relational selves is a source of interpersonal patterns involving affect, motivation, self-evaluation, and self-regulation.
40862217
Are there "his" and "hers" types of interdependence? The implications of gender differences in collective versus relational interdependence for affect, behavior, and cognition.
In a recent review, S. E. Cross and L. Madson (1997) forwarded that many gender differences in social experience and behavior may be better understood through consideration of gender differences in independence and interdependence. In the current studies an expansion of the model to include both relational and collective aspects of interdependence was investigated (see R. F. Baumeister & K. L. Sommer, 1997). On the basis of the literature regarding gender differences in affect, behavior, and cognition, it was hypothesized that women would focus more on the relational aspects of interdependence, whereas men would focus more on the collective aspects of interdependence. Five studies in which gender differences in self-construals, emotional experience, selective memory, and behavioral intentions were examined supported the expansion of the model to include both relational and collective aspects of interdependence.
2521402
Cross-Cultural Differences in Relationship- and Group-Based Trust
Two experiments explored differences in depersonalized trust (trust toward a relatively unknown target person) across cultures. Based on a recent theoretical framework that postulates predominantly different bases for group behaviors in Western cultures versus Eastern cultures, it was predicted that Americans would tend to trust people primarily based on whether they shared category memberships; however, trust for Japanese was expected to be based on the likelihood of sharing direct or indirect interpersonal links. Results supported these predictions. In both Study 1 (questionnaire study) and Study 2 (online money allocation game), Americans trusted ingroup members more than outgroup members; however, the existence of a potential indirect relationship link increased trust for outgroup members more for Japanese than for Americans. Implications for understanding group processes across cultures are discussed.
9723108
Where (who) are collectives in collectivism? Toward conceptual clarification of individualism and collectivism.
In psychological research on cultural differences, the distinction between individualism and collectivism has received the lion's share of attention as a fundamental dimension of cultural variation. In recent years, however, these constructs have been criticized as being ill-defined and "a catchall" to represent all forms of cultural differences. The authors argue that there is a conceptual confusion about the meaning of ingroups that constitute the target of collectivism. Collectives are rarely referred to in existing measures to assess collectivism. Instead, networks of interpersonal relationships dominate the operational definition of "ingroups" in these measures. Results from a content analysis of existing scales support this observation. To clarify and expand the individualism-collectivism distinction, a theoretical framework is proposed that draws on M. B. Brewer and G. Gardner's (1996) conceptualization of individual, relational, and collective selves and their manifestation in self-representations, beliefs, and values. Analyses of data from past studies provide preliminary support for this conceptual model. The authors propose that this new theoretical framework will contribute conceptual clarity to interpretation of past research on individualism and collectivism and guide future research on these important constructs.
12646844
Culture and self: An empirical assessment of Markus and Kitayama’s theory of independent and interdependent self‐construals
In this paper, I critically evaluate the logic underlying Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals, and examine the evidence that directly tests its major assumptions. On the basis of my review of the studies they cite, and literature from three other sources, I conclude that the evidence severely challenges the validity of their theoretical framework for explaining observed national differences in psychological phenomena. I offer some ideas about alternative methodologies for research in this important area of psychology that may aid in developing and testing theories of culture and self in the future.
2666590
Autonomy and Relatedness in Cultural Context
Autonomy and agency are used extensively and often interchangeably; there is a debate regarding their intersections with relatedness and separateness. This scholarship occurs within mainly a Euro-American cultural context that provides an ideological background of individualism, shedding light on psychological thinking. The article attempts to provide a broad overview of the issues involved. Two distinct dimensions, agency and interpersonal distance, are seen to underlie the self constructs involving autonomy and relatedness that are developed in different spheres of psychological inquiry. Autonomy and relatedness are viewed as basic human needs, and though apparently conflicting, are proposed to be compatible. Problems of conceptualization and operationalization are noted that have prevented the recognition of this compatibility. A model is put forward that involves a fourfold combination of the two dimensions, leading to different types of self and the societal and familial contexts in which they develop. Recent research provides credibility to the model proposed.
145323343
Unpackaging Culture’s Influence on Self-Esteem and Embarrassability
A growing body of research supports the notion that individuals simultaneously hold two views of self. Members of collective cultures have stronger interdependent images of self, but less strong independent images, than do individualist groups. University students in Hong Kong (n = 271), Hawaii (n = 146), and mainland United States (n = 232) completed the Self-Construal Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Modigliani Embarrassability Scale. As expected, levels of independence and interdependence were related to ethnocultural group (Euro-American, Asian American, and Hong Kong Chinese). Independence and interdependence accounted for most of the variance in embarrassability attributable to ethnocultural group. Contrary to predictions based on terror management theory, there was no difference in the relation between self-construal and self-esteem across the three ethnocultural groups. Across all groups, a more independent and less interdependent self-construal predicted higher levels of self-esteem. It is concluded that similar psychological processes contribute to self-esteem and embarrassability across the ethnocultural groups in the study.
144974307
The Importance of Subjective Norms for a Minority of People: between Subjects and within-Subjects Analyses
Intentions to perform most behaviors are more controlled by attitudes than by subjective norms. Yet subjective norms typically account for a significant, albeit small, proportion of unique variance in intentions. To explore the hypothesis that this effect can be explained largely by individual differences in the degree to which some people are apt to be more under normative control, subjects were asked to indicate their intentions, attitudes, and subjective norms toward performing 30 behaviors. Between-subjects and within-subjects analyses were performed. The within-subjects analyses revealed important differences in whether subjects are under attitudinal or normative control across the behaviors. Further, when "normatively controlled" subjects were excluded from the sample, the significant effects of subjective norms on intentions that were obtained in previous between-subjects analyses were eliminated, and the attitudinal effects were augmented. Finally, this individual difference was associated with the strength of the collective self;
145266687
Cultural Relativity in the Conceptualization of Career Maturity.
Abstract The present study investigated whether theories and measurement of career maturity, because of their reliance on independence in career choice attitudes as a crucial variable, may be culturally relative and therefore less valid when working with Asian Americans. Asian American ( n =182) and European American ( n =235) college students completed Form B1 of the Crites Career Maturity Inventory (CMI), the Self-Construal Scale (SCS), and a demographic questionnaire. Asian American participants also completed the Suinn–Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (SL-ASIA). As a group, Asian Americans exhibited less mature career choice attitudes than European Americans. However, High Acculturation Asian Americans and those with lower Interdependent self-construals did not differ from European Americans in maturity of career choice attitudes. Counseling implications are discussed.
43901889
Pancultural explanations for life satisfaction: adding relationship harmony to self-esteem.
The first part of the study confirmed an additive effect of the newly proposed construct of relationship harmony to self-esteem in predicting life satisfaction across student samples from the United States and Hong Kong. As predicted from the dynamics of cultural collectivism, the relative importance of relationship harmony to self-esteem was greater in Hong Kong than in the United States. In the second part of the study, the independent and interdependent self-construals (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) and the 5 factors of personality (P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) were advanced to be the culture-general determinants of life satisfaction, acting through the mediating variables of self-esteem and relationship harmony. Both self-construals and the 5 factors of personality were shown to influence life satisfaction through the mediating agency of self-esteem and relationship harmony in equivalent ways across these 2 cultural groups.
144895318
Biculturalism and self-construal
Abstract Evidence on the dimensionality of self-construal points to the coexistence of both an independent and an interdependent self-image. Drawing on conceptualizations of the acculturation process, this study is a preliminary examination of the distinctiveness of four hypothesized self-construal patterns: Bicultural, Western, Traditional, and Culturally-alienated. Different types of individuals, having experienced varying amounts of cultural contact and having made different choices in adjusting to cultural groups, might portray distinctive self-construal patterns. Especially intriguing was the notion that those with a well developed sense of interdependence and a well developed sense of independence could be described as bicultural. To test this, persons from four a priori identified groups were selected to represent the four patterns of self-construal. We predicted that on a measure of self-construal, the mean scores of the respondents in the four groups would differ in strength with the bicultural experience group, in particular, exhibiting both a high independent and a high interdependent score on a measure of self-construals. Our hypotheses were supported. In terms of independent self-construal, the Bicultural and Western groups scored significantly higher than the Traditional and Alienated groups. For the interdependent self-construal, the Traditional and Bicultural groups scored significantly higher than the Western and Alienated groups. The bicultural group was the only group to score significantly higher on both types of construals. The availability of both types of self-construal would likely facilitate communication and adaptive behaviors for persons interacting in multiple cultures.
144969097
Accessibility or Diagnosticity? Disentangling the Influence of Culture on Persuasion Processes and Attitudes
This research explores the extent to which differences in perceived diagnosticity as compared with differences in the accessibility of associations embedded in persuasion appeals better account for the attitudinal differences found in the culture and persuasion literature. Experiment 1 replicates basic findings showing that high culture-distinct associations lead to more favorable attitudes for individuals in the target culture relative to a nontarget culture, while low culture-distinct associations lead to more attitudinal similarities across cultural boundaries. Experiments 2 and 3 explore two potential explanations for these effects. Convergent evidence, provided through within-culture and across-culture mediation analysis, is more supportive of the differential accessibility explanation. That is, high culture-distinct associations may be valued in the nontarget culture but are relatively inaccessible in memory at an individual level. The results of these experiments help to reconcile conflicting findings in the consumer psychology literature, shed insight on why cultural differences might occur, and add to the growing body of research that identifies conditions under which cultural similarities in persuasion processes and effects may be found. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.
145654732
Factor Structure of the Self-Construal Scale Revisited
The Self-Construal Scale (SCS) is an important measure of self-construal. However, new data are needed on the structure of the SCS using more appropriate statistical techniques and investigating the existence of multiple (i.e., more than two) factors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of data from two groups of European American and Asian/Asian American college students reveal six factors underlying items on the SCS that seem to represent four specific aspects of Independence and two specific aspects of Interdependence. Results also provide initial support for the relative usefulness of these new factors in exploring between-groups differences. Implications for the conceptualization of self-construal and future research are discussed.
17805116
Culture-Dependent Assimilation and Differentiation of the Self
In two studies, we investigate how differences in self-construal patterns affect preferences for consumption symbols through the process of self-expression. The results of Study 1 demonstrate that individuals with a dominant independent self-construal hold attitudes that allow them to express that they are distinct from others. In contrast, individuals with a dominant interdependent self-construal are more likely to hold attitudes that demonstrate points of similarity with their peers. Study 2 provides additional evidence for the mechanism presumed to underlie the results by identifying differential schematic processes as the driver of expressed preferences. We find that differential levels of recall for similar and distinct items exist across culturally-encouraged selves, documenting higher recall for schema-inconsistent information. We discuss the results and encourage future research that expands the framework to group decisions and social preferences.
144498936
Individualism and Resistance to Affirmative Action: A Comparison of Japanese and American Samples1
It has been proposed that part of the resistance to affirmative action in the U.S. derives from the American discomfort with categorical social arrangements. An instance of gender discrimination was described to samples of Japanese and American students. The students then evaluated a set of remedies, one of which was a classic affirmative action solution and filled out Singelis’ Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994). The Japanese sample was more collectivist than the American sample and endorsed the affirmative action solution more strongly than the American sample.
145066410
Emotions in Everyday Social Encounters
Relationships between self-construal and emotion experiences in social interactions were examined in two countries. Participants in Greece (a more collectivist culture) and the United Kingdom (a more individualist culture) described the social interactions they had each day for 7 days using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. For UK participants, independent self-construal was positively related to positive affect, whereas for Greek participants, independent self-construal was negatively related to positive affect. There were few relationships between interdependent self-construal and affect in either study. The results point to the interplay of cultural values and individual differences in self-construal and their relationships to people's affective experiences.
145673295
SELF-CONSTRUAL AND NEED-FOR-COGNITION EFFECTS ON BRAND ATTITUDES AND PURCHASE INTENTIONS IN RESPONSE TO COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING IN THAILAND AND THE UNITED STATES
This study investigates the moderating roles of self-construal and need for cognition (NFC) on brand attitudes and purchase intentions in response to comparative versus noncomparative advertising. To enhance reliability and external validity, the study is conducted in two culturally and economically distinct countries, Thailand and the United States. Independent self-construal exerts a moderating effect in both countries. Furthermore, as expected, this effect is observed for consumers with low but not high NFC. Unexpectedly, however, for low-NFC consumers, comparative ads are more persuasive among those with low rather than high independent self-construal. Heightened situational involvement, evoked by incongruity between self-construal and ad message structure, appears to be the psychological mediator underlying this effect.
145763977
Self-Enhancement: Is it Restricted to Individualistic Cultures?
Two studies investigated how self-enhancement relates to interdependent and independent self-construals typical of collectivist and individualist cultures, respectively. Participants from three cultures were surveyed, two of them collectivist (Singaporean Chinese and Israeli Druze) and one individualist (Israeli Jews). Study 1 shows that the two collectivist cultures differ in their self-enhancement level among university students: Self-enhancement level among Singaporeans was weaker for academic self-enhancement and for other agentic traits. No cultural difference in self-enhancement of communal traits was found (N = 418). Study 2 replicated these results for high school students and evaluated the relations between self-construals, modesty, and self-enhancement. Regression analyses show that self-enhancement of agentic traits is predicted by independent self-construal and modesty (negatively), whereas self-enhancement of communal traits is predicted by interdependent self-construal (N = 362). The role of modesty norms in self-enhancement is discussed.
144316029
The Influence of Cultural Individualism-Collectivism, Self Construals, and Individual Values on Communication Styles Across Cultures
Individualism-collectivism has a direct effect on communication styles and an indirect effect that is mediated through self construals and values. It was hypothesized that cultural individualism-collectivism, self construals, and values would have separate effects on individuals’use of low- and high-context communication styles. As predicted, the results of this study suggest that independent self construals and individualistic values mediate the influence of cultural individualism-collectivism on the use of low-context communication, and interdependent self construals and collectivistic values mediate the influence of cultural individualism-collectivism on the use of high-context communication. The patterns for cultural individualism-collectivism were not as clear-cut. The findings suggest that individual level factors (i.e., self construals and values) are better predictors of low- and high-context communication styles across cultures than cultural individualism-collectivism.
58908429
Self‐construal orientation: Validation of an instrument and a study of the relationship to leadership communication style
The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to test rigorously the measurement equivalence of the Independent and Interdependent Self‐Construal Scales (Gudykunst et al., 1994) across three cultural groups and for males and females, and (b) to determine the comparative amount of variance in self‐perceived leadership communication style that can be predicted by self‐construal orientation, culture, and biological sex. College students from the United States (n = 224), New Zealand (n = 218), and the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan (n = 228) responded to the self‐construal scales and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (Hemphill & Coons, 1957). Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the Independent and Interdependent Self‐Constnial Scales should be considered as tzvo distinct one‐factor solutions rather than two factors of the same construct as previously assumed. Multiple groups comparisons indicated that, with one minor exception, measurement on each of the self‐construal scales...
144466861
The lens of personhood: Viewing the self and others in a multicultural society.
Some aspects of the subjective experience of individualism and collectivism in Israel, a society that simultaneously emphasizes both worldviews, were explored. Ss were Arab and Jewish Israeli students (Study 1 n=211, Study 2 n=370, Study 3 n=160, and Study 4 n=280). As hypothesized, endorsing individualism as a worldview was related to focusing on private aspects of the self and conceptualizing the self in terms of distinctions between the self and others. Hypotheses suggesting a relationship between collectivism, centrality of social identities to self-definition, a focus on public aspects of the self, and heightened perception of intergroup conflict were also supported by the data
39373732
An empirical investigation of self-attitudes.
A LTHOUGH the self has long been the central concept in the symbolic interaction approach to social psychology, little if anything has been done to employ it directly in empirical research. There are several reasons for this, one of the most important of which is that there has been no consensus regarding the class of phenomena to which the self ought to be operationally ordered. The self has been called an image, a conception, a concept, a feeling, an internalization, a self looking at oneself, and most commonly simply the self (with perhaps the most ambiguous implications of all). One of these many designations of the self has been as attitudes. We do not have space here to discuss the theoretical clarification which results from the conscious conceptualization of the self as a set of attitudes ' except to point out that this conceptualization is most consistent with Mead's view of the self as an object which is in most respects like all other objects, and with his further view that an object is a plan of action (an attitude). If, as we suppose, human behavior is organized and directed, and if, as we further suppose, the organization and direction are supplied by the individual's attitudes toward himself, it ought to be of crucial significance to social psychology to be able to identify and measure self-attitudes. This paper is
56055413
The Effects of Self-Construal and Commitment on Persuasion
Past research examining the effect of self-construal on persuasion has shown that advertising appeals that are consistent with consumers' chronically accessible (chronic) self-construal as well as appeals that are consistent with the temporarily accessible (latent) self-construal are both persuasive. In two studies, we identify brand commitment as a moderating variable that determines the effectiveness of appeals consistent with the consumers' chronic or latent self-construal. Under high commitment, appeals consistent with the chronic self-construal were more effective. In contrast, under low commitment, appeals consistent with the primed (independent or interdependent) self-construal were more effective. These findings were robust across independent and interdependent self-construal contexts. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
144748043
The independent and the interdependent selves: Different meanings in different cultures.
Abstract The purpose of the present study was to explore the different meanings of the independent and the interdependent selves in individualistic vs collectivistic subcultures. Respectively, participants were 54 and 60 managers from urban and kibbutz sectors in Israel who completed the Twenty Statements Test (TST). Consistent with previous studies urban subjects listed more independent and fewer interdependent responses than kibbutz subjects. Content analysis revealed not only a quantity but also a quality difference in the profiles of the independent and the interdependent selves across subcultures. The present study has important theoretical and practical implications for the understanding of the self’s structure and its effects on organizational behavior.
145571114
Convergent Evidence for the Multidimensionality of Self-Construal
Two studies test the multidimensional structure underlying the Self-Construal Scale. Study 1 cross-validated a multidimensional structure in new samples of Latino or Latina (n= 350), African American (n= 110), and European American (n= 350) college students, supporting the generalizability of the multidimensional structure. Study 2 explored the utility of the six dimensions of self-construal in samples of Asian (n= 59), Asian American (n= 89), and European American (n= 192) college students. Specific dimensions of self-construal accounted for more variance in social anxiety than the broader constructs of independence and interdependence did for the Asian Americans and European Americans, supporting the utility of measuring multidimensional self-construal in at least some groups. Implications for the measurement of multidimensional self-construal are discussed.
44184326
Aging, gender, and self: Dimensionality and measurement invariance analysis on self-construal
The dimensionality of self-construal, and the consistency of this dimensionality across age and gender, was examined using confirmatory factor and measurement invariance analyses. Across young and older adults, across men and women, and across White Americans and Hispanic Americans, a four-factor solution, including vertical and horizontal interdependence and vertical and horizontal independence, fitted the data better than a two-factor solution with vertical and horizontal dimensions posited as single factors. These results support the hypothesized individual-level multidimensionality of self-construal and suggest that it is structurally similar to the dimensionality of individualism – collectivism at the cultural level. Latent mean comparisons revealed that elders valued uniqueness, on average, more than young adults and that both genders strive equally for achievement, albeit through different means. Implications for cross-level (i.e., cultural vs. individual) and multidimensional understandings of the self are discussed.
143808496
Individual differences in relatedness and individuality: An exploration of two constructs
Abstract Sociotropy and autonomy are two personality dimensions that relate to an individual's vulnerability to depression. Independent and interdependent self-construals are two distinctive cognitive formulations of the self derived from cross-cultural research. Both of these sets of constructs reflect self and other orientations. The purpose of the present study was to empirically examine the various factors that emerge when these two constructs are integrated. 652 participants responded to the Personal Style Inventory [Robins, C. J., Ladd, J., Welkowitz, J., Blaney, P. H., Diaz, R. & Kutcher, G. (1991). The Personal Style Inventory: Preliminary validation studies of new measures of sociotropy and autonomy. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment , 16, 277–300.], the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale [Clark, D. A. & Beck, A. T. (1991). Personality factors in dysphoria: A psychometric refinement of Beck's Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment , 13, 369–388.] and the Self-Construal Scale [Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 20, 580–591.]. Four factors emerged from a factor analysis conducted on the items of the three scales measuring sociotropy-autonomy and independent and interdependent self-construal. These four factors are discussed in the context of vulnerability to depression.
143850232
Toward an explanation of cultural differences in in-group favoritism: The role of individual versus collective primacy.
Previous research conducted on a Westem sample has shown that people are less apt to exhibit in-group favoritism when they perform well individually while their in-group performs poorly. The authors evaluated whether this finding would be moderated by the cultural dimension of individualcollective primacy, which refers to whether people give more weight to their personal interests rather than their in-group's interests when forced to choose between the two. The authors hypothesized that relative to their counterparts from the United States, participants from the People's Republic of China would have more of a collective-primacy orientation and therefore would exhibit more in-group favoritism when they performed well individually while their in-group performed poorly. The results supported the hypothesis. Implications for the literatures on in-group favoritism and cross-cultural differences are discussed.
6924508
Cultural affordances and emotional experience: socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States.
The authors hypothesized that whereas Japanese culture encourages socially engaging emotions (e.g., friendly feelings and guilt), North American culture fosters socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride and anger). In two cross-cultural studies, the authors measured engaging and disengaging emotions repeatedly over different social situations and found support for this hypothesis. As predicted, Japanese showed a pervasive tendency to reportedly experience engaging emotions more strongly than they experienced disengaging emotions, but Americans showed a reversed tendency. Moreover, as also predicted, Japanese subjective well-being (i.e., the experience of general positive feelings) was more closely associated with the experience of engaging positive emotions than with that of disengaging emotions. Americans tended to show the reversed pattern. The established cultural differences in the patterns of emotion suggest the consistent and systematic cultural shaping of emotion over time.
6508630
A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.
Informed by a new theoretical framework that assigns a key role to cultural tasks (culturally prescribed means to achieve cultural mandates such as independence and interdependence) in mediating the mutual influences between culture and psychological processes, the authors predicted and found that North Americans are more likely than Western Europeans (British and Germans) to (a) exhibit focused (vs. holistic) attention, (b) experience emotions associated with independence (vs. interdependence), (c) associate happiness with personal achievement (vs. communal harmony), and (d) show an inflated symbolic self. In no cases were the 2 Western European groups significantly different from one another. All Western groups showed (e) an equally strong dispositional bias in attribution. Across all of the implicit indicators of independence, Japanese were substantially less independent (or more interdependent) than the three Western groups. An explicit self-belief measure of independence and interdependence showed an anomalous pattern. These data were interpreted to suggest that the contemporary American ethos has a significant root in both Western cultural heritage and a history of voluntary settlement. Further analysis offered unique support for the cultural task analysis.
18354319
Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: the blind men and the elephant revisited?
Recent interest in the implicit self-esteem construct has led to the creation and use of several new assessment tools whose psychometric properties have not been fully explored. In this article, the authors investigated the reliability and validity of seven implicit self-esteem measures. The different implicit measures did not correlate with each other, and they correlated only weakly with measures of explicit self-esteem. Only some of the implicit measures demonstrated good test-retest reliabilities, and overall, the implicit measures were limited in their ability to predict our criterion variables. Finally, there was some evidence that implicit self-esteem measures are sensitive to context. The implications of these findings for the future of implicit self-esteem research are discussed.
5761959
Using the implicit association test to measure self-esteem and self-concept.
Experiment 1 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Schwartz, 1998) to measure self-esteem by assessing automatic associations of self with positive or negative valence. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that two IAT measures defined a factor that was distinct from, but weakly correlated with, a factor defined by standard explicit (self-report) measures of self-esteem. Experiment 2 tested known-groups validity of two IAT gender self-concept measures. Compared with well-established explicit measures, the IAT measures revealed triple the difference in measured masculinity-femininity between men and women. Again, CFA revealed construct divergence between implicit and explicit measures. Experiment 3 assessed the self-esteem IAT's validity in predicting cognitive reactions to success and failure. High implicit self-esteem was associated in the predicted fashion with buffering against adverse effects of failure on two of four measures.
8888045
Recipient's mood, relationship type, and helping.
We conducted two studies to examine how a potential helper is affected by having a communal orientation toward a relationship with a potential recipient and by the potential recipient's sadness. We hypothesized that (a) having a communal orientation would increase helping and that (b) people high in communal orientation, but not others, would respond to a potential recipient's sadness by increasing helping. These hypotheses were tested in two studies. In Study 1, individual differences in communal orientation toward relationships were measured by using a new communal orientation scale reported for the first time in this article. In Study 2, manipulations were used to lead subjects to desire either a communal or an exchange relationship with another person. In both studies, subjects were exposed to a sad person or to a person in a neutral mood whom they were given a chance to help. As hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects helped the other significantly more than did others. Also as hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects but not others, increased helping in response to the other person's sadness although this effect reached statistical significance only in the second study.
27546553
The Satisfaction With Life Scale.
This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is Suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.
35380619
Social comparison, self-stereotyping, and gender differences in self-construals.
Four studies examined gender differences in self-construals and the role of social comparison in generating these differences. Consistent with previous research, Study 1 (N=461) showed that women define themselves as higher in relational interdependence than men, and men define themselves as higher in independence/agency than women. Study 2 (N=301) showed that within-gender social comparison decreases gender differences in self-construals relative to a control condition, whereas between-genders comparison increases gender differences on both relational interdependence and independence/agency. Studies 3 (N=169) and 4 (N=278) confirmed these findings and showed that changing self-construal changes gender differences in social dominance orientation. Across the 4 studies, strong evidence for the role of in-group stereotyping as mediator of the effect of gender on self-construal was observed on the relational dimension but not on the agentic dimension.
143852368
Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of Individualism and Collectivism: A Theoretical and Measurement Refinement
In developing a new scale, this article makes theoretical and measurement distinctions between vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism. Vertical collectivism includes perceiving the selfas a part (or an aspect) of a collective and accepting inequalities within the collective. Horizontal collectivism includes perceiving the self as a part of the collective, but seeing all members of the collective as the same; thus equality is stressed. Vertical individualism includes the conception of an autonomous individual and acceptance of inequality. Horizontal individualism includes the conception of an autonomous individual and emphasis on equality. Measurement of these constructs is preferable theoretically and empirically (better internal consistency) to either of the more general constructs of individualism and collectivism or the constituent elements of these constructs, such as self-reliance, hedonism, family integrity, and so on. The usefulness of these theoretical distinctions is demonstrated and their implications are discussed.
143073366
The Fundamental Fundamental Attribution Error: Correspondence Bias in Individualist and Collectivist Cultures
A growing body of research suggests that cultures differ in the tendency to prefer dispositional or situational explanations for behavior. However, little work has examined whether cultural differences exist in the tendency to infer that people’s dispositions correspond to their behavior (the correspondence bias). Two experiments, one using the attitude attribution paradigm and one using the quizmaster paradigm, investigated the correspondence bias in individualist and collectivist cultures. As predicted, significant correspondence bias effects were found in both cultures. Moreover, no cultural difference emerged. Explanations and implications are discussed.
23399193
The relationship between collective self-esteem and self-construal in Japan and Canada.
The study examined the relationship between various facets of collective self-esteem (R. Luhtanen & J. Crocker, 1992) and independent and interdependent self-construals (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) among students in Japan and Canada. The results suggested that individuals with highly interdependent self-construals regarded social group memberships as self-defining, regardless of culture. Individuals with independent self-construals judged their groups positively and felt they were worthy members of their groups and that others evaluated their groups positively. Canadians who evaluated their social groups favorably may be members of groups that permitted them to be independent. In contrast, individuals in Japan who judged their groups favorably may be members of groups that promoted interdependence in addition to independence.
12291926
Cultural factors in social anxiety: a comparison of social phobia symptoms and Taijin kyofusho.
The present study examined two forms of culturally-defined social anxiety: social anxiety or phobia, as defined by DSM-IV; (i.e., a concern of public scrutiny or embarrassment) and Taijin Kyofusho (TKS), a Japanese form of social anxiety centered around concern for offending others with inappropriate behavior or offensive appearance. These versions of social anxiety are also examined in relation to culturally-determined self definition as independent and interdependent. One hundred eighty-one U.S. students and 161 students enrolled in Japanese universities were administered scales to assess social anxiety and phobia and TKS symptoms and behaviors, as well as construal of self as independent or interdependent. Factor analyses of the three scales used to assess social anxiety yielded three factors, each clearly corresponding to the respective scales and defining TKS and DSM-defined social anxiety. A case analysis indicated that there was an approximate 50% co-occurrence between high scorers on the TKS and social phobia scales. Multiple regression analyses resulted in a different set of predictors of TKS and SPS for the U.S. and Japanese respondents. Results were interpreted as suggesting that cultural variables can mediate the expression of social anxiety but that both forms of social anxiety can be found in each sample.
14894623
Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses.
Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), meta-analyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic-valuing personal independence more-and less collectivistic-feeling duty to in-groups less-than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style.
145124947
Examination of the content of individualism/collectivism scales in cultural comparisons of the USA and Japan
The definitions of individualism/collectivism and the content of scale items used to assess them could explain the lack of cross-cultural differences reported in some research. Specifically, existing scales may not adequately assess expected cultural differences. In study 1, a new scale was given in Japan and the USA. Three factors were identified in both cultures. Japanese scored higher on the others focus factor but scored lower on the helping others factor than the US Americans. In study 2, a forced choice version replicated results in study 1. In studies 3 and 4, the factor structure and cultural differences were replicated and the convergent and the divergent validities of the scale were examined. Results indicate that Japanese may be more others oriented depending on the item content.
207601070
Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism.
Do differences in individualism and collectivism influence values, self-concept content, relational assumptions, and cognitive style? On the one hand, the cross-national literature provides an impressively consistent picture of the predicted systematic differences; on the other hand, the nature of the evidence is inconclusive. Cross-national evidence is insufficient to argue for a causal process, and comparative data cannot specify if effects are due to both individualism and collectivism, only individualism, only collectivism, or other factors (including other aspects of culture). To address these issues, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of the individualism and collectivism priming literature, with follow-up moderator analyses. Effect sizes were moderate for relationality and cognition, small for self-concept and values, robust across priming methods and dependent variables, and consistent in direction and size with cross-national effects. Results lend support to a situated model of culture in which cross-national differences are not static but dynamically consistent due to the chronic and moment-to-moment salience of individualism and collectivism. Examination of the unique effects of individualism and collectivism versus other cultural factors (e.g., honor, power) awaits the availability of research that primes these factors.
197657427
Some tests of the distinction between the private self and the collective self.
On the bases of Greenwald and Pratkanis's (1984) distinction between private and collective aspects of the self and on Triandis's (1989) theory about individualistic and collectivistic cultures, 2 competing theories concerning the organization of self-cognitions were proposed. Findings from 2 experi
55036946
“I” Value Freedom, but “We” Value Relationships: Self-Construal Priming Mirrors Cultural Differences in Judgment
The distinction between relatively independent versus interdependent self-construals has been strongly associated with several important cultural differences in social behavior. The current studies examined the causal role of self-construal by investigating whether priming independent or interdependent self-construals within a culture could result in differences in psychological worldview that mirror those traditionally found between cultures. In Experiment 1, European-American participants primed with interdependence displayed shifts toward more collectivist social values and judgments that were mediated by corresponding shifts in self-construal. In Experiment 2, this effect was extended by priming students from the United States and Hong Kong with primes that were consistent and inconsistent with their predominant cultural worldview. Students who received the inconsistent primes were more strongly affected than those who received the consistent primes, and thus shifted self-construal, and corresponding values, to a greater degree.
15596249
Self-Construal and Cooperation: Is the Interdependent Self More Cooperative Than the Independent Self?
The present study examined whether a temporary activation of independent or interdependent self-construals by priming has an influence on cooperation in social dilemmas. It was expected that individuals primed with independence would be primarily concerned with their own outcomes, whereas individuals primed with interdependence would also be concerned with the outcomes of their interaction partner. The former should therefore exhibit lower levels of cooperation. Additionally, the influence of social value orientation on cooperation was measured. Participants played 32 rounds of a give-some dilemma with an alleged interaction partner. As predicted, participants primed with independence exhibited lower levels of cooperation than participants primed with interdependence. Results are discussed in terms of their significance for research on self-construals and social dilemmas.
30682865
I, we, and the effects of others on me: how self-construal level moderates social comparison effects.
In 5 studies, the authors investigate the impact of self-activation on the occurrence and direction of social comparison effects. They show that self-evaluative comparison effects are more likely to occur when self-related cognitions are made cognitively accessible. Contrast occurs when personal self-construals ("I") are accessible, whereas assimilation occurs when social self-construals ("we") are activated. These effects of self-construal activation are similar to the impact of self-unrelated information processing styles that are often associated with personal and social self-accessibility (i.e., differentiation and integration mind-sets). However, whereas self-construal activation elicits self-serving social comparisons, activation of self-unrelated processing styles results in non-self-serving social comparison effects. Implications of these results for understanding the cognitive processes underlying social comparison effects are discussed.
39973413
What we remember and what we tell: The effects of culture and self-priming on memory representations and narratives
Two experiments were conducted to explore culture and self-priming effects on memories of Caucasian and Asian American adults (N = 526). In the experimental conditions, either the collective or private self was primed prior to retrieval. Participants then described their earliest childhood memories (Study 1) or recalled a fictional story (Study 2). Systematic cultural differences in memory content were obtained across both memory tasks, independent of priming conditions. Caucasians tended to recall specific, one-moment-in-time events that focused on the individual as the central character. Asians tended to provide memories of general, routine events centring on collective activities and social interactions. Priming effects also emerged: memory content reflected the particular aspect of the self being primed. Findings are discussed in light of the interactive relation between memory representations and memory narratives and the role culture plays in remembering.
73694503
Transitory determinants of values and decisions: The utility (or nonutility) of individualism and collectivism in understanding cultural differences.
The determinants and effects of cultural differences inthe values described by individualism-collectivism were examined in a series of four experiments. Confirmatory factor analyses of a traditional measure of this construct yielded five independent factors rather than a bipolar structure. Moreover, differences between Hong Kong Chinese and European Americans in the values defined by these factors did not consistently coincide with traditional assumptions about the collectivistic vs. individualistic orientations. Observed differencesinvalues were often increased when situational primes were used to activate (1) concepts associated with a participant’s own culture and (2) thoughts reflecting a self-orientation (i.e., self- vs. group-focus) that is typical in this culture. Although the values we identified were helpful in clarifying the structure of the individualism-collectivism construct, they did not account for cultural differences inparticipants’ tendency to compromise in a behavioral decision task. We conclude that a conceptualization ofindividualismvs.collectivismintermsof the tendency tofocus on oneself as an individual vs. part of a group may be useful.However, global measures of this construct that do not take into account the situational specificity of norms and values which reflect these tendencies may be misleading, and may be oflimitedutilityinpredictingculturaldifferences indecision makingand other behaviors.
145674985
Assimilation and contrast in social comparisons as a consequence of self‐construal activation
We extended existing research about self-construal activation to the study of social comparisons, specifically to self–other similarity ratings. Independent self-knowledge substantiates the notion of dissimilarity, whereas interdependent self-knowledge implies similarity with others. Therefore, perceived self–other similarity was predicted to decrease after independent and increase after interdependent self-knowledge priming. However, we expected such assimilation effects to occur only if the priming was subtle, but contrast effects if it was overt. In order to test this hypothesis, we developed a scrambled sentences test for priming the respective self-knowledge. The unscrambled sentences described the self either in terms of independence or interdependence. The subtlety of this priming was manipulated by having participants write down either the full sentences (overt priming) or only the remaining word in each item (subtle priming). Results confirmed the predictions. Underlying cognitive processes of the effects are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
145360804
Language and Self-Construal Priming
Previous research has argued that language serves as a cognitive cue to reinforce culturally normative self-construals. We hypothesize that language-priming effects would be stronger for women than men and that they would primarily occur for self-construals that are not already latently salient in the respondents’ culture. Also, in contrast to earlier research on language priming of self-construals, we rely on Singelis’s independent and interdependent self-construal scales as closed-ended dependent measures. Using a bilingual sample from Hong Kong (n = 126), we experimentally varied questionnaire language (English vs. Chinese) and found support for all our predictions. The discussion focuses on cue strength as moderator of language-priming effects.
145542825
Language and the Bicultural Self
In a study of bicultural individuals’ self-perceptions, Chinese-born students were randomly assigned to participate in either Chinese or English. Serving as controls, Canadian-born participants of either European or Chinese descent participated in English. The effects of the language manipulation paralleled findings in previous studies comparing East Asians to North Americans. Participants responding in Chinese reported more collective self-statements in open-ended self-descriptions, lower self-esteem on the Rosenberg scale, and more agreement with Chinese cultural views than did the remaining groups. In their self-descriptions, participants writing in Chinese provided similar numbers of favorable and unfavorable self-statements. The other groups reported more favorable self-statements. Participants reporting in Chinese indicated similar levels of positive and negative mood. The remaining groups reported more positive mood. The results suggest that East-Asian and Western identities may be stored in separate knowledge structures in bicultural individuals, with each structure activated by its associated language.
145512414
The Effects of Language and Priming on the Relative Accessibility of the Private Self and the Collective Self
An experiment addressed some limitations and implications of previous findings obtained by Trafimow, Triandis, and Goto suggesting that private and collective self-cognitions are stored in different cognitive locations. Consistent with expectations, priming the private self increased the retrieval of private self-cognitions, but priming the collective self increased the retrieval of collective self-cognitions. Further, retrieval of private and collective self-cognitions was clustered by type. The fact that such clustering was obtained with collectivist subjects in their native country, and even using their native language, supports the generality of the Trafimow et al. theory to both individualistic and collectivist cultures. In addition, however, the data indicate that using a collectivist language can increase the cognitive accessibility of the collective self relative to when an individualistic language is used. Finally, we present some speculations about possible implications of this accessibility effect.
11101138
Multicultural minds. A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition.
The authors present a new approach to culture and cognition, which focuses on the dynamics through which specific pieces of cultural knowledge (implicit theories) become operative in guiding the construction of meaning from a stimulus. Whether a construct comes to the fore in a perceiver's mind depends on the extent to which the construct is highly accessible (because of recent exposure). In a series of cognitive priming experiments, the authors simulated the experience of bicultural individuals (people who have internalized two cultures) of switching between different cultural frames in response to culturally laden symbols. The authors discuss how this dynamic, constructivist approach illuminates (a) when cultural constructs are potent drivers of behavior and (b) how bicultural individuals may control the cognitive effects of culture.
43876041
Spontaneous trait inferences as self-generated primes: implications for conscious social judgment.
The priming literature has documented the influence of trait terms held outside of conscious awareness on later judgment relevant to the primed trait dimension. The present research demonstrated that spontaneous trait inferences can serve as self-generated primes. In Experiment 1, Ss instructed to memorize trait-implying sentences (thus spontaneously inferring traits outside of consciousness) showed assimilation effects in judgment. Ss instructed to form inferences from these sentences (thus consciously inferring traits) showed contrast effects. Experiment 2 demonstrated that these findings were due to semantic activation rather than to a general evaluative response. When evaluatively inconsistent trait constructs were primed, similar patterns of assimilation and contrast were found. Implications for the ubiquitous occurrence of priming through the process of social categorization are discussed.
145460955
Awareness of the influence as a determinant of assimilation versus contrast
In the present study, subjects had to generate an evaluative judgment about a target person on the basis of his behaviour that had both positive and negative implications. In a previous phase of the study that was ostensibly unrelated to the judgment task, the relevant trait categories were primed. Subsequently, half of the subjects were reminded of the priming episode. Consistent with earlier research (e.g. Lombardi, Higgins and Bargh, 1987; Newman and Uleman, 1990) that used memory of the priming events as a correlational measure, a contrast efect was found under the ‘reminding’ condition and assimilation resulted when subjects were not reminded of the priming episode. Th i.s pattern of results is interpreted as the consequence of corrective influences.
145294289
The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time
Mfost of social psychology's theories of the self fail to take into account the significance of social identification in the definition of self. Social identities are self-definitions that are more inclusive than the individuated self-concept of most American psychology. A model of optimal distinctiveness is proposed in which social identity is viewed as a reconciliation of opposing needs for assimilation and differentiation from others. According to this model, individuals avoid self-construals that are either too personalized or too inclusive and instead define themselves in terms of distinctive category memberships. Social identity and group loyalty are hypothesized to be strongest for those self-categorizations that simultaneously provide for a sense of belonging and a sense of distinctiveness. Results from an initial laboratory experiment support the prediction that depersonalization and group size interact as determinants of the strength of social identification.
145647669
THE DYNAMIC SELF-CONCEPT: A Social Psychological Perspective
incorporating first behaviors (e.g. "good at doing sums"), then traits ("smart"), then single abstractions ("scientific"), then higher order abstrac­ tions ("intellectual"). Within each of the phases, there is an alternating sequence of first overgeneralizing self-conceptions and then differentiating
145423293
College Students' Spontaneous Self-Concept
Cross-cultural comparisons of the self-concept have typically used structured inventories created in the United States. Importing and using such methodology may prevent culturally unique dimensions and contents from appearing. To overcome this problem, the Twenty Statements Test was administered to university students in Japan, the United States, and Hong Kong to assess cultural influences on the self-concept assessed from this open-ended inventory. Numerous cultural differences were found in the frequency of categories and subcategories used for self-statements and in the level of self-esteem. These differences were related to previous research on the self-concept, to socialization practices, and to central concerns in these cultural groups.
145634514
“Who Am I?” The Cultural Psychology of the Conceptual Self
This study investigated whether self-concepts that arise from participation in interdependent cultural contexts, in this case the self-concepts of Japanese students, will be relatively more sensitive to situational variation than will self-concepts that arise in independent cultural contexts, in this case the self-concepts of U.S. college students. The self-concepts of 128 Japanese and 133 U.S. women were assessed in one of four distinct social situations: in a group, with a faculty member, with a peer, and alone in a research booth. Furthermore, the authors examined the hypothesis that Japanese self-concepts would differ from American self-concepts in valence, reflecting normative and desirable tendencies toward self-criticism. American and Japanese participants differed in the content, number, and range of self-descriptions. As predicted, the situation had a greater influence on the self-descriptions of the Japanese participants than on the Americans’ self-descriptions, and the self-descriptions of the Japanese were more negative.
33555619
Spontaneous self-descriptions and ethnic identities in individualistic and collectivistic cultures.
The Twenty Statements Test (TST) was administered in Seoul and New York, to 454 students from 2 cultures that emphasize collectivism and individualism, respectively. Responses, coded into 33 categories, were classified as either abstract or specific and as either autonomous or social. These 2 dichotomies were more independent in Seoul than in New York. The New York sample included Asian American whose spontaneous social identities differed. They either never listed ethnicity-nationality on the TST, or listed it once or twice. Unidentified Asian Americans' self-concepts resembled Euro-Americans' self-concepts, and twice identified Asian Americans' self-concepts resembled Koreans' self-concepts, in both abstractness-specificity and autonomy-sociality. Differential acculturation did not account for these results. Implications for social identity, self-categorization, and acculturation theory are discussed.
141031143
Does the Concept of the Person Vary Cross-Culturally?
Our concern in this essay is with other people’s conceptions of the person and ideas about the self. Our aim is to interpret a widespread mode of social thought often referred to as concrete, undifferentiated, context-specific, or occasion- bound thinking, a mode of social thought culminating in the view that specific situations determine the moral character of a particular action, that the individual person per se is neither an object of importance nor inherently worthy of respect, that the individual as moral agent ought not be distinguished from the social status s(he) occupies; a view that, indeed, the individual as an abstract ethical and normative category is not to be acknowledged.
8510825
Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-being.
All individuals have multiple views of themselves. Whereas the consistency among the different aspects of identity is emphasized in Western cultures, the "multiple selves" are often viewed as coexisting realities in East Asian cultures. This research revisits the classic thesis in psychology that identity consistency is a prerequisite condition of psychological well-being. Between individuals (Study 1), people with a more consistent self-view had a more clear self-knowledge, were more assertive, and, most notably, had self-experiences that were less affected by the perspectives of others. Compared with North American participants (Study 2), Koreans viewed themselves more flexibly across situations, and their subjective well-being was less predictable from levels of identity consistency. Also, consistent individuals received positive social evaluations from others in the United States but not in Korea.
198718809
The semantic--procedural interface model of the self: the role of self-knowledge for context-dependent versus context-independent modes of thinking.
How do independent and interdependent self-construals affect cognition? The authors proposed the semantic-procedural interface model, which distinguishes 2 such mechanisms. In addition to semantic differences, different procedural modes of thinking are associated with independent and interdependent self-construals. Independent self-definitions coincide with the tendency to process stimuli unaffected by the context in which they appear. Interdependent self-construals facilitate context-bounded thinking (i.e., processing stimuli by paying attention to their relation to the given context). With semantic-free dependent variables, 4 experiments showed independence-primed participants to exhibit higher degrees of context independence than did interdependence-primed participants. The results are discussed with reference to their potential explanations for cross-cultural differences.
67804616
Culture and Context-sensitive Self: The Amount and Meaning of Context-sensitivity of Phenomenal Self Differ Across Cultures
Self-concepts change from context to context. The experience that one’s self is context-sensitive may be universal, however the amount and meaning of contextsensitive self vary across cultures. Cross-cultural differences in the amount and meaning of context-sensitive self were investigated in three Western cultures (Australia, Germany, and UK) and two East Asian cultures (Japan and Korea). The amount of context-sensitivity of self was greater in Japan than in Western cultures and Korea. The meaning of context-sensitive self also varied across cultures. In the Western cultures, a context-invariant self was seen to be clear and true; however, these patterns were not observed in the East Asian cultures. In Korea, a context-invariant self was interpreted to be exhibiting a relational self, which
13153672
The relational-interdependent self-construal, self-concept consistency, and well-being.
Examination of the assumptions underlying consistency perspectives in social and personality psychology reveals that they are based on an independent, individualistic view of the self. If the self is constructed as relational or interdependent with others, consistency may be less important in social behavior and well-being. Using a variety of measures of well-being, the studies showed that there is a weaker relation between consistency and well-being for individuals with a highly relational self-construal than for those with a low relational self-construal. Study 3 examined the association between the self-construal, consistency, authenticity, and well-being. These findings reveal the importance of a cultural analysis of theories of the self, personality, and well-being for further theory development.
38318953
Re-construing the relational-interdependent self-construal and its relationship with self-consistency
Abstract Our study sought to: (1) tie the relational self-construal to the nomological net of the interpersonal circumplex and (2) show that prior self-construal research confounded consistent with desirable descriptions of self and others. Undergraduates (n = 233) completed measures of relational self-construal, Machiavellianism, the interpersonal circumplex, self-consistency, and self-friend consistency. Contrary to past research, the relational self-construal only predicted socially desirable types of consistency and did not moderate the effect of self-consistency on well-being. The relational self-construal was located in the communal-and-unagentic region of the circumplex, directly opposite Machiavellianism, and the circumplex and Machiavellianism scales predicted consistency at least as well as the relational self-construal, thus raising questions about whether the relational self-construal refers to a novel explanatory construct.
14188002
Culture and self-concept stability: consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans.
Whereas prior cultural research has focused on consistency of self-descriptions across contexts, the current 4 studies examined cultural differences in consistency of multiple self-dimensions and did so both across and within different contexts. Supporting predictions, Study 1a found that Asian Americans were less consistent in their self-descriptions across relationship contexts than were European Americans. Yet Study 1b, a short-term longitudinal study, found that Asian Americans' self-descriptions nonetheless showed high consistency within these contexts over time. Together, these findings suggest that for Asian Americans self-concept stability derives from defining the self in "if-then" terms, that is, as variable across relationship contexts but stable within them. In Studies 2a and 2b, parallel consistency effects emerged for 2 core motivational facets of the self-concept: self-view importance and self-enhancement. Moreover, dialectical beliefs mediated the cultural difference in consistency across contexts. Overall, the results demonstrate both the robustness and the boundaries of cultural differences in self-concept consistency as well as the importance of examining multiple forms of stability in the self-concept. Implications for authenticity and well-being are discussed.
16316661
Is the Interdependent Self More Sensitive to Question Context Than the Independent Self? Self-Construal and the Observation of Conversational Norms☆
Question answering requires close attention to the common ground to determine what the questioner wants to know. Because attentiveness to others is more likely to be a self-defining goal when the self is thought of as interdependent with others rather than independent of others, we predicted that self-construal influences attentiveness to the common ground. In Experiment 1, participants' temporary self-construal was manipulated through a priming technique. As predicted, interdependence-primed participants were more likely than independence-primed participants to take the recipient's knowledge into account and avoided providing redundant information in a self-administered questionnaire. Drawing on chronic differences in self-construal, Experiment 2 replicated these findings with participants from independent (Germany) and interdependent (China) cultures. Throughout, participants' differential attentiveness to the common ground resulted in differential question order effects, raising important methodological issues for cross-cultural research.
16137710
Individuality or Conformity? The Effect of Independent and Interdependent Self‐Concepts on Public Judgments
When both independent and interdependent self-concepts are available, priming either self-concept will increase the accessibility in memory of the motivations and cognitions associated with it. Thus, priming the interdependent self may activate motivation to maintain harmony and conform to others’ opinions, whereas priming the independent self is likely to activate motivation to be independent and to withstand social pressure. Two experiments investigated implications of these possibilities for judgments of risk when participants anticipated (or not) explaining their judgments to others. Participants relied on others’ beliefs only when their interdependent self was primed and they expected they might have to explain their judgments to others. When their independent self was primed, expectations to communicate theirjudgments had no effect. Culture-based differences in individualism vs. collectivism had no impact on these effects.
52206684
How Priming the Private Self or Collective Self Affects the Relative Weights of Attitudes and Subjective Norms
Three experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of the private self and the collective self affects the relative weights given to attitudes and subjective norms when forming a behavioral intention. The results of Experiment 1 indicate that increasing the accessibility of the private self caused participants to place more weight on attitudes than subjective norms but that increasing the accessibility of the collective self caused participants to place more weight on subjective norms than on attitudes. Experiments 2 and 3, using a subtle priming procedure, replicated this pattern of results. In addition, the findings of Experiment 3 provided direct evidence for the differential priming of the two self-concepts. Hence, the data suggest an intimate connection between the accessibility of the private and collective selves and whether people use attitudes or subjective norms to make behavioral intentions.
1717662
Culture and development of everyday social explanation.
The impact of cultural meaning systems on the development of everyday social explanation is explored in a cross-cultural investigation undertaken among Indian and American adults and children (ages 8, 11, and 15 year). It is demonstrated that at older ages Americans make greater reference to general dispositions and less reference to contextual factors in explanation than do Hindus . References to general dispositions also undergo a much greater developmental increase among Americans than among Hindus , whereas references to contextual factors show the opposite pattern of developmental change. Evidence suggests that these cross-cultural and developmental differences result from contrasting cultural conceptions of the person acquired over development in the two cultures rather than from cognitive., experiential, or informational differences between attributors . Discussion focuses on theoretical implications of such a demonstration for understanding: (a) the importance of integrating semantic with structural considerations in theories of social attribution, (b) the need to develop nonteleological frameworks for interpreting age and cultural diversity in conceptualization, and (c) the role of cultural communication in the acquisition of everyday social knowledge.
18105689
Cultural variation in the use of current life satisfaction to predict the future.
Three studies examined cultural and situational influences on the tendency for people to use their current life satisfaction to predict future life events. On the basis of the self-enhancement literature, it was predicted that either writing about a positive personal experience or reading about another's negative experience would lead European Americans to focus their attention on internal attributes and thus would lead them to use their current life satisfaction in predicting the future. Conversely, on the basis of the self-criticism literature, it was predicted that these same conditions would lead Asian Americans to focus their attention on external factors and, therefore, would decrease their likelihood of using their current life satisfaction to predict the future. Studies 1 and 2 supported these hypotheses. Study 3 showed that these patterns could be obtained by subliminally priming concepts associated with individualism and collectivism.
29418539
Social reference points
The authors performed two experiments in which subjects were asked to makesimilarity judgments about social concepts, varying the direction of the compar-ison specified by the question. Asymmetries in rated similarity were used todiagnose concepts that function as habitual reference points. In Experiment 1subjects rated a friend as more similar to themselves than vice versa along bothsocial and physical dimensions, suggesting that the self served as a reference point.In Experiment 2 subjects made global similarity comparisons between themselvesand typical examples of various social stereotypes. Directional asymmetries wereinversely related to the extent of subjects' knowledge about the stereotypes: Theself acted as a reference point with respect to stereotypes with few known attributesbut not with respect to those with many attributes. The relation between levelof self-monitoring and asymmetry effects was weak and inconsistent across thetwo experiments. The results suggest that concepts serving as social referencepoints vary across judgment contexts in accord with general cognitive models ofsimilarity comparisons.
20551278
Seeing my world in a million little pieces: narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive-perceptual style.
In 4 studies we examine the association between narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive-perceptual style, hypothesizing that high self-focus in combination with low other-focus (i.e., social atomization) is related to an analytic cognitive-perceptual style. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Self-Construal Scale, and measures of cognitive-perceptual style such as the Analysis-Holism Scale, the Embedded Figures Test, a visual illusion test, and a measure of the representativeness heuristic. We found evidence for a decontextualized cognitive-perceptual style in socially atomized participants, which included those high in narcissism and also those who had a combination of high independent and low interdependent self-construal. A meta-analytic integration of our findings found that narcissism was positively related to independent and negatively related to interdependent self-construal, and mediation analyses found some evidence that the relationship between self-construal and cognitive-perceptual style is partially mediated by narcissism.
17777422
Self-construal and the processing of covariation information in causal reasoning
Causal induction provides a nice test domain for examining the influence of individual-difference factors on cognition. The phenomena of both conditionalization and discounting reflect attention to multiple potential causes when people infer what caused an effect. We explored the hypothesis that individuals with an independent self-construal are relatively less sensitive to context (other causes) than are individuals with an interdependent self-construal in this domain. We found greater levels of conditionalization and data consistent with discounting for participants in whom we primed an interdependent self-construal than for participants in whom we primed an independent self-construal.
6313352
Connecting and separating mind-sets: culture as situated cognition.
UNLABELLED
People perceive meaningful wholes and later separate out constituent parts (D. Navon, 1977). Yet there are cross-national differences in whether a focal target or integrated whole is first perceived. Rather than construe these differences as fixed, the proposed culture-as-situated-cognition model explains these differences as due to whether a collective or individual mind-set is cued at the moment of observation. Eight studies demonstrated that when cultural mind-set and task demands are congruent, easier tasks are accomplished more quickly and more difficult or time-constrained tasks are accomplished more accurately (


STUDY 1
Koreans, Korean Americans; STUDY 2: Hong Kong Chinese; STUDY 3: European- and Asian-heritage Americans; STUDY 4: Americans;


STUDY
5 Hong Kong Chinese; STUDY 6: Americans; STUDY 7: Norwegians; STUDY 8: African-, European-, and Asian-heritage Americans). Meta-analyses (d = .34) demonstrated homogeneous effects across geographic place (East-West), racial-ethnic group, task, and sensory mode-differences are cued in the moment. Contrast and separation are salient individual mind-set procedures, resulting in focus on a single target or main point. Assimilation and connection are salient collective mind-set procedures, resulting in focus on multiplicity and integration.
8850771
Attending holistically versus analytically: comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans.
Much research indicates that East Asians, more than Americans, explain events with reference to the context. The authors examined whether East Asians also attend to the context more than Americans do. In Study 1, Japanese and Americans watched animated vignettes of underwater scenes and reported the contents. In a subsequent recognition test, they were shown previously seen objects as well as new objects, either in their original setting or in novel settings, and then were asked to judge whether they had seen the objects. Study 2 replicated the recognition task using photographs of wildlife. The results showed that the Japanese (a) made more statements about contextual information and relationships than Americans did and (b) recognized previously seen objects more accurately when they saw them in their original settings rather than in the novel settings, whereas this manipulation had relatively little effect on Americans.
17739645
Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition.
The authors find East Asians to be holistic, attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on "dialectical" reasoning, whereas Westerners are more analytic, paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior. The 2 types of cognitive processes are embedded in different naive metaphysical systems and tacit epistemologies. The authors speculate that the origin of these differences is traceable to markedly different social systems. The theory and the evidence presented call into question long-held assumptions about basic cognitive processes and even about the appropriateness of the process-content distinction.
206443285
Culture and Context: East Asian American and European American Differences in P3 Event-Related Potentials and Self-Construal
Research has demonstrated differences in social and cognitive processes between East Asians and European Americans. Whereas East Asians have been characterized as being more sensitive to situational context and attending more to the perceptual field, European Americans have been characterized as being more focused on the object and being more field independent. The goal of the present experiment was to investigate differences in neural responses to target objects and stimulus context between East Asian Americans and European Americans using a three-stimulus novelty P3 event-related potential design. As hypothesized, European Americans displayed relatively greater target P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to target events, whereas East Asian Americans displayed relatively greater novelty P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to contextually deviant events. Furthermore, the authors found that interdependent self-construal mediated the relationship between culture and the novelty P3. These findings identify a specific pattern of neural activity associated with established cultural differences in contextual sensitivity.
31809321
Self-construal priming modulates visual activity underlying global/local perception
Behavioral studies suggest that self-construals play a key role in modulation of cognitive processing styles, leading to context-dependent or -independent mode of processing. The current work investigated whether the neural activity in the extrastriate cortex underlying global/local perception of compound stimuli can be modulated by self-construal priming that shifts self-construal towards the Eastern interdependent or Western independent self in Chinese participants. After primed with independent or interdependent self-construals, subjects were asked to discriminate global/local letters in a compound stimulus while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. We found that, while the independent self-construal priming resulted in enlarged P1 amplitude to local than global targets at lateral occipital electrodes, a reverse pattern was observed after the interdependent self-construal priming. Our findings provide electrophysiological evidence that self-construal priming modulates visual perceptual processing in the extrastriate cortex.
21881940
Self-construal priming modulates the scope of visual attention
Although it is well documented that cultures influence basic cognitive processes such as attention, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We tested the hypothesis that self-concepts that characterize people from different cultures mediate the variation of visual attention. After being primed with self-construals that emphasize the Eastern interdependent self or the Western independent self, Chinese participants were asked to discriminate a central target letter flanked by compatible or incompatible stimuli (Experiment 1) or global/local letters in a compound stimulus (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that, while responses were slower to the incompatible than to the compatible stimuli, this flanker compatibility effect was increased by the interdependent relative to the independent self-construal priming. Experiment 2 showed that the interdependent-self priming resulted in faster responses to the global than to the local targets in compound letters whereas a reverse pattern was observed in the independent-self priming condition. The results provide evidence for dynamics of the scope of visual attention as a function of self-construal priming that switches self-concept toward the interdependent or independent styles in Chinese.
14439636
Cultural Influences on Neural Substrates of Attentional Control
Behavioral research has shown that people from Western cultural contexts perform better on tasks emphasizing independent (absolute) dimensions than on tasks emphasizing interdependent (relative) dimensions, whereas the reverse is true for people from East Asian contexts. We assessed functional magnetic resonance imaging responses during performance of simple visuospatial tasks in which participants made absolute judgments (ignoring visual context) or relative judgments (taking visual context into account). In each group, activation in frontal and parietal brain regions known to be associated with attentional control was greater during culturally non-preferred judgments than during culturally preferred judgments. Also, within each group, activation differences in these regions correlated strongly with scores on questionnaires measuring individual differences in culture-typical identity. Thus, the cultural background of an individual and the degree to which the individual endorses cultural values moderate activation in brain networks engaged during even simple visual and attentional tasks.
145405760
The Ups and Downs of Thinking About a Successful Other: Self Construals and the Consequences of Social Comparisons
We hypothesized that the consequences of upward social comparisons are mediated by independent versus interdependent content of self-construals. Independent self-construals emphasize personal uniqueness; thus comparison to an outstanding other should undermine one's sense of uniqueness and lower current self-evaluations. Conversely, interdependent self-construals focus on interpersonal connectedness. Hence, interdependent individuals should be able to bask in the reflected success of a personally relevant other in an upward comparison task, thus increasing self-evaluations. In a study involving 66 US undergraduates the latter predictions were supported. The psychological dimension of interdependence predicted differential outcomes of upward social comparisons, but this was not the case for the dimension of independence. Also, differential consequences of social comparison were more pronounced for current self-evaluations than for participants' possible selves. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
10187438
The self salience model of other-to-self effects: integrating principles of self-enhancement, complementarity, and imitation.
In a series of studies the Self Salience Model of other-to-self effects is tested. This model posits that self-construal salience is an important determinant of whether other-to-self effects follow the principles of self-enhancement, imitation, or complementarity. Participants imagined interactions (Studies 1 and 2) or were confronted (Studies 3 to 5) with dominant, submissive, agreeable, or quarrelsome person targets. Findings support the prediction that subsequent self-evaluations (Studies 1 to 3) and behaviors (Studies 4 and 5) follow the principles of self-enhancement when the personal self is activated (contrast away from undesirable targets, assimilation toward desirable targets); the principles of complementarity when the relational self is activated (contrast on the dominant-submissive dimension, assimilation on the agreeable-quarrelsome dimension); and the principles of imitation when the collective self is activated (assimilation regardless of desirability or dimension).
53512128
Blonde Like Me: When Self-Construals Moderate Stereotype Priming Effects on Intellectual Performance
Stereotype priming can lead to assimilation or contrast effects on behavior. We argue that self-activation is a moderator of both assimilation and contrast effects. To test this hypothesis, in two studies, we activated independent or interdependent self-knowledge before priming participants with the dumb Blonde stereotype or a control category (Study 1) or no prime (Study 2). Participants then answered a knowledge test. Results support our expectations: Participants presented assimilation under interdependence (i.e., underperformance compared to control group) while they presented no assimilation (i.e., comparable performance with control group in Study 1) and contrast (better performance than control group in Study 2) under independence. We discuss implications of these findings in regards of previous research and recent models such as the Active Self Account [Wheeler, S. C., DeMarree, K. G., & Petty, R. E. (2005). The roles of the self in priming-to-behavior effects. In A. Tesser, J. V. Wood, & D. A. Stapel (Eds.), On building, defending and regulating the self: A psychological perspective (pp. 245–271). New York, NY, USA: Psychology Press].
55710699
When women can't do math: the interplay of self-construal, group identification, and stereotypic performance standards
Abstract The present research examined the interplay of self-construal (independent vs. interdependent), gender group identification, and performance standards (positive vs. negative) on women’s math performance. Female participants were given a subtle self-prime prior to completing a math test under conditions where either a positive or negative group-based performance standard was rendered accessible. We report an interactive effect of self-construal, gender identification, and performance standard such that a negative (compared to a positive) standard decreased performance under interdependent self-prime (“we”) conditions, whereas the reverse pattern emerged under independent self-prime (“I”) conditions. Importantly, we observed this interplay of performance standards and self-construal only in individuals who self-identify with their gender group whereas performance outcomes of low identifiers were not affected by the experimental manipulations.
27932866
Self-Construal Priming Modulates Neural Substrates of Self-Awareness
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess whether self-construal priming can change adults' self-awareness induced during face perception. After reading essays containing independent or interdependent pronouns (e.g., I or we), participants were scanned while judging the head orientation of images showing their own and familiar faces. Neural activity in the right middle frontal cortex was greater when participants viewed their own rather than familiar faces, and this difference was larger after independent than after interdependent self-construal priming. The increased right frontal activity for participants' own faces relative to familiar faces was associated with faster responses. Our findings suggest that the neural correlates of self-awareness associated with recognition of one's own face can be modulated by self-construal priming in human adults.
144543032
i Versus we: the eFFects oF selF-construal leVel on diVersity
In two studies it is demonstrated that people’s self-construal level may influence the extent to which they spontaneously produce divergent ideas. In study 1, it is shown that construing the self at a personal level (“I”) induces the motivation to be independent, alone, and different, whereas construing the self at a social level (“we”) induces the motivation to be accepted, together, and to conform. In study 2, it is shown that--in the absence of explicit instructions to be different--personal self-construals lead to more diversity (e.g., drawing a golf cart as an example of a motor vehicle), whereas social self-construals lead to less diversity (e.g., drawing a car as an example of a motor vehicle). Possible implications for brainstorm sessions in groups and other group-based ventures in which diversity is desired are discussed. Why do individual members of a group often come up with more unique and divergent ideas when working alone than when working together as a group? This question has troubled many researchers, and not in the least those who study the often found productivity losses when people are brainstorming in groups (e.g., Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991; Paulus, Larey, & Ortega, 1995). Since researchers started their search for reasons that individuals in groups seem to produce less divergent ideas, many suggestions have been offered, including “production blocking” (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx, 2003), “social anxiousness” (Camacho & Paulus, 1995), and “conforming to norms” (Adarves-Yorno, Postmes, & Haslam, 2006). Notwithstanding the idea that social anxiety, production blocking, and conformance to norms may repress the expression of divergent ideas, in the current article we will explore an additional mechanism that may explain why people in groups often come up with less unique, divergent ideas than when working alone.
23245667
The Impact of Self-Construal on Aesthetic Preference for Angular Versus Rounded Shapes
In this article, the authors examine the role of self-construal in aesthetic preference for angular versus rounded shapes. Previous research found an independent self-construal is associated with a confrontation approach to conflict resolution, whereas an interdependent self-construal is associated with compromise. Furthermore, the literature in empirical aesthetics suggests that angular shapes tend to generate confrontational associations, and rounded shapes tend to generate compromise associations. Accordingly, the authors propose individuals with independent self-construals should perceive angular shapes as more attractive, whereas individuals with interdependent self-construals should find rounded shapes more attractive. The authors argue this effect of self-construal should be more pronounced when people expect that their shape preferences will be evaluated by others because culturally consistent responses will be more accessible in this situation. These hypotheses were largely confirmed in a field study that classified logos from a variety of countries and two experiments in which self-construal was experimentally primed.
27990652
Is it culture or is it language? Examination of language effects in cross-cultural research on categorization.
Differences in reasoning styles between Chinese and European Americans held even when controlling for the language of testing. Bilingual Chinese organized objects in a more relational and less categorical way than European Americans, whether tested in English or in Chinese. Thus, culture affects categorization independent of the testing language. Nevertheless, language affected some Chinese bilinguals' categorization. The responses of Chinese from the Mainland and Taiwan were more relational when tested in Chinese than when tested in English. Responses of Chinese from Hong Kong and Singapore were equally relational when tested in Chinese and in English. Age and context of learning English are discussed to explain the differential language effects among different Chinese groups. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.
16642068
Independent self-construal, self-reflection, and self-rumination: A path model for predicting happiness
Abstract A construal theory of happiness emphasises the mediating impact of cognitive and motivational processes on the individual's perceptions of their happiness. This study investigated a path model with the two cognitive variables, self-reflection and self-rumination as mediating factors between an independent self-construal and subjective happiness. One hundred and twenty three participants completed a questionnaire designed to measure subjective happiness, independent self-construal, self-reflection, and self-rumination. Individuals' propensity to self-reflect and self-ruminate was not found to be affected by an independent self-construal. A higher independent self-construal was associated with greater happiness. The results also indicated that self-reflection has the potential to both increase and decrease (when mediated by self-rumination) subjective happiness. This study suggests that although meaningful self-reflection may be beneficial for individuals who do not enjoy high levels of happiness, ...
16932161
Sources of ethnic differences between Asian American and white American college students on measures of depression and social anxiety.
This study tested an affect-specific explanation for the Asian and White American differences in depression and social anxiety. Construal of the self as independent or interdependent in relation to others (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) was hypothesized to be 1 possible way in which culture may be expressed in individuals' psychological functioning, which in turn was hypothesized to be linked specifically to social anxiety. College students (N = 348; 183 White Americans and 165 Asian Americans) completed self-report measures of depression, social anxiety, and self-construals. Asian Americans scored significantly higher than White Americans on measures of depression and social anxiety. When the covariance between depression and social anxiety was statistically controlled, ethnicity and self-construal variables were found, as predicted, to be associated with measures of social anxiety but not depression. These findings suggest a more differentiated perspective on the relations between culture, ethnicity, and emotional distress.
144485792
Culture‐specific personality correlates of anxiety among Chinese and Caucasian college students
The present study investigated the relationship between a set of personality constructs (i.e. perfectionism, independent-interdependent self-construal, and collective self-esteem) and trait and social anxiety among 324 Mainland Chinese and 333 Caucasian college students. It was hypothesized that the strength of the correlation between these personality factors and anxiety would be different for the two samples. The results indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was a better predictor of social anxiety for the Chinese participants, but of trait anxiety for the Caucasian participants. Independent self-construal predicted social anxiety better for the Caucasians than for the Chinese. Overall, aspects of collective self-esteem were more correlated with anxiety among the Chinese than the Caucasians. The authors argued that the findings can be used to improve multicultural counselling in China and the USA and to provide more culturally specific interventions to clients having anxiety disorders.
45159069
Cultural differences in the predictors of depression
This study examined a number of psychosocial factors thought likely to contribute to depression among ethnic Korean and Caucasian students. As hypothesized, Koreans (n = 61) were more depressed than Caucasians (n = 69). Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed different models for predicting depression in the two groups. Value orientations, a neglected element in the prevailing stress paradigm, contributed substantially to variation in depression, especially among Koreans. Two measures of parental values and three coping strategies accounted for a striking 44% of the variance in Korean youths' depression. Perceived parental traditionalism, the strongest predictor, was associated with higher depression; and perceived parental modernism, with lower depression. For Caucasians, in contrast, only 13% of the variance in depression could be accounted for; and the two significant predictors were academic stress and respondents' own modern values (the latter associated with fewer symptoms). The findings of this study argue for greater attention to the importance of values in studying adaptation to stress.
25702882
Maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms among Asian American college students: contributions of interdependence and parental relations.
Maladaptive perfectionism among Asian Americans may represent a shared social construction socialized within an interdependent cultural script. The authors hypothesized that interdependence concerns and parental relations may explain elevated maladaptive perfectionism and associated depressive symptoms in a sample of 140 Asian American college students. Survey findings revealed that interdependence, maladaptive perfectionism, and parent-driven perfectionism were associated with depressive symptoms. Regression analyses revealed that interdependence moderated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms such that highly interdependent Asian American students appeared more vulnerable to depression when demonstrating perfectionistic tendencies. Parental support buffered subjects from distress associated with parent-driven perfectionism. Processes of heightened cultural vulnerability and sensitization to maladaptive perfectionism are discussed.
2005652
Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: integrating process models of life satisfaction.
The authors examined the interplay of personality and cultural factors in the prediction of the affective (hedonic balance) and the cognitive (life satisfaction) components of subjective well-being (SWB). They predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is mediated by hedonic balance and that the relation between hedonic balance and life satisfaction is moderated by culture. As a consequence, they predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is also moderated by culture. Participants from 2 individualistic cultures (United States, Germany) and 3 collectivistic cultures (Japan, Mexico, Ghana) completed measures of Extraversion, Neuroticism, hedonic balance, and life satisfaction. As predicted, Extraversion and Neuroticism influenced hedonic balance to the same degree in all cultures, and hedonic balance was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction in individualistic than in collectivistic cultures. The influence of Extraversion and Neuroticism on life satisfaction was largely mediated by hedonic balance. The results suggest that the influence of personality on the emotional component of SWB is pancultural, whereas the influence of personality on the cognitive component of SWB is moderated by culture.
15590974
The Shifting Basis of Life Satisfaction Judgments Across Cultures: Emotions Versus Norms
The relative importance of emotions versus normative beliefs for life satisfaction judgments was compared among individualist and collectivist nations in 2 large sets of international data (in total, 61 nations, N = 62,446). Among nations, emotions and life satisfaction correlated significantly more strongly in more individualistic nations (r = .52 in Study 1; r = .48 in Study 2). At the individual level, emotions were far superior predictors of life satisfaction to norms (social approval of life satisfaction) in individualist cultures, whereas norms and emotions were equally strong predictors of life satisfaction in collectivist cultures. The present findings have implications for future studies on cultural notions of well-being, the functional value of emotional experiences, and individual differences in life satisfaction profiles. Across the world, is the "good life" attained mostly by doing what a person would like to do or by doing what a person thinks he or she should do? More broadly, are internal processes, such as attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and the like, or external pro
145063644
From Culture To Priming Conditions
Existing cross-cultural research often assumes that the independent versus interdependent self-construal process leads to different cultural behaviors, although few studies directly test this link. Extending from prior cross-cultural findings, two studies were conducted to explicitly test whether self-construal is linked with the differential use of emotions versus social information in judgments of life satisfaction. Study 1 confirmed the prediction that even among Americans, those who view themselves in interdependent terms (allocentrics) evaluate their life satisfaction in a more collectivistic manner (strong reliance on social appraisal) than those who view themselves in independent terms (idiocentrics). Study 2 replicated these findings in two cultural settings (United States and Korea) by using experimental primes of independent versus relational self-construal. Results strongly suggest that differences in self-construal processes underlie cross-cultural differences in life satisfaction judgments.
144106390
Gender and Sources of Subjective Well-Being
The literature on national differences in sources of well-being (Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997) was used to generate predictions about gender differences in sources of well-being. This linkage was made possible by parallels between national and gender differences in individualism, collectivism, and selfhood (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). Respondents completed measures of self-construal, self-esteem, relationship harmony, and well-being (positive and negative affect). As anticipated, men’s well-being was predicted better by self-esteem than by relationship harmony, whereas women’s well-being was predicted similarly (though more moderately) by self-esteem and relationship harmony. A mediated pathway from independent self-construal to well-being through self-esteem was predicted and supported. Conceptual fit of this study with previous cross-national and gender research is discussed.
37826337
Self-construal, mental distress, and family relations: a mediated moderation analysis with Asian American adolescents.
The interactive effects between interdependent and independent self-construal on family cohesion and mental distress were examined. Survey responses from 153 Asian American high school students supported the hypothesized moderation of interdependence by independence on family cohesion, which was found to further mediate the relationship between self-construal and mental distress. Specifically, interdependence was positively associated with family cohesion when independence was high and negatively associated with family cohesion when independence was low. Accounting for the mediator effects of family cohesion, mental distress was positively associated with interdependence and more so for those low on independence than those high on independence. The benefits of biculturalism and research implications for the bidimensional conceptualization of self-construal for ethnic minority populations are discussed.
144347452
Relational Variables and Life Satisfaction in African American and Asian American College Women
The authors explored associations among relationship harmony, perceived family conflicts, relational self-concept, and life satisfaction in a sample of 169 African American and Asian American college women. As hypothesized, higher relational self-concept, or the extent to which individuals include close relationships in their self-concepts, and relationship harmony scores were predictive of greater life satisfaction, whereas perceived family conflict was associated with lower life satisfaction. Implications for counseling African American and Asian American college women are discussed.
27892553
On Feeling Understood and Feeling Well: The Role of Interdependence.
The present research examined whether people feel happier and healthier when they feel more understood in daily social interactions. A two-week diary study showed that people reported greater life satisfaction and fewer physical symptoms on days in which they felt more understood by others. Moreover, we found that individuals who tend to see themselves in relations to others (i.e., women or those scored high on interdependent self-construal measure) showed a stronger association between daily felt understanding and daily life satisfaction or physical symptoms. These findings demonstrate that daily social experiences, such as felt understanding, are associated with daily well-being, particularly for individuals with greater interdependent self-construal.
24577659
Cultural differences in children's emotional reactions to difficult situations.
Although cultures vary in terms of how their members appraise situations, communicate emotions, and act on them, little is known about how culture influences children's emotional reactions. This study examined beliefs about revealing emotion in 223 second-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children from three cultures (Brahman, Tamang, and the United States). Interviews yielded descriptions of how children would feel, whether they would want others to know their feelings, why they would or would not, and what they would do in difficult interpersonal situations. Findings revealed three distinct cultural patterns. Tamang were more likely to appraise difficult situations in terms of shame than were Brahman and U.S. children, who endorsed anger. Brahman children, however, were more likely to not communicate negative emotion than were Tamang and U.S. children. The responses of U.S. children appeared to be more problem focused and action oriented than those of Brahman and Tamang children. Age influenced the degree to which children used emotion-focused coping, and affected decisions about communicating anger in Tamang and U.S. children. Features of cultural contexts that influence children's sense of appropriate emotional behavior are discussed.
145309292
Different selves, different values: effects of self-construals on value activation and use
Three experiments demonstrated structural properties and dynamic effects of self-construal on the processing and use of values. In Study 1, it was found that self-focus during encoding caused spontaneous cognitive clustering of individualistic versus relational values. Study 2 demonstrated that self-construal affected the implicit weight of a value-related attribute in a multi-attribute choice task. In Study 3, behavioral intentions were better predicted by personal values than social norms when the personal self was primed, whereas social norms predicted better when the collective self was primed. The effects of manipulated self-construal were mimicked when comparing participants with an individualistic versus collectivistic cultural background. No interaction was found between priming and cultural background. Taken together, the studies demonstrated that different domains of the self are associated with different values, which may instigate different cognitive and behavioral processes when activated.
145731522
Self-Construals, Motivation, and Feedback-Seeking Behaviors
The current study explores the relations between individualism, motivation, and feedback-seeking behaviors. Specifically, we examined how three motivational factors (i.e., status-striving, achievement-striving, and affiliation-striving) mediated or moderated the relations between individualism and feedback-seeking behaviors. Data were collected from 154 Singaporean undergraduate students across two time periods. Results indicated that only status motivation mediates the individualism–feedback-seeking relation. Affiliation was found to moderate that same relation but only for a specific subset of feedback-seeking behaviors. The implications of these findings for performance management and development are discussed.
59136190
Self-Construal and Concerns Elicited by Imagined and Real Health Problems
In 2 studies, we examined the relationship between self-construal and illness-related concerns. In Study 1, participants imagined themselves experiencing a health problem described in a scenario and answered closed-ended questions about the concerns that this situation would likely elicit. The experience of social illness concerns was predicted by collective self-construal, and the experience of personal illness concerns tended to be predicted by endorsement of individual self-construal. In Study 2, participants recalled a past health problem and related consequences, which were content-coded. Collective self-construal predicted the extent to which people mentioned issues related to others in their free-recall illness descriptions and the number of other-related consequences that were generated when specifically asked about them. Sarah falls ill. She is told that she must stay in bed for a while to get better. She starts worrying, because staying in bed might mean not being able to finish her ongoing project at work, thereby putting her at a disadvantage for the promotion for which she has been hoping. She also feels that lying in bed threatens her independence, as she dislikes being dependent on other people for her needs. Julie, who is also ill, is told that she needs to rest in bed in order to recover more quickly. She is worried because her mother must take time off work to care for her. She feels that she is a burden to her family. In addition, this situation prevents her from being able to take care of her younger sister. When people experience a health problem, they tend to feel concerned about its consequences. Their concerns may be related to how they will catch
15542489
The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.
143534668
Acting in our interests: Relational self-construal and goal motivation across cultures
Relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs) are motives for behavior that take into account one’s close relationships. A cross-cultural model tested the hypotheses that (a) people with a highly relational self-construal will pursue their goals for RARs, and (b) RARs will predict positive goal outcomes after controlling for variance explained by personally-autonomous reasons (PARs) and social support. One hundred seventy Americans and 219 Japanese completed a well-being and self questionnaire then generated and rated seven goals on several attributes. Results showed that relational self-construal was associated with RARs for goals. RARs predicted effort directly and predicted progress and purpose in life indirectly for both groups. In addition, Americans and Japanese differed in the types of goals they pursued and the degree to which social support predicted effort. Implications for self, culture, and motivation research are discussed.
14290615
Motivational and emotional aspects of the self.
Recent theory and research are reviewed regarding self-related motives (self-enhancement, self-verification, and self-expansion) and self-conscious emotions (guilt, shame, pride, social anxiety, and embarrassment), with an emphasis on how these motivational and emotional aspects of the self might be related. Specifically, these motives and emotions appear to function to protect people's social well-being. The motives to self-enhance, self-verify, and self-expand are partly rooted in people's concerns with social approval and acceptance, and self-conscious emotions arise in response to events that have real or imagined implications for others' judgments of the individual. Thus, these motives and emotions do not operate to maintain certain states of the self, as some have suggested, but rather to facilitate people's social interactions and relationships.
145739134
Culture, Dissonance, and Self-Affirmation
Within the framework of self-affirmation theory, the authors compared levels of dissonance reduction in the free-choice paradigm between a culture typical of an independent construal of self (Canadian) and a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self (Japanese). Whereas Canadian results virtually duplicated past self-affirmation findings with U.S. participants, Japanese results showed no dissonance reduction. This, the authors argue, is because such situations do not threaten core aspects of the interdependent self:
1159635
On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: the case of easterners and westerners.
Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In Study 4, when Asian Canadians made choices for a friend, an independent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for bicultural Asian Canadians but not for monocultural Asian Canadians. These studies demonstrate that both Easterners and Westerners can experience dissonance, but culture shapes the situations in which dissonance is aroused and reduced. Implications of these cultural differences for theories of cognitive dissonance and self-affirmation are discussed.
762759
Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health.
Many prominent theorists have argued that accurate perceptions of the self, the world, and the future are essential for mental health. Yet considerable research evidence suggests that overly positive selfevaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism are characteristic of normal human thought. Moreover, these illusions appear to promote other criteria of mental health, including the ability to care about others, the ability to be happy or contented, and the ability to engage in productive and creative work. These strategies may succeed, in large part, because both the social world and cognitive-processing mechanisms impose niters on incoming information that distort it in a positive direction; negative information may be isolated and represented in as unthreatening a manner as possible. These positive illusions may be especially useful when an individual receives negative feedback or is otherwise threatened and may be especially adaptive under these circumstances. Decades of psychological wisdom have established contact with reality as a hallmark of mental health. In this view, the well-adjusted person is thought to engage in accurate reality testing, whereas the individual whose vision is clouded by illusion is regarded as vulnerable to, if not already a victim of, mental illness. Despite its plausibility, this viewpoint is increasingly difficult to maintain (cf. Lazarus, 1983). A substantial amount of research testifies to the prevalence of illusion in normal human cognition (see Fiske& Taylor, 1984;Greenwald, 1980; Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Sackeim, 1983; Taylor, 1983). Moreover, these illusions often involve central aspects of the self and the environment and, therefore, cannot be dismissed as inconsequential. In this article, we review research suggesting that certain illusions may be adaptive for mental health and well-being. In particular, we examine evidence that a set of interrelated positive illusions—namely, unrealistically positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism—can serve a wide variety of cognitive, affective, and social functions. We also attempt to resolve the following para
39738296
Cultural variations on optimistic and pessimistic bias for self versus a sibling: is there evidence for self-enhancement in the west and for self-criticism in the east when the referent group is specified?
A culturally relevant framework was used to examine variations on optimistic and pessimistic bias in Westerners and Easterners. Study 1 showed that 136 European Americans compared with 159 Japanese were more likely to predict typical positive events to occur to self than to a sibling. The opposite pattern emerged in the prediction of typical negative events. Study 2 replicated these findings on the basis of predictions for atypical events in 175 European Americans and 130 Japanese. Across both studies, within-groups analyses indicated that European Americans held an optimistic bias in the prediction of positive and negative events, whereas Japanese held a pessimistic bias for negative events. These findings are taken to offer support for presumed cultural differences in self-enhancement and self-criticism between Westerners and Easterners, respectively.
145357958
Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more vulnerable than the East?
Levels of unrealistic optimism were compared for Canadians (a culture typical of an independent construal of self) and Japanese (a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self). Across 2 studies, Canadians showed significantly more unrealistic optimism than Japanese, and Canadians' optimism bias was more strongly related to perceived threat. Study 2 revealed that Japanese were even less unrealistically optimistic for events that were particularly threatening to interdependent selves. The authors suggest that self-enhancing biases (such as unrealistic optimism) are, for the most part, absent from the motivational repertoire of the Japanese because the consequent attention to the individual that self-enhancement engenders is not valued in interdependent cultures
702264
Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan.
A collective constructionist theory of the self proposes that many psychological processes, including enhancement of the self (pervasive in the United States) and criticism and subsequent improvement of the self (widespread in Japan), result from and support the very ways in which social acts and situations are collectively defined and subjectively experienced in the respective cultural contexts. In support of the theory, 2 studies showed, first, that American situations are relatively conducive to self-enhancement and American people are relatively likely to engage in self-enhancement and, second, that Japanese situations are relatively conducive to self-criticism and Japanese people are relatively likely to engage in self-criticism. Implications are discussed for the collective construction of psychological processes implicated in the self and, more generally, for the mutual constitution of culture and the self.
143794541
Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives.
In this investigation, evaluations of self in relation to others were examined by means of asking subjects to rate the degree to which various trait adjectives characterized themselves or the average college student. Two independent samples of subjects first rated the degree to which various traits represented desirable characteristics, and the degree to which it was possible for a person to exert control over each of these characteristics, prom these initial ratings, 154 trait adjectives for which four levels of desirability were crossed with two levels of controllability were selected. A third sample of subjects then rated the degree to which each of these traits characterized the self and the average college student. It was predicted that self ratings in relation to average college student ratings would be increasingly positive as traits increased in desirability. It was also predicted that in conditions of high desirability, self ratings in relation to average college student ratings would be greater for high controllable traits than for low controllable traits, whereas in conditions of low desirability the opposite would occur. Both of these predictions were strongly supported. Results are discussed in terms of the adaptive advantages of maintaining a global self-concept that implies that positive characteristics are under personal control and that negative characteristics are caused by factors outside of personal control.
143682842
Are Most People Happier than their Peers, or Are They Just Happy?
Most people judge themselves to be content with their lives. However, they also judge themselves to be more content than the others in their group, which is a logical impossibility. In line with previous speculations, the authors found in two studies that comparative contentment judgments were highly related to judgments of one’s own contentment but entirely unrelated to judgments of comparison of others’ contentment. That is, comparative contentment judgments are predominantly self-focused. Researchers asking the question, “How content are you relative to your peers?” should be aware that the response might well be to the question “How content are you?”
37317987
No one in my group can be below the group's average: a robust positivity bias in favor of anonymous peers.
In Studies 1-8, participants judged an anonymous student as better than the average student, as above the group median, and as better than most other students on a variety of desirable traits. This effect was retained when name and age were removed and student ID number was the only individuating feature, when both the average student and the anonymous student were provide with a first name, and when the order of presentation was reversed. However, the effect was reduced when an enriched version of the average student was provided. In Study 9, an anonymous member of a highly disliked out-group was judged as worse than the out-group average member. These results indicate difficulty in comparing a singular target to a generalized target. A singular-target-focused model of comparative judgments is used to describe how people conduct these assessments.
25745893
Self-construal and social comparison effects.
BACKGROUND
Social comparison research usually demonstrates that students will have higher self-evaluation in downward comparison but lower self-evaluation in upward comparison. However, the existence of this contrast effect may depend on people's self-construal. The contrast effect may exist only for people with independent self-construal. For people with interdependent self-construal, the contrast effect may be attenuated.


AIM
The study investigated the role of self-construal as a moderator of the social comparison effects in authentic classrooms.


SAMPLE
The participants were 96 Chinese seventh-grade students (41 male, 51 female and 4 unreported) from a secondary school in Hong Kong.


METHOD
The experiment employed a 2 x 2 between-subjects design based on 2 levels of self-construal (independent, interdependent) and 2 levels of comparison standard (upward comparison, downward comparison). The dependent variable was students' self-evaluation.


RESULTS
A two-way ANOVA indicated a significant interaction between self-construal and comparison standard on self-evaluation. When the students' independent self-construal was activated, they reported higher self-evaluation in downward comparison but lower self-evaluation in upward comparison. However, such a contrast effect was attenuated when the students' interdependent self-construal was activated. They reported high self-evaluation in both upward and downward comparisons.


CONCLUSIONS
The outcome of social comparison depends on whether independent or interdependent self-construal is salient in the classroom.
143725722
Culture, self-construal, and affective reactions to successful and unsuccessful others
Three studies examined whether cultural background and self-construal predict affective reactions to successful and unsuccessful others. Asian-Canadians and those with more interdependent self-construals had less positive affective reactions to an unsuccessful than a successful other, and less positive affective reactions to an unsuccessful other than did European-Canadians and those with less interdependent self-construals (Study 1). Priming self-construal in a sample of European-Canadians mimicked these cultural differences (Study 2), and this priming effect was moderated by cultural background (Study 3). Asian-Canadians primed with interdependence (but not independence) had less positive affective reactions to an unsuccessful than a successful target, whereas European-Canadians primed with independence (but not interdependence) had more positive affective reactions to an unsuccessful than a successful target.
10611526
The "self digest": self-knowledge serving self-regulatory functions.
Self-knowledge is conceptualized as a self digest that summarizes one's relations to the world and the personal consequences of these relations. It is a handy sourcebook that serves self-regulatory functions. It is distinguished from the classic notion that self-knowledge contains one descriptive actual self. The self digest contains information about three kinds of actual selves that differ in self-regulatory function: (a) an instrumental self, (b) an expectant self, and (c) a monitored self. It represents not only the actual self but desired (and undesired) selves that reflect different kinds of self-regulatory focus (i.e., promotion or prevention). It represents not only one's own standpoint but also the standpoint of others whose beliefs one is motivated to take into account. This self-regulatory perspective is used to reconsider self-esteem, self-enhancement, self-consistency, self-presentation, and cross-cultural differences in the self.
94206108
The effects of regulatory focus on braking speed
According to regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), promotion focus is concerned with accomplishments and aspirations leading to strategic eagerness; whereas prevention focus is concerned with safety and responsibilities leading to strategic vigilance. In this study, we investigate how regulatory focus theory can predict braking behavior in driving. In Study 1, participants' assessed regulatory focus strength as measured by chronic personality differences in regulatory focus predicted braking speed, in that chronic prevention-oriented participants initiated braking earlier, as compared to promotion-oriented people. In Study 2, we experimentally induced regulatory focus and showed that induced prevention focus enhanced braking speed (i.e., faster), as compared to induced promotion focus.
8003
Performance incentives and means: how regulatory focus influences goal attainment.
Study 1 demonstrated that as individuals' promotion-related ideal strength increases, performance on an anagram task is greater for a monetary task incentive framed in terms of gains and nongains (i.e., promotion framed) than one framed in terms of losses and nonlosses (i.e., prevention framed), whereas the reverse is true as individuals' prevention-related ought strength increases. Study 2 further demonstrated that with promotion-framed task incentives, individuals' ideal' strength increases motivation for promotion-related goal attainment means (gaining points), whereas with prevention-framed task incentives, individuals' ought strength increases motivation for prevention-related means (avoiding losing points). These results suggest that motivation and performance are greater when the regulatory focus of task incentives and means match (vs. mismatch) the chronic regulatory focus of the performers.
6925048
The pleasures and pains of distinct self-construals: the role of interdependence in regulatory focus.
Regulatory focus theory distinguishes between self-regulatory processes that focus on promotion and prevention strategies for goal pursuit. Five studies provide support for the hypothesis that these strategies differ for individuals with distinct self-construals. Specifically, individuals with a dominant independent self-construal were predicted to place more emphasis on promotion-focused information, and those with a dominant interdependent self-construal on prevention-focused information. Support for this hypothesis was obtained for participants who scored high versus low on the Self-Construal Scale, participants who were presented with an independent versus interdependent situation, and participants from a Western versus Eastern culture. The influence of interdependence on regulatory focus was observed in both importance ratings of information and affective responses consistent with promotion or prevention focus.
14326652
“I” Seek Pleasures and “We” Avoid Pains: The Role of Self-Regulatory Goals in Information Processing and Persuasion
In four experiments, we show that goals associated with approach and avoidance needs influence persuasion and that the accessibility of distinct self-views moderates these effects. Specifically, individuals with an accessible independent selfview are more persuaded by promotion-focused information that is consistent with an approach goal. In contrast, individuals whose interdependent self-view is more accessible are more persuaded by prevention focused information that is consistent with an avoidance goal. When the persuasive appeal is compatible with self-regulatory focus, individuals demonstrate greater recall of the message content and are more discerning regarding argument strength. These findings provide convergent evidence that central processing under goal compatible conditions underlies the persuasion effects.
143662934
Achieving Your Goals or Protecting Their Future? The Effects of Self-View on Goals and Choices
We show that encouraging consumers to think about themselves as independent or interdependent, making either promotion or prevention goals salient, has a systematic effect on inferred risk preferences. Interdependent self-view consumers, who are more interested in avoiding losses than in achieving gains, choose less risky alternatives than independent self-view consumers. However, because of asymmetric preferences for status quo alternatives, information about previous choices moderates the goal-mediated effect of self-view on choice. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
24663583
The Attractiveness of Enriched and Impoverished Options
The authors propose that there is a systematic impact of a person's activated self-construal (interdependent vs. independent) on the evaluation of enriched and impoverished options. This hypothesis is tested using a cross-country comparison of participants from China and the United States (Study 1) and by priming self-construal (Study 2) and regulatory focus (Study 3). Results show that people with an independent self-construal and a promotion focus perceive enriched options as more attractive than impoverished options. Conversely, people with an interdependent self-construal and a prevention focus perceive enriched options as less attractive than impoverished options. Mediation analyses show that the effect of cultural orientation operates through self-construal. In turn, self-construal operates through activated regulatory focus. Analysis of cognitive responses shows that the effect of regulatory focus is mediated by positive/negative thoughts about option attributes.
51961028
Standing out and standing in: The psychology of control in America and Japan.
There are at least two general paths to a feeling of control. In primary control, individuals enhance their rewards by influencing existing realities (e.g., other people, circumstances, symptoms, or behavior problems). In secondary control, individuals enhance their rewards by accommodating to existing realities and maximizing satisfaction or goodness of fit with things as they are. American psychologists have written extensively about control, but have generally defined it only in terms of its primary form. This, we argue, reflects a cultural context in which primary control is heavily emphasized and highly valued. In Japan, by contrast, primary control has traditionally been less highly valued and less often anticipated, and secondary control has assumed a more central role in everyday life than in our own culture. To illustrate this cross-cultural difference, we contrast Japanese and American perspectives and practices in child rearing, socialization, religion and philosophy, work, and psychotherapy. These Japanese-American comparisons reveal some key benefits, and some costs, of both primary and secondary approaches to control. In the process, the comparisons reveal the disadvantages of a one-sided pursuit of either form of control. They suggest that an important goal, both for individuals and for cultures, is an optimally adaptive blend of primary and secondary control, a goal best achieved with one's cultural blinders removed. In most American theory and research on the psychology of control, a common theme can be identified; the view that perceived control obtains when individuals shape existing physical, social, or behavioral realities to fit their perceptions, goals, or wishes. According to this view, individuals who do not act to influence such realities may be suffering from learned helplessness (see, e.g., Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978), defects in "self-efficacy" (Bandura, 1977), perceptions of self as a "pawn" (deCharms, 1979), or some form of relinquished control (see, e.g., Langer, 1979). Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder (1982) recently spelled out a somewhat broader view. They acknowledged that people do often attempt to gain control by influencing existing realities, often via acts involving personal agency, dominance, or even aggression. Rothbaum et al. labeled this process "primary control." But they argued that control is often sought via alternative paths, which they collectively labeled "secondary control." In secondary control, individuals attempt to align themselves with existing realities, leaving them unchanged but exerting control over their personal psychological impact. Table 1 gives an overview of these two forms of control. Rothbaum et al. reviewed evidence indicating that secondary control often involves behaviors that American investigators have typically classified as signs of relinquished control. For example: 1. Attributing outcomes to low ability combined with behaving in a passive and withdrawn manner, is often labeled helplessness; yet, this combination may often represent an attempt to inhibit unfulfillable expectations, thus preparing oneself for future events and thereby gaining predictive secondary control (e.g., Averill, 1973; Lazarus, 1966; Miller & Grant, 1980), Lefcourt (1973) has reviewed several studies suggesting that prediction allows people to prepare themselves for future events and thus to gain control over the psychological impact of those events. 2. When people attribute outcomes to powerful others and show submissive behavior, they are often thought to have abandoned the pursuit of perceived control; yet, this pattern may foster enhanced identification with the powerful others and thus promote vicarious secondary control (e.g., Hetherington & Frankie, 1967; Johnson & Downing, 1979). Fromm (1941) has written about the human inclination to align oneself with powerful entities (e.g., individuals, groups, or institutions) outside the self in order to enhance one's sense of strength or power. 3. The attribution of outcomes to chance, luck, or fate combined with passivity in or withdrawal from certain competitive skill situations is frequently taken as evidence of relinquished control. However, the combination may often reflect an attempt to be September 1984 • American Psychologist Copyright 1984 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. Vol. 39, No. 9, 955-969 955 Table 1 Primary and Secondary Control: An Overview Type of control General strategy Typical targets for causal influence Overall intent
16455077
Cultural Practices Emphasize Influence in the United States and Adjustment in Japan
People have the capacity both to influence their environment and to adjust to it, but the United States and Japan are said to emphasize these processes differently. The authors suggest that Americans and Japanese develop distinct psychological characteristics, which are attuned to social practices that emphasize influence (in the United States) and adjustment (in Japan). American participants could remember more, and more recent, situations that involve influence, and Japanese respondents could remember more, and more recent, situations that involve adjustment. Second, American-made influence situations evoked stronger feelings of efficacy, whereas Japanese-made adjustment situations evoked stronger feelings of relatedness. Third, Americans reported more efficacy than Japanese, especially when responding to influence situations. Japanese felt more interpersonally close than Americans, especially when responding to adjustment situations. Surprisingly, U.S. influence situations also made people feel close to others, perhaps because they involved influencing other people.
145687939
Ethnic Differences in Coping with Interpersonal Stressors
This study examines ethnic differences in how Asian and White American students cope with interpersonal stressors and tests whether differences in self-construals mediate the relationship between ethnicity and coping. Asian Americans were found to be more oriented toward secondary control and less oriented toward primary control than White Americans. Independent self-construal fully mediated the ethnic difference in primary control. Greater orientation toward an independent self-construal accounted for the greater use of primary control among Whites, in relation to Asians. Interdependent self-construal partially mediated the ethnic difference in secondary control. Greater orientation toward an interdependent self-construal accountedforthe greateruse ofsecondarycontrolamongAsians, in relationto Whites. Otherfactors, suchas structural variables, may account for further ethnic variations in secondary control coping.
141603100
Self-regulation and the executive function of the self
The self is not a passive, indifferent, or unresponsive entity. Rather, the self is active, involved, and responsive, intentionally engaging in volitional processes to change, alter, or modify its thoughts, feelings, responses, and behaviors. Processes such as altering one's own behavior, resisting temptation, and changing one's moods are characterized by the terms self-control and self-regulation. More broadly, the self takes action, selects a response from numerous options, filters irrelevant information, and is responsible for response selection and enactment. The aspect of the self that initiates behaviors and makes selections is called the executive function. Our review focuses on the executive function of the self, with emphasis on self-regulation and self-control, which are considered subcomponent processes of the executive function.
144352294
The “Selfless” and Self-Regulation: The Role of Chronic Other-Orientation in Averting Self-Regulatory Depletion
Baumeister and colleagues (e.g., Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994) have recently proposed a limited-strength model of self-regulation, whereby the effort of overtly controlling one's behavior requires considerable energy, and may lead to rapid depletion of the resource. The current research investigated individual differences in social orientation (e.g., collectivist cultural background and interdependent beliefs; other-directed self-monitoring), hypothesizing that those high in social orientation would be more motivated to engage in self-regulation in everyday social interaction, and thus may, over time, build greater self-regulatory strength. As expected, whereas those low in these motives replicated prior findings of depletion after self-regulation, individuals higher in these motives failed to show evidence of depletion. It appears as if chronic socially motivated exertion of self-control may lead to stable individual differences in self-regulatory performance.
144801706
Interpersonal leveling, independence, and self‐enhancement: a comparison between Denmark and the US, and a relational practice framework for cultural psychology
We argue that the relational model that people use for organizing specific social interactions in any culture determines whether people self-enhance. Self-enhancement is not a functional consequence of the (independent or interdependent) cultural model of self. Across three studies, Danes self-enhanced considerably less than did Americans but were more independent on the Twenty Statements Test, made more individual attributions about social life, made more autonomous scenario choices, and were more independent on the self-construal scale. Public modesty did not account for these Danish-American differences in self-enhancement. However, Danes practiced interpersonal leveling, preferring equality of outcome more than did Americans. This leveling strongly and inversely predicted self-enhancement within both cultures and mediated Danish-American differences in self-enhancement. In contrast, no independence measure systematically predicted self-enhancement within both cultures nor mediated the cultural differences in self-enhancement. This dissociation of independence and self-enhancement demonstrates that self-enhancing downward social comparisons are not functionally necessary for an independent concept of self. We conclude that social relationships, not the model of the self, mediate the mutual constitution of psyche and culture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
144950699
Repercussions of self-construal for self-relevant and other-relevant choice
In the present investigation, we build on prior research by examining perceptions of choices and their outcomes as a factor of independent and interdependent self–construals, the identity of the chooser, and the recipient of the choice. Results from two experiments suggest that independent selves prefer to be both chooser and choice recipient, whereas interdependent selves are more amenable to choosing for others and having others choose on their behalf. Particularly, results from Study 2 show that participants high in independence are more attentive to their options when choosing for themselves, whereas participants high in interdependence are more attentive when choosing for someone else. Results from both studies further show that independents like choices they make for themselves more than interdependents, but like choices they make for others and choices others make on their behalf less than interdependents. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
140733969
Culture, Self-Construal, and Leisure Theory and Practice
According to Markus and Kitayama (1991), although European North Americans are more likely to have independent self-construals (and therefore to value being unique, expressing one's inner attributes, etc.), people in or from Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe are more likely to have interdependent self-construals (and therefore to value belonging, maintaining harmony, etc.). The type of self-construal a person has affects his or her emotions, cognitions, and motivations. In the case of intrinsic motivation, for example, it is often put forth that the key factor affecting this variable is autonomy/personal choice. Recent research suggests, however, that while this may be true for independent selves, relatedness may be more important for interdependent selves. Because intrinsic motivation and autonomy/personal choice are present in many leisure theories, and leisure theories often influence leisure practice, the concept of self-construal may have great import for our field. In order to support this proposition, this article: (a) describes what self-construal is and how it affects intrinsic motivation; (b) reviews some of the major leisure theories that include intrinsic motivation and discusses how the above may affect them; (c) outlines the implications of not incorporating self-construal into leisure practice, using benefits based programming (Rossman & Schlatter, 2000) as an exemplar; and (d) examines some of the conceptual and methodological concerns associated with self-construal.
25070136
Relational-Interdependent self-construal as a function of bulimic symptomatology.
The present study compares differences in the levels of relational-interdependent self-construal among asymptomatic, symptomatic, and bulimic participants in a natural groups' design. Asymptomatic (n = 169), symptomatic (n = 73), and bulimic (n = 21) participants completed the Questionnaire for Eating Disorder Diagnoses (Q-EDD). Contrast tests were conducted to examine group differences in relational-interdependent self-construal as a function of bulimic symptomatology. Findings indicate significantly lower levels of relational-interdependent self-construal among bulimic participants. Results imply disruptions in the interpersonal relationships of bulimic individuals are reflected at the level of the relational self. The present study compares differences in the levels of relational-interdependent self-construal among asymptomatic, symptomatic, and bulimic participants in a natural groups' design. Asymptomatic (n = 169), symptomatic (n = 73), and bulimic (n = 21) participants completed the Questionnaire for Eating Disorder Diagnoses (Q-EDD) and the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal Scale (RISC). Contrast tests were conducted to examine group differences in relational-interdependent self-construal as a function of bulimic symptomatology. Findings indicate significantly lower levels of relational-interdependent self-construal among bulimic participants. Results imply disruptions in the interpersonal relationships of bulimic individuals are reflected at the level of the relational self.
143662132
Multicultural Training and Interdependent and Independent Self‐Construal as Predictors of Universal‐Diverse Orientation Among School Counselors
The study investigated 159 school counselors' previous multicultural workshop experiences and interdependent and independent self-construal (T. M. Singelis, 1994) as predictors of universal-diverse orientation (M. L. Miville et al., 1999). Prior workshops in multicultural counseling and interdependent self-construal were significantly related to universal-diverse orientation (acceptance and awareness of similarities and differences). Implications for counseling, research, and training are discussed.
9652879
The Influence of Self-Construal on Impulsive Consumption
Three studies investigated the impact of self-construal on impulsive consumption. Independents exhibited more impulsive consumption tendencies than did interdependents. A chronically accessible independent self-construal was positively associated with country-level beer consumption (study 1a) and state-level problem alcohol consumption (study 1b). Experimentally primed independents reported more positive attitudes toward immediate beer consumption than did interdependents, and this effect was mediated by state impulsivity. Peer presence increased impulsive consumption tendencies for independents but decreased them for interdependents (studies 2 and 3). The moderating effect of self-construal was linked to greater motivation to suppress impulsive tendencies for interdependents than for independents (study 3). (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
20340340
Negotiating Relationally: The Dynamics of the Relational Self in Negotiations
In this article we advance a distinctly relational view of negotiation. We delineate the conditions through which relational self-construals (RSC) become accessible in negotiations and the conditions that inhibit their use, and we illustrate mechanisms through which RSC affects negotiation processes and outcomes. We introduce four relational dynamics--arelational trading, relational satisficing, relational distancing, and relational integrating--and discuss their consequences for the accumulation of economic and relational capital in negotiation.
31143172
Don't Stand So Close to Me
Three studies investigated the effects of self-construal activation on behavior conducive to interpersonal proximity. Study 1 revealed that compared with control participants, participants who were primed with the independent (or personal) self sat further away from where they anticipated another person would sit in a waiting room. Results of Study 2 indicated that participants primed with the interdependent (or social) self sat closer to the anticipated other person than did those primed with the independent self. Finally, Study 3 used the chronic self-construal of participants to predict the seating distance in dyadic settings. Results showed that greater independence of participants' self-construals was associated with greater spatial distance during the interaction. Together, the studies provide clear evidence that self-construal activation automatically influences interpersonal behavior as reflected in the actual distance between the self and others. Results are discussed in terms of the functions and motives connected to self-construals.
729948
It takes two to mimic: behavioral consequences of self-construals.
The present studies demonstrated the moderation of self-construal orientation on mimicry. Recent research has indicated that an interdependent self-construal is associated with assimilation of the other to the self whereas an independent self-construal is associated with minimizing the influence of others on the self (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991; D. Stapel & W. Koomen, 2001). Therefore, the authors hypothesized that an interdependent self-construal would be associated with more mimicry than an independent self-construal. When self-construal orientations were experimentally primed, as in Studies 1 and 2, independent self-construals produced less nonconscious mimicry than interdependent self-construals. When self-construals were examined as cultural differences with either a chronically dominant independent (Americans) or interdependent (Japanese) construal of the self, these results were replicated.
11818459
The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link and social interaction.
The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment. The authors suggest that the mechanism involved is the perception-behavior link, the recently documented finding (e.g., J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996) that the mere perception of another's behavior automatically increases the likelihood of engaging in that behavior oneself. Experiment 1 showed that the motor behavior of participants unintentionally matched that of strangers with whom they worked on a task. Experiment 2 had confederates mimic the posture and movements of participants and showed that mimicry facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners. Experiment 3 showed that dispositionally empathic individuals exhibit the chameleon effect to a greater extent than do other people.
145333666
Mimicry for money: Behavioral consequences of imitation
Two experiments investigated the idea that mimicry leads to pro-social behavior. It was hypothesized that mimicking the verbal behavior of customers would increase the size of tips. In Experiment 1, a waitress either mimicked half her customers by literally repeating their order or did not mimic her customers. It was found that she received significantly larger tips when she mimicked her customers than when she did not. In Experiment 2, in addition to a mimicry- and non-mimicry condition, a baseline condition was included in which the average tip was assessed prior to the experiment. The results indicated that, compared to the baseline, mimicry leads to larger tips. These results demonstrate that mimicry can be advantageous for the imitator because it can make people more generous.
15616149
MIMICRY AND ME: THE IMPACT OF MIMICRY ON SELF-CONSTRUAL
Previous research has demonstrated that nonconscious interpersonal mimicry engenders liking, affiliation, empathy, and other positive social consequences. Some of these consequences have recently been shown to go beyond the dyad. In other words, interpersonal mimicry not only affects the way we feel toward our immediate interaction partner, but also affects our feelings and behavior toward other people in general. The goal of the present research is to understand why it is that nonconscious mimicry has consequences that go beyond the dyad. Specifically, it is hypothesized and found that being mimicked during social interaction shifts self–construals such that they become more interdependent and “other–oriented” (Study 1). Accordingly, interpersonal mimicry heightens one's perception of interpersonal closeness with nonspecified others (Study 2) and decreases one's physical proximity to others (Study 3). In a final experiment (Study 4), the impact of mimicry on self–construal is shown to mediate the positiv...
6061469
Relationship orientation as a moderator of the effects of social power.
This research examined the hypothesis that the concept of power is mentally associated with different goals for individuals with a communal versus an exchange relationship orientation (M. S. Clark & J. Mills, 1979). It was predicted that communals associate power with social-responsibility goals, whereas exchangers link power with self-interest goals. Thus, when power is activated, distinct goals should be ignited for communals and exchangers. Power was primed unobtrusively using semantic cues in Study 1 and using naturally occurring, environmental cues in Studies 2 and 3. Across studies, power-primed communals responded in socially responsible ways, whereas power-primed exchangers acted more in line with their self-interests. These power-goal effects occurred nonconsciously. Overall, the data support taking a Person x Situation approach--one that allows for moderators such as relationship orientation--to understand power's positive and negative effects.
144550495
Let's be friends: Relational self‐construal and the development of intimacy
Two studies examined the role of relational self-construal in the development and maintenance of intimacy in roommate relationships. In Study 1, 98 roommate pairs completed questionnaires assessing attitudes toward their relationship. Results showed that high relationals disclosed more personal information than lows, which was then associated with their roommates’ perceptions of relationship quality. In Study 2, 142 roommate pairs followed the Study 1 procedure with a 1-month follow-up session for the participants (86% returned). Results replicated the findings of Study 1 and showed reciprocated disclosure from the roommates, followed by increased disclosure by the participants at Time 2. These findings support the H. T. Reis and P. Shaver (1988) intimacy model and indicate the importance of the self-construal in this interpersonal process.
145550074
Predicting Commitment in New Relationships: Interactive Effects of Relational Self-construal and Power
Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with highly relational self-construals define the self in terms of close relationships and tend to behave in ways that enhance the development and maintenance of important relationships (Cross, Morris, & Gore, 2002). Other research suggests that having power in a situation allows one to pursue important goals, which we hypothesize may also include relationship goals. We examined how relational self-construal and power interacted with self-disclosure and forgiveness to predict commitment in new college roommate relationships over the course of a semester. Analyses revealed that self-disclosure and forgiveness were strong predictors of commitment and change in commitment. Furthermore, relational self-construal and power moderated the association of self-disclosure and forgiveness with commitment.
144147308
Voice versus loyalty: Self-construals and responses to dissatisfaction in romantic relationships
Abstract Two studies examined the relationship between self-construals and active versus passive strategies for dealing with dissatisfaction in romantic relationships. In Study 1, chronic differences in self-construals were measured and in Study 2, self-construals were manipulated via a priming technique. In both studies, an independent self-construal was related to the active, constructive response of voice (expressing one’s dissatisfaction with the intent of improving the relationship). In contrast, an interdependent self-construal was related to the passive, constructive response of loyalty (optimistically waiting for conditions to improve). Implications of self-construals for the dynamics of close relationships are discussed.
143603502
Culture and self-construal as predictors of responses to accommodative dilemmas in dating relationships
The present study tests and extends existing research about the effects of culture and self-construal on reports of accommodative dilemmas in dating relationships. Data were collected from members of three different regional cultures: U.S. mainland, Hawaii, and South Korea. Using a four-factor self-construal model, two hypotheses were posited: (i) members of collectivistic cultures tend to enact accommodation (loyalty, voice) more and nonaccommodation (neglect, exit) less than do their individualistic counterparts; and (ii) bicultural self-construal is more strongly associated consistently with accommodation than are the other three self-construal types. These hypotheses received support. Collectivism–individualism was related consistently with the type of accommodation, and the four self-construal types also displayed a reliable pattern of associations with accommodation and nonaccommodation. Post-hoc assessments revealed that the four-factor model predicted self-reported accommodation better than did the two-factor model used in previous research. Small effect sizes in the present study, however, suggest that other factors (e.g., industrialization) may have a considerable bearing on responses to accommodative dilemmas.
9780556
Attributions in marriage: review and critique.
The prevailing behavioral account of marriage must be expanded to include covert processes. This article therefore examines the attributions or explanations that spouses make for marital events. A review indicates that dissatisfied spouses, compared with satisfied spouses, make attributions for the partner's behavior that cast it in a negative light. Experimental, clinical outcome, and longitudinal data suggest further that attributions may influence marital satisfaction. Rival hypotheses for these findings are examined. Because continued empirical development in this domain depends on conceptual progress, a framework is presented that integrates attributions, behavior, and marital satisfaction. This framework points to several topics that require systematic study, and specific hypotheses are offered for research on these topics. It is concluded that the promising start made toward understanding marital attributions holds considerable potential for enriching behavioral conceptions of marriage.
20325410
Thinking about oneself and others: the relational-interdependent self-construal and social cognition.
These studies focus on the relational-interdependent self-construal's association with implicit or indirect cognitive processes. In the relational-interdependent self-construal, the self is defined largely in terms of close relationships, resulting in variation in self-related processes. In Studies 1 and 2, the relational self-construal was associated with positive implicit evaluations of relational concepts and with tightly organized cognitive networks of relational terms. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that this self-construal was associated with memory for and implicit organization of relational information. In Studies 5 and 6, the relational self-construal was positively related to the degree to which participants described themselves and a friend similarly. The implications of the relational self-construal for theories of relationship cognition and for other self-related cognitive processes are discussed.
18269569
If-then contingencies and the differential effects of the availability of an attractive alternative on relationship maintenance for men and women.
In 7 experiments, the causal effects of the availability of an attractive alternative (AA) relationship partner on current relationship thoughts and intentions were tested using confederates, mental simulations, and virtual reality. Men behaved consistent with traditional relationship-commitment theories, showing decreased willingness to tolerate their partner's transgressions after the availability of an AA was made salient. However, consistent with a motivated cognition approach to commitment and work on relational self-construals, women increased their tolerance when presented with the relationship threat of an alternative. Word-fragment and lexical decision data suggested that AAs may activate threat for women, and their ability to dampen threat accessibility is associated with prorelationship responses. Finally, this "if relationship is threatened, then defend the relationship" contingency was induced in men with an implementation intention induction.
19963763
Culture, self, and collectivist communication: linking culture to individual behavior.
This study develops and demonstrates a theoretical framework and corresponding methodology to link variables at the culture level to the individual level and, then, to specific outcome variables. The authors argue that in order to advance theory about culture's influence on communication, researchers must begin to examine how culture affects individual level (psychological) processes and, subsequently, how these processes affect communication. The image of self, referred to as self-construal, is an ideal candidate to perform the role of linking culture to behavior. The self is shaped by cultural forces and affects many, if not all, communication behaviors. The proposed strategy is applied in the test of a path-analytic model linking cultural collectivism with interdependent self-construals and, ultimately, high-context communication. The discussion includes implications for theory development and possible applications to further research.
144763626
The relationship between individuals' self-construals and perceived importance of interactive constraints
Abstract Focusing on three interactive constraints, this paper aims to extend the findings of Kim reported in 1992 by comparing the ways in which interactive constraints are perceived across individuals with individualistic and collectivistic orientations. We hypothesized that interdependent self-construals would correlate positively with concern for other's feelings and concern for avoiding devaluation by the hearer and that independent self-construals would correlate positively with concern for clarity. Participants included individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds (a total of 308 undergraduates) studying at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. After being presented with four conversational situations, participants rated the perceived importance of each constraint in relation to each situation. They then completed the Ego-Task Analysis scale to measure the independent and interdependent dimensions of their self-construals. The results indicate that the degree of independent and interdependent construals of self systematically affect the perceived importance of interactive constraints.
145783669
Shifting Selves and Decision Making: The Effects of Self-Construal Priming on Consumer Risk-Taking
This research illustrates how risk domain moderates the effects of priming the interdependent self versus the independent self on consumers' risk-taking. Experiment 1 showed that individuals whose interdependent selves were activated were more risk-seeking in their financial choices and less risk-seeking in their social choices than were those whose independent selves were activated. The size of the consumer's social network mediated these effects. Experiment 2 replicated these results using audiovisual movie clips as manipulations. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.
144478958
Explaining Individual Communication Processes in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Groups through Individualism-Collectivism and Self-Construal.
The objective of this study is to test the effective decision-making theory's (EDMT) prediction that cultural individualism-collectivism (I-C), self-construal, and group composition influence turn-taking behavior and conflict behavior in small groups. Eighty-six European Americans and 62 Japanese participated in a decision-making activity in either a homogeneous or a heterogeneous group. The major findings of the study include: (a) Independent self-construal is a predictor of the number of turns and competitive conflict tactics in both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups; (b) interdependent self-construal is a predictor of cooperative conflict tactics, but the findings are not consistent for individuals across both group compositions; (c) cultural l-C is a predictor of the number of competitive conflict tactics in both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups; and (d) cultural I-C is a predictor of the number of turns and initiated conflicts only in heterogeneous groups. Implications for the EDMT and future directions are discussed.
146750255
A Comparison of Response Styles in Singapore and Taiwan
This study compares the response styles of 2 groups of Chinese men and women who have been described as collectivists—Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan. Participants were presented with one of three request scenarios that controlled participant identity and manipulated the level of imposition of what was requested. Chinese in Singapore were found to prefer complying with the request of a friend compared to Chinese in Taiwan, who were more likely to refuse and who used significantly more tactics to decline a friend’s request. This suggests that although they indicated that they would be more likely to refuse the request, Taiwan Chinese compensated for this preference by embedding declinations in several tactics. There was more request compliance with low imposition and less request compliance with high imposition for all participants, regardless of national group or gender. Independent self-construal was related to direct refusal. Overall, men were more compliant than women.
31366407
Relationships Between Self-Construal and Verbal Promotion
This study examined the relationships between self-construal and verbal promotion. U.S. American college students (N = 196) completed Kim and Leung's (1997) self-construal scale. Forty-three students with extreme scores on the scale's two dimensions of independence and interdependence subsequently participated in a brief phone interview for the possibility of receiving an award of recognition and money. Participants' interview responses were content coded for the amount of self-promotion (extolling one's own attributes) and others-promotion (extolling significant others' contributions to self-success). Self-promotion was positively associated with an independent self-construal but negatively related to an interdependent self-construal. Others-promotion was positively associated with an interdependent self-construal but negatively related to an independent self-construal. The results highlight the importance of self-construal in predicting verbal promotion.
143933876
Influence of self‐construals on the perception of different self‐presentation styles in Korea
The present study investigated how perceivers’ self-construals influence the perception of others who use self-enhancement or self-effacement in communication. It was predicated that independent self and interdependent self would differently affect the evaluation of self-enhancing presentation and self-effacing presentation. Two hundred and forty-six Korean college students read a scenario depicting a person using bragging, and positive and negative self-presentations for his/her accomplishment, and then evaluated the presenter in the scenario on intention of future interaction, satisfaction with conversation and likeability. Results showed that people with independent self evaluated the positive presentation more favorably than people with interdependent self, whereas people with interdependent self evaluated the negative presentation more favorably than people with independent self. No significant difference was found in the evaluation of bragging presentation. The results imply that although the purpose of self-presentation is to give positive self to others, it is differently expressed through self-enhancement in North American culture and through self-effacement in East Asian culture. The results also supported previous cross-cultural studies on self-enhancement and self-effacement by providing an examination from individual level analysis.
55584224
Leadership, self, and identity: A review and research agenda
This article reviews empirical research on the role of follower self-conception in leader-ship effectiveness. and specifies an agenda for future research in this area. The review shows that several aspects of follower self-conception (i.e., self-construal, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-consistency) may be affected by leadership. and may mediate the effects of leadership on follower behavior. There also is consistent evidence that follower self-construal moderates the impact of leadership on follower attitudes and behavior. Two key themes for future research are defined. First, future research should focus on the development of theory about the role of relational self-construal in the leadership process. Second, it seems particularly valuable to develop theory about the interplay of different aspects of follower self-conception in leadership effectiveness. including the interactive effects of these aspects of self Working backwards from these theoretical models of follower self-conception, specific leader behavior relevant to these aspects of self should then be identified. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
54816896
The influence of interdependent self-construal on procedural fairness effects
Various theories have been shown to account for the effects of procedural fairness on people’s attitudes and behaviors. We propose that a logical next step for organizational justice researchers is to delineate not whether, but rather when certain explanations are likely to account for people’s reactions to procedural fairness information. Accordingly, the present research tested the hypothesis that social psychological explanations would be particularly applicable to people high in interdependent self-construal. As predicted, the results of three studies showed that interdependent self-construal (ISC) moderated the relationship between procedural fairness and a variety of dependent variables (cooperation, positive affect, and desire for future interaction with the other party). In different types of interpersonal encounters (social dilemmas, reward allocations, and negotiations), procedural fairness had more of an influence on participants’ reactions among those high rather than low in ISC. Theoretical implications are discussed.
144542512
Culture and Procedural Fairness: When the Effects of What You Do Depend on How You Do it
Previous research has shown that procedural fairness and outcome favorability interactively combine to influence people's reactions to their social exchanges. The tendency for people to respond more positively when outcomes are more favorable is reduced when procedural fairness (how things happen) is relatively high. This paper evaluates whether cultural differences in people's tendencies to view themselves as interdependent or independent (their self-construal) moderate the interactive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome favorability. In three studies, participants indicated their reactions to an exchange with another party as a function of the other party's procedural fairness and the outcome favorability associated with the exchange. In Study 1, participants' national culture was treated as a proxy for their self-construal. In Study 2, people's national culture and self-construal were assessed. In Study 3, participants were classified on the basis of their self-construals. Converging evidence across studies showed that the interactive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome favorability was more pronounced among participants with more interdependent forms of self-construal.
144554142
Are “We” More Punitive than “Me”? Self-Construal Styles, Justice-Related Attitudes, and Punitive Judgments
Cross-cultural as well as procedural justice research suggests that an interdependent self-construal is connected to more justice-related concerns, more moral outrage following observed unethical behavior, and a preference for effective but constructive sanctions. Independent self-construal, on the other hand, is expected to be connected to weaker moral reactions toward injustice, but also to preferring punitive over constructive forms of sanctions. Two studies were conducted in which dispositional self-construal was measured. In Study 2, self-construal was also manipulated with a priming procedure. Results show that interdependent self-construal is connected to stronger emotional reactions toward injustice, to social and moral concerns, to preferences for constructive forms, but also to retribution-oriented goals of punitive sanctions. Independent self-construal, on the other hand, goes along with fewer moral concerns, lower punitiveness, but more draconic attitudes.
143802819
What fair procedures say about me: Self-construals and reactions to procedural fairness
Past research has revealed both positive and negative reactions when people receive unfavorable outcomes via fair decision-making procedures. In three laboratory experiments, we reconcile these findings by considering the role of people's self-identity. Our results suggest that the more that people base their self-identity on their relationships with others--as indexed by a strong interdependent self-construal--the more positively they react to an unfavorable outcome following from fair procedures. Conversely, the more that people base their self-identity on achievement--as indexed by a strong independent self-construal--the more negatively they react to an unfavorable outcome following from fair procedures. Moreover, these results were stronger when the situation primed interdependence and independence, respectively. Our research indicates that people interpret procedural fairness information in a manner that is consistent with defining aspects of the self.
143992737
To whom do positive norm and negative norm of reciprocity apply? Effects of inequitable offer, relationship, and relational-self orientation ☆
Various theories have been proposed to account for people’s reciprocity behavior in social exchange. The current research is designed to delineate the conditions under which and for whom the relational theoretical explanation is most applicable. We hypothesize that while people in general show positive (negative) reciprocity responses toward favorable (unfavorable) inequitable treatments from others, such a tendency varies depending on the relationship with the exchange counterpart, and their own relational-self orientation. While we used country (China vs. the US) as a proxy for participants’ relational-self orientation in Study 1, this orientation was directly assessed in Study 2. Results from both studies showed consistent support for our hypothesis. Implications of these findings to literatures in reciprocity and social exchange are discussed.
144509169
Predicting Customer Service Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions: The Roles of Customer Interactional Injustice and Interdependent Self-Construal
Research has primarily examined supervisors and coworkers as sources of unfair interpersonal treatment (i.e., interactional injustice) in the workplace. Unfair treatment, however, can also originate with customers. Using a cross-sectional, correlational research design (N = 172), we examined the associations among customer injustice, employee job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Drawing on relational theories of fairness, we also examined whether employees who more strongly define themselves through their interpersonal relationships (i.e., those with stronger interdependent self-construals) would exhibit stronger injustice-attitudes associations. Results showed that, overall, greater injustice was associated with lower job satisfaction but not greater turnover intentions. Moreover, as expected, the strength of employees’ interdependent self-construals moderated the injustice-attitudes relations: Relationship-oriented employees showed significant associations between injustice and both job satisfaction and turnover intentions, whereas those with weaker relationship orientations did not. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
145401425
When organizational justice and the self-concept meet: Consequences for the organization and its members ☆
Abstract In two studies, we examined the joint effects of employed participants’ self-concept levels and perceptions of fairness on organizational attitudes and citizenship behavior intentions. We examined the effects of chronic self-concept activation in Study 1, whereas we primed the working self-concept in Study 2. Combining the results of both studies, we found support for our hypotheses that particular self-concept levels and organizational justice dimensions interact to predict various work-related outcomes. Specifically, we observed interactions between the relational self-concept and interactional justice, and between the collective self-concept and procedural justice, such that the justice–outcome relationships were stronger for those experiencing higher activation on the relevant self-concept level. Thus, as hypothesized, justice information is weighted differently depending on the particular level of self-concept that is active. In addition, interesting direct effects of employees’ self-concepts were also observed. We discuss the implications of these findings and the importance of considering the self-concept in conjunction with organizational justice.
35531230
Marriage and health: his and hers.
This review focuses on the pathway leading from the marital relationship to physical health. Evidence from 64 articles published in the past decade, particularly marital interaction studies, suggests that marital functioning is consequential for health; negative dimensions of marital functioning have indirect influences on health outcomes through depression and health habits, and direct influences on cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, neurosensory, and other physiological mechanisms. Moreover, individual difference variables such as trait hostility augment the impact of marital processes on biological systems. Emerging themes in the past decade include the importance of differentiating positive and negative dimensions of marital functioning, the explanatory power of behavioral data, and gender differences in the pathways from the marital relationship to physiological functioning. Contemporary models of gender that emphasize self-processes, traits, and roles furnish alternative perspectives on the differential costs and benefits of marriage for men's and women's health.
144863790
Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan
A distinction is proposed betweentrust as a cognitive bias in the evaluation of incomplete information about the (potential) interaction partner andassurance as a perception of the incentive structure that leads the interaction partner to act cooperatively. It is hypothesized that trust in this sense helps people to move out of mutually committed relations where the partner's cooperation is assured. Although commitment formation is a rather standard solution to the problems caused by social uncertainty, commitment becomes a liability rather than an asset as opportunity costs increase. Facing increasing opportunity costs, trust provides a springboard in the attempt to break psychological inertia that has been mobilized to maintain committed relations. In conjunction with an assumption that networks of mutually committed relations play a more prominent role in Japanese society than in American society, this hypothesis has been applied to predict a set of cross-national differences between the United States and Japan in the levels of trust and related factors. The results of a cross-national questionnaire survey (with 1,136 Japanese and 501 American respondents) support most of the predictions, and indicate that, in comparison to Japanese respondents, American respondents are more trusting of other people in general, consider reputation more important, and consider themselves more honest and fair. In contrast, Japanese respondents see more utility in dealing with others through personal relations.
149916619
East Meets West Meets Mideast: Further Explorations Of Collectivistic and Individualistic Work Groups
The extent of people's cultural beliefs of individualism or collectivism has been used to predict the effectiveness of many management practices. A key aspect of those characteristics is the relati...
154618611
What shapes an individual's work values? An integrated model of the relationship between work values, national culture and self-construal
The concept of life values has become a central in studies of individual level motivations and behaviour, particularly in HRM and organisational behaviour. Among the various types of life values, work values (or goals) are often viewed as a central determinant of a wide range of an individual's work-related attitudes and behaviours. The importance of understanding work values is further emphasised by increasingly diverse workforces within countries and through the internationalisation of business and the need to mange people across culturally diverse workforces across national borders. Despite its perceived importance, much of this research is plagued by controversy over what factors are most important in shaping an individual's work values. Typically, much of this work has centred on establishing the pre-eminence of individual level factors or, alternatively, cultural-level factors which shape an individual's work values. These cultural level interpretations have been particularly influential in international HRM. In this article we develop and test a simple integrated model of the relationship between national cultural and individual level value orientations, and two higher order work value constructs: extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Using data from a survey of business students, we find strong support that the relationship between national culture and intrinsic work values is mediated by individual self-construal. The possible moderating effect of cultural adaptation on these relationships is also explored and supported. We conclude by considering the implications of our results for managing people in culturally diverse settings.
208000695
Culture as Common Sense: Perceived Consensus Versus Personal Beliefs as Mechanisms of Cultural Influence
The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals’ personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals’ perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that traditional views are culturally consensual (e.g., Chinese participants who believe that most of their fellows hold collectivistic values) will themselves behave and think in culturally typical ways. Four studies of previously well-established cultural differences found that cultural differences were mediated by participants’ perceived consensus as much as by participants’ personal views. This held true for cultural differences in the bases of compliance (Study 1), attributional foci (Study 2), and counterfactual thinking styles (Study 3). To tease apart the effect of consensus perception from other possibly associated individual differences, in Study 4, the authors experimentally manipulated which of 2 cultures was salient to bicultural participants and found that judgments were guided by participants’ perception of the consensual view of the salient culture.
144303115
Do people believe behaviours are consistent with attitudes? Towards a cultural psychology of attribution processes.
In individualistic English-speaking cultures such as Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States, attitudes and behaviours are often believed to be consistent. By contrast, in the Japanese culture, people may be primarily conceptualized as embedded within social contexts; the belief in consistency between attitudes and behaviour (the ABC belief) may be less strong and behaviours seen to be less consistent with attitudes. In this paper, we report two studies designed to examine the hypothesis that the strength of ABC beliefs underlies inferences in attributions of behaviour to attitudes. In Study 1, the relation of ABC beliefs to attitude attributions was examined in a sample of Australian undergraduate students. In Study 2, ABC beliefs and attitude attributions were compared in Australia and in Japan. As predicted, the ABC beliefs of Australians were related to the extremity of attributions for unconstrained behaviours and the Australians had stronger ABC beliefs than the Japanese. The results are discussed in relation to global cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism.