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C13:1

Chapter 13Culture, Self, and Identity

C13:2

Self & Identity

Culture & Self

Model

Self-Esteem

Attributions

Ind & Inter

Mult Self

Origins

Def’n

Evidence

Identity

Ethnicity

Multi-Ethnic

Def

FAEDef

FUE

Acculturation

Meth

Neg

Pos

Meta

Univ?

& Cult

C13:3

Culture and Self

• Self-concept

– Theoretical construct defined as: “idea or images that one has about oneself and how and why one behaves as one does”

– Other labels: self-image, self-construal, self-appraisal, self

– May be conscious or subconscious

– Seen as collection of properties (e.g., sociable) in SOME cultures

• Self develops from– Cultural Practices: ways people act in different cultures (e.g., sleeping arrangements)

– Cultural Worldviews: belief systems about one’s culture

• Agents of acculturation– Collectivism and Parenting

• “Independence-dependence dimension is a crucial discriminator of the child rearing of individualist and collectivist cultures.” (Triandis, 1995, p. 63)

• Following slide shows number of findings consistent with this characterization (+1)

– Gives rise to different views of Self across cultures

C13:4• Qualities desired in children in Collectivist Cultures

– Turkish parents: obedience valued most (60%), self-reliance least (18%) (Kagitcibasi, 1982)

– Turkish mothers of preschool children: most frequent positive quality obedience, most frequent negative self-reliance (Kagitcibasi, Sunar & Bekman, 1988)

– Turkey: Such traits as "independent and "individualistic" undesirable for both sexes, "dependency" desirable for both boys and girls (Sunar, 1982)

– Greek parents: Emphasize Respect and Obedience in children (Kyrios et al., 1989)

– Hong Kong: Expect autonomy at later age than USA and Australia (Feldman and Rosenthal, 1991)

– Egypt: strong control over children (Strom et al., 1992), do not discourage dependent behavior (Ghareeb & Beshai, 1989)

– Cultures valuing Conformity vs. Self-reliance use various techniques (e.g., Lecturing, Physical Constraint) to control children (Ellis & Peterson, 1992)

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Cultural Differences

• Self-concept differs across cultures– Individualist cultures

• Concept of bounded “self” with attributes

• Self is Important, Abstract

– Concept of self differs in other cultures• Lack Experiential basis, Don’t “feel it emotionally”

• Two construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991)– Independent �� Interdependent (Fig. 13.1 +1)

• Implies numerous contrasts (+2)

• Tied to Individualism – Collectivism (see earlier norms)

– Which view of self best characterizes that of Sami people? Of non-Sami Swedish people? (Video)

C13:6Markus & Kitayama (1991)

Cultural Conceptions of Self (F13.1)

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Independent & Interdependent Self1. Bounded, Separate

2. Stable, Constant

3. Store information intrinsic to self (e.g., abilities, goals, rights)

4. Sense of personal self-worth and self-esteem

5. Socialized to be unique, to realize inner self, to have personal goals

6. Also known as Individualistic, Idiocentric, ...

1. Unbounded, People Connected, Separateness not assumed nor valued

2. Flexible, Varies with social context3. Interpersonal attributes

emphasized

4. Self-worth, self-esteem based on fit with group

5. Socialized to adjust self to group; Read other’s minds, Sympathize, Play assigned roles, fit in, harmony, maintain Interdependence: Asian quote - “The nail that sticks up shall get pounded down.”

6. Also known as Collectivistic, Allocentric, ...

C13:8Measures of Self

• Sentence Completion Task– “I am ...” measure (or 20 Statements Test)

– Abstract Traits or Attributes: e.g., Sociable

– Situational / Relational Traits: e.g., Sociable with friends

• Questionnaires: e.g., Singelis (1994) Self-Construal Scale (SCS), which has two subscales– Independent: 12 items measure degree to which self emphasizes separateness from social context (e.g., “I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects”).

– Interdependent: 12 items measure degree to which self emphasizes involvement with social context (e.g., “Even when I strongly disagree with group members, I avoid an argument”).

C13:9

Results

• Negative Results

– Text emphasizes results that are inconsistent with expectation: i.e., some studies report that self-construals of cultures (nations) not associated with individualism and collectivism as predicted

– Matsumoto et al (1996)

• Over 70% Japanese students classified as individualists (F13.2 +1)

– Kleinknect et al (1997)

• Using Singelis measure, no difference between US and Japan on Independent and US higher on Interdependent (+2)

• Are samples equivalent?

– Japan: Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, Teikyo University (private), Tokyo Economics College (business, applied programs)

– USA: Western Washington University (public, undergraduate)

• Translation of SCS equivalent?

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Individualist

Collectivist

C13:11 C13:12• But, also consistent results

• Li et al (2006)– Visual scale measured overlap between Self and 7 other people• Closest family member

• Close family members

• Closest friend

• Close friends

• Relatives

• Colleagues

• Neighbors

– Visual scale (right)

– Participants: Canada, China, India

– Results fit Self-Construal model (+1)

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C13:13 C13:14

Meta-Analysis

• Oyserman et al (2002)

– Meta-analysis of 83 studies

– Results mixed when aggregated (+1)

• Euro-Americans more individualist and less collectivist than Taiwanese, Indians, Asian Americans

• NOT more individualist than African Americans or Latinos

• NOT less collectivist than Japanese or Koreans

– Variation within geographic regions

• e.g., South America: US higher on individualism for some countries (Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil), but lower than others (Argentina, Peru)

C13:15

Individualism (USA vs …)

C13:16

Methodological Issues

• Asians in some studies perhaps reluctant to identify abstract traits because behaviors often determined by situation

• Cousins (1989)– 20 Statements Task with situations / contexts: home, school, work, …

– Now Asians generated more abstract traits (right panel)

C13:17

Multiple Selves in Cultural Contexts

• Multiple self-construals exist within individuals

– Variously named: Inter-related vs. Isolated, Private vs. Public/Collective Self, …

– Not mutually exclusive

– Possible to promote one self construal over others

• Prime independent or dependent self

– What makes you different than others? What makes you same? (+1)

– Chinese (e.g., Great Wall) vs American (e.g., Statue of Liberty) images (see later discussion of Attributions)

• Language (+2)

– Notion of FIXED self-concept may be wrong; culture-determined tendencies, but flexible

C13:18

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C13:19Trafimow et al (1997): “Those tested in English focused more on personal traits (left) while those tested in Chinese focused more on group affiliations.” (Brehm et al, 1999, p. 69) (below)

C13:20Self-Esteem and Self-Enhancement

• Definition and Origin– Self-Esteem: cognitive and affective evaluations of self

– Self-Enhancement: processes that bolster self-esteem

– People motivated to see self as worthy/valued

– Terror Management Theory: esteem serves as buffer against awareness of death

• Culture and Self-Esteem– Self-esteem depends on doing well at things valued by your culture

– Somewhat positive self-esteem generally healthy, but West may over-emphasize self-esteem to detriment of actual performance

– Group membership can enhance (or reduce) self-esteem• e.g., effect of local team winning or losing games

• But can also increase prejudice (my group is better)

C13:21• Self-Enhancement and False Uniqueness Effect

– Underestimate commonality of favorable traits, seen as unique to Self (M&J - better than average effect)

• Therefore, self seen as better: enhances self-esteem

– Universal or Culture-Specific?

• Stronger in Individualist Cultures (e.g., America) than Interdependent Cultures that value belonging, harmony, modesty, ...

– Results

• Wylie (1979): Self more Intelligent / Attractive than average

• Myers (1987): On leadership, 70% above average. Ability to get along with others, 0% below and 60% in top 10%

• FUE stronger for males (Joseph et al., 1992)

• Markus & Kitayama (1991): %age better in several domains: F13.4 (+1)

• Heine et al (1999): Similar findings for Self-Esteem in Canadians (+2), but interesting differences for Japanese as function of exposure to Western culture (+3)

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C13:23

Percentage of Euro Canadians & “Never Abroad” Japanese stating their self-esteem is above “average”

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C13:25

Self-Enhancement Revisited• Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1998, Psychological Review, p. 766– “scant evidence for need for positive self-regard among Japanese…”

– “need for self-regard must be culturally variant …”

– “not universal, but … rooted in … aspects of American culture”

• But, on Implicit measures of self-enhancement, Easterners– Score as high as westerners on self-esteem IAT

– Prefer own name letters and birthday dates

– Display strong self-positivity bias in response latency or word stem completion tasks

• Why no difference on Explicit measures?

• Revised Model– Self-enhancement depends on value of traits

– People strive to fulfil cultural norms or roles

– Rate selves positively on dimensions that imply successful role fulfilment

– Tactical Self Enhancement

• Sedikides et al (2003) studies– Allocentrics (Japanese) personally value collectivistic attributes (behaviors and traits)

– Idiocentrics (Americans) personally value individualistic attributes (behaviors and traits)

C13:26• Method

– 40 American students and 40 Japanese students (away from Japan for 2-22 mths)

– Cultural immersion (10 min imagining)

• Walk along streets, experience sights, listen, eat in restaurants, be with friends, celebrate with family

– Simulate groupness (10 min imagining)

• Member of business task-force dealing with problems (budget, personnel, advertising, planning)

• Rate Collectivist Behaviors and Traits– e.g., do anything for group; agreeable, loyal

• Rate Individualist Behaviors and Traits– e.g., scream at group when group wrong; independent, original

• How likely are you relative to typical group member to enact each behavior?– -5 (much less than typical group member) to +5 (much more)

• How well does each trait describe you relative to typical group member?– -5 (much worse than typical group member) to +5 (much better than typical group member)

C13:27

CollectivistIndividualist-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4 AmericansJapanese

-0.2

0.2

0.6

1

1.4

1.8

2.2

Culture and Self-Enhancement of Behaviors (top) and Traits (bottom)

Positive values reflect self-enhancement and Negative values reflect self-effacement

Individualist Collectivist

C13:28

• Universal version of Self-Enhancement– People personally value and self-enhance traits and behaviors valued by their culture

– For Interdependents (e.g., Japanese)• Being “good self” means being better than others on culturally-valued, collectivist attributes

– For Independents (e.g., Americans)• Being “good self” means being better than others on culturally-valued, individualistic attributes

– Both strive to excel on culturally-prescribed or desirable dimensions, but specific dimensions (traits and behaviors) vary across cultures

– But Fig. 13.4 (slide 13.22)??

• Conclusions for Culture and Self– Independent / Interdependent can explain some cross-cultural similarities and differences

– But continued need to elaborate theory and extend findings

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C13:29

Culture and Identity

• Cultural identity– Psychological membership in distinct culture

– One of numerous identities each person has: parent, student, brother, employee, team member, …

– Serves universal need to “belong”

– Some people question whether ethnic minorities fully belong to national categories (e.g., American)• Implicit Association Task: American images more closely tied to White faces than Black or Asian American faces

• In one study, names of White Non-Americans (e.g., Hugh Grant) more closely tied to American than known Asian Americans (e.g., Connie Chung)

C13:30Ethnicity and Identity

• Ethnicity part of some (all?) people’s identity

• Stronger for Minorities than Euro-Americans– Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM): 14 items (e.g., “I have a strong sense of belonging to my own ethnic group” “I am proud of my ethnic group and its accomplishments”)

– Sample results (Avery et al 2007 below) and for American Indians (Ogakaki 2009 +1)

Ethnic Group Mean N

White 4.59 497

African American 5.73 459

Asian American 5.29 201

Hispanic 5.45 192

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C13:31 C13:32• Factors correlated with import of ethnicity– Upbringing: minority children raised by white parents (transracial adoption) less preference for minority friends

– Social class: results from General Social Survey (caution, ns somewhat low +1)

– Collectivism: Activity 1 results for class

• Correlates of ethnic identification– MEIM positive r with Self-Worth/Self-Esteem and negative r with teacher rated aggression (Homes & Lochman, 2009)

– MEIM positive r with traditional masculine values and roles (Abreu et al 2000)

– May insulate against school disengagement (Oyserman), but mixed results

C13:33 C13:34

• Individual sees self as part of multiple cultures (vs. melting pot)

– May entail cultural frame-switching

• Cultural Reaffirmation Effect

– Bicultural German-Americans (Kosmitzki, 1996): identified more closely with native culture, evaluated it more positively, saw two cultures as less similar to each other

– Japanese-Americans more collectivist than Japanese nationals (Matsumoto et al 1997)

– Retention/Perseveration of native culture important

• Immigrant groups often more traditional than cultures from which they came

• Berry modes of Acculturation (+1 material from Ch.14)

Multicultural Identities

C13:35• Berry Mode of Acculturation Model (F14.3)

CultureHome Host

Assimilation - + (Melting pot)Integration + + (Multicultural)Separation + -Marginalization - -

• Multi-Cultural Identity–High degree of multi-ethnic identity in 2001 Canadian Census results, but varies with ethnic group (+1)

Ethnic Identity

Total Single MultipleTotal population 29,639,035 18,307,545 11,331,490Canadian 11,682,680 6,748,135 4,934,545

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• Multi-cultural identities do lead to number of issues

– Relative importance of sometimes competing

identities

• Berry model of Acculturation

• Religion and Nationality (below)

• Current and Heritage “culture” (+1)

– Changes in importance over time (+2)

C13:38Identify with British and Ethnic Group

Means

Ethnic

British

C13:39

• Importance of Ethnicity in Defining Identity in USA Latinos

– Overall, 72% reported ethnicity Very Important

– But changes across generations (left)

– Other changes included decrease in Very Important (small), church-going, and Latino cultural preferences

Mostly Latino

Workplace

How Latinos Refer to Self

Mexican

C13:40Culture and Attributions

• What are Attributions?– Inferred causes for behaviours and outcomes of self or others: e.g., luck, effort, smart, ...

– Number of classification schemes, including one based on two Dimensions: Internal (Dispositional) vs. External (Situational) and Stable vs. Transient

Internal External

Stable Intelligent Disliked

Transient Tired/Effort Luck

• Various biases– Self-serving bias: Internal for own successes and external for failures

– Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), also known as Correspondence Bias

• Internal, Personal, Dispositional attributions for others: stubbed toe because not paying attention

• vs. External, Social for self: stubbed toe because object in way

• Jones & Harris speech study (+1)

C13:41

FAE (Jones & Harris, 1967)C13:42• Common in America, but less

common in interdependent cultures– e.g., Hindu (Miller, 1984), East Asian (Kitayama & Masuda,1997; Knowles et al., 2001), …

– More situational / external attributions

• Miller (1984): Explain person’s behavior– Americans: traits (e.g., reckless, kind)

– Hindu: social roles, obligations, physical environment, other contextual factors

• Morris et al (1995, 1994): Explain such events as mass murders– Americans: focus on mental instability and negative dispositions of murderers

– Chinese: speculate on situational, contextual, and even societalfactors

• Lee et al (1996): Sports writers– American: dispositions of individual team members

– Hong Kong: focus on contextual explanations for sports events

• Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett (2000): Predict behavior– Koreans: more than Americans believe in situational power of context

• Cha and Nam (1985): Causal attributions– Koreans: more use situational information than Americans

• Menon et al (1998): Dispositional explanations of events (e.g., scandals in organizations) – Asians more than American appeal to group dispositions

• Norenzayan et al (2000): Metatheories agreed with explanations / predictions– Koreans endorsed situational and interactional theories more than Americans

FAE and Culture

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C13:43

Attributional Styles across Cultures• Theory

– “Enhancement of self” may be universal goal, but achieved differently in different cultures

• Many attributional differences appear quite early in life

– But some emerge later (+1)

• Different attribution styles can be primed within same person

– Similar to Self-Enhancement effects

– Cultural primes and internal/external attributions (+2 +3)

C13:44

Miller (1984): Individualism and Attributions

C13:45

Priming Attributions• Chinese-Americans viewed animated fish displays

• Primed by American or Chinese Symbols (e.g., Statue of

Liberty, Great Wall of China)

• Asked why single fish and group swim apart? Rate alternative reasons: external or internal

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Attributions

C13:47

Universality & Culture-Specificity

• Choi et al (1999)– East Asians more sensitive to context and situation

– Group + Situation vs. Individual + Personality & Situation

– Koreans more situational attributions than Americans only in first condition

• Mezulis et al (2004) meta-analysis of 266 studies– Self-Serving bias present in all Americans: Euro, African, Asian, Hispanic, Native, and multi-ethnic

– Somewhat smaller for Asian, and variation among Asian countries (Japan low, China & S Korea high)

C13:48

Conclusions

• Self and related constructs

– Fundamental to cultural similarities and differences

– Conclusions based on fixed Independent and Interdependent selves too rigid

– People more subtle, complex, and varied self-concepts

• Recent research

– Relationship between variability of self-concept and well-being (Church et al, 2014): suggests stable self-concept (consistency across roles) related positively to emotional stability and negatively to negative affect. Observed in both individualist and collectivist cultures, but somewhat weaker for latter on some measures.

– Cultural Distance and well-being (Kashima & Abu-Rayya, 2014): some negative rs early, but weak by 3.5 years