Title: Culture and self
1Culture and self
- Independent and interdependent self-construals
2Overview of topic
- Theories of culture and self
- Some relevant findings
- Embarrassability
- Self-esteem and self-enhancement
- Some key critiques
3Theories of culture and self
4Why study cultural differences?
- The Western conception of the person as a
bounded, unique, more or less integrated
motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic
center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and
action organized into a distinctive whole and set
contrastively both against other such wholes and
against a social and natural background is,
however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather
peculiar idea within the context of the worlds
cultures. (Geertz, 1975, p. 48)
5Triandis (1989)
- Distinguishes private, public collective selves
- private traits, states, behaviours
- public generalised others view of self
- collective groups view of self/social identity
- Three dimensions of cross-cultural variation
- individualism-collectivism (private vs.
collective) - tightness-looseness (public, collective vs.
private) - simplicity-complexity (public, collective vs.
private)
6Individualism-collectivism
- Individualism the conception of individuals as
autonomous from groups - Collectivism the conception of individuals as
aspects of groups or collectives - (Triandis, Chan, Bhawuk, Iwao Sinha, 1995, p.
462)
7American/Chinese self-concept
- Trafimow, Triandis Goto (1991) studied the
self-concept among 24 North American and 18
Chinese students at the University of Illinois - Coded TST responses into idiocentric (private),
allocentric (public), group (collective) selves - All students gave more idiocentric than group
responses, but North American students gave more
idiocentric and less group responses in
comparison with Chinese students
8The theory of self-construals
- Markus Kitayama (1991)
- Review paper which defines area
- Cited over 1000 times!
- Central idea
- Eastern and Western cultures differ in
relative prevalence of independent and
interdependent self-construals
9Independent self-construal
- Achieving the cultural goal of independence
requires construing oneself as an individual
whose behavior is organized and made meaningful
primarily by reference to ones own internal
repertoire of thoughts, feelings and action,
rather than by reference to the thoughts,
feelings and actions of others. (Markus
Kitayama, 1991, p. 226)
10Interdependent self-construal
- Experiencing interdependence entails seeing
oneself as part of an encompassing social
relationship and recognizing that ones behavior
is determined, contingent on, and, to a large
extent organized by what the actor perceives to
be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of
others in the relationship. (Markus
Kitayama,1991, p. 227)
11Self-construals
12Implications for cognition
- Compared to Americans, South-East Asian
participants typically show - more interpersonal knowledge
- more context-specific knowledge of self and
other - more attention to interpersonal context in basic
cognition
13Implications for emotion
- Ego-focused emotions
- anger, frustration, pride
- predicted to be more important in US
- Other-focused emotions
- sympathy, feelings of interpersonal communion,
shame - predicted to be more important in Japan
14Implications for motivation
- Self-expression or self-restraint
- Bases of achievement
- Self-enhancement or modesty
15Some relevant findings
16Self-construal and embarrassability
- Study by Singelis and Sharkey (1995)
- Participants
- 86 Euro-American and 417 Asian-American (Chinese,
Filipino, Japanese, Korean) university students - Questionnaire measures
- Self-construal scale (Singelis, 1994)
- Embarrassability scale (Modigliani, 1968)
17Ethnocultural group differences
- Significant ethnocultural group differences in
embarrassability (p lt .001, R2 4.5) - Generally, Asian-Americans were more susceptible
to embarrassment than were Euro-Americans - Significant group differences in independent (p
lt .001, R2 6.7) and interdependent (p lt .01,
R2 3.4) self-construals - Asian-Americans reported less independent and
more interdependent self-construals than did
Euro-Americans
18Self-construal and embarrassability
- Independent and interdependent self-construals
were both significant predictors of
susceptibility to embarrassment (p lt .001, R2
19) - However, after controlling for self-construals,
ethnocultural group membership did not predict
embarrassability (p gt .05, partial R2 0.7) - Intepreted as evidence for mediation
- Culture ? self-construal ? embarrassability
19Self-esteem across cultures
- Self-enhancement in Western cultures
- Self-criticism (modesty) in Eastern cultures
- Heine et al. (1999) review paper Is there a
universal need for positive self-regard? - Evidence for self-criticism rather than
self-enhancement effects among Asian populations
(see e.g. Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto
Norasakkunkit, 1997) - Asian populations show lower levels of
self-esteem than do North Americans
20Self-esteem across cultures
21Self-esteem across cultures
22Self-esteem across cultures
23Constructions of self-esteem
- Relationship esteem
- Need for face
- Need to do ones best
- Temporal/situational differences
- Need to be a good cultural member
24Collectivist self-enhancement?
- Sedikides, Gaertner Toguchi (2003)
25Some key critiques
26Critiques 1 Kim
- Collectivism is more about relatedness of
individuals than about subordination of
individuality to group memberships - Three modes of collectivism
- Undifferentiated
- Relational
- Coexistence
27Critiques 2 Spiro
- Argues Markus Kitayama (and others) are
misreading anthropology - Different meanings of self
- Flawed comparisons
- Evidence for much independence in East and
interdependence in West
28Critiques 3 Matsumoto
- Theoretically, self-construals explain
cross-national differences in cognition, emotion,
motivation (and behaviour) - Most research does not test this assertion
- Evidence does not support this assertion
29Critiques 4 Hermans Kempen
- Perils of cultural dichotomies
- What about change?
- What about mobility?
- What about communication between cultures?
- What about diversity within cultures?
- Culture is not the same as nation
30Conclusions
- Cross-cultural differences in the self-concept
provide a fruitful area of research for examining
social constructionist ideas. - The precise nature and distribution of these
differences remains a matter of debate. - The motivation to maintain and enhance
self-esteem may vary in strength across cultures
or may vary in how self-esteem is constructed.