Explaining self-esteem differences between Chinese and North Americans: Dialectical self (vs. self-consistency) or lack of positive self-regard
TL;DR: This article found that the difference in self-esteem between East Asians and North Americans was driven primarily by Chinese participants' greater tendency to agree with negatively worded selfesteem items and that because of the motivation to maintain consistent responses, North Americans' response pattern varied depending on whether the first item in the selfesteem measur...
Abstract: Past studies showed that compared to North Americans, East Asians have lower self-esteem and their self-esteem scores do not predict self-esteem-related motivations and self-perceptions. These findings have been interpreted in terms of a lack of the need for positive self-regard in East Asian contexts. We posit that the East – West difference in self-esteem may arise from the popularity of the dialectical self (the idea that one can have both a positive and negative self) in East Asia and of the internally consistent self (the notion that having a positive self implies not having a negative one, and vice versa) in North America. Consistent with this idea, we found that the Chinese American difference in self-esteem level was driven primarily by Chinese participants' greater tendency to agree with negatively worded self-esteem items. Furthermore, because of the motivation to maintain consistent responses, North Americans' response pattern varied depending on whether the first item in the self-esteem measur...
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TL;DR: The authors show how dialectical thinkers show greater expectation of change in tasks related to explanation and prediction and greater tolerance of contradiction in tasks involving the reconciliation of contradictory information in the domains of the self, emotional experience, psychological well-being, attitudes and evaluations, social categorization and perception, and judgment and decision making.
Abstract: Since the publication of Peng and Nisbett’s seminal paper on dialectical thinking, a substantial amount of empirical research has replicated and expanded on the core finding that people differ in the degree to which they view the world as inherently contradictory and in constant flux. Dialectical thinkers (who are more often members of East Asian than Western cultures) show greater expectation of change in tasks related to explanation and prediction and greater tolerance of contradiction in tasks involving the reconciliation of contradictory information. The authors show how these effects are manifested in the domains of the self, emotional experience, psychological well-being, attitudes and evaluations, social categorization and perception, and judgment and decision making. They note important topics in need of further investigation and offer predictions concerning possible cultural differences in unexplored domains as a function of the presence or absence of naive dialecticism.
298 citations
TL;DR: Across 3 experiments, dignity culture participants showed a studied indifference to the judgments of their peers, ignoring peers' assessments--whether those assessments were public or private, were positive or negative, or were made by qualified peers or unqualified peers.
Abstract: There are two ways to know the self: from the inside and from the outside. In all cultures, people know themselves from both directions. People make judgments about themselves from what they “know” about themselves, and they absorb the judgments of other people so that the judgments become their own. The process is one of constant flow, but there is variation, from both person to person and culture to culture, in which direction takes precedence. In this article, we outline the way face cultures tend to give priority to knowing oneself from the outside, whereas dignity cultures tend to give priority to knowing the self from the inside and may resist allowing the self to be defined by others. We first distinguish between face cultures and dignity cultures, describing the cultural logics of each and how these lead to distinctive ways in which the self is defined and constructed. We discuss the differing roles of public (vs. private) information in the two cultures, noting the way that such public information becomes absorbed into the definition of face culture participants and the way that it can become something to struggle against among dignity culture participants—even when it might reflect positively on the participant. Finally, we describe three cross-cultural experiments in which the phenomena is examined and then close with a discussion of the different ways our selves are “knotted” up with the judgments of other people. Face and Dignity Cultures
128 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that Asian students on average not only performed better than other ethnic groups as documented in multinational achievement tests, but also showed more negative emotions and test anxiety, which was rooted in the endorsement of social-oriented achievement motivation (SOAM) among Asian students.
Abstract: Asian students on average not only performed better than other ethnic groups as documented in multinational achievement tests, but also in general showed more negative emotions and test anxiety. We argued that this seemingly paradoxical achievement pattern was rooted in the endorsement of social-oriented achievement motivation (SOAM) among Asian students. Within SOAM, academic achievement is construed as an obligation to parents and significant others. This research tested if Chinese students endorsing SOAM would indeed show goal endorsement, emotions, and behavioral tendency that typify obligatory endeavors in academic settings. First, endorsing SOAM indeed was associated with viewing academic achievement as indicative of a person’s obligation (Study 1); the stronger the individuals held this link, the more they felt guilty and a failure when they met with academic setbacks (Study 2); endorsing SOAM was associated with experiencing anxiety in taking examination (test anxiety; Studies 4 and 5) and feeling...
123 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: This article proposed the extended self-enhancing tactician model to account for cross-cultural invariance (equivalence of self-motive strength and self-esteem desire across cultures) and cross-culture variability (differential manifestations of selfmotives and selfesteem across cultures).
Abstract: Do self-enhancement/self-protection and self-esteem reflect fundamental human motivations or are they culturally bound occurrences? The debate on universalism versus cultural relativism of self-motives and self-esteem shows no sign of abatement We advance the debate by proposing the extended self-enhancing tactician model The model aspires to account for two seemingly contradictory phenomena: cross-cultural invariance (equivalence of self-motive strength and self-esteem desire across cultures) and cross-cultural variability (differential manifestations of self-motives and self-esteem across cultures) The model's four foundational tenets address cross-cultural invariance: (1) The individual self is panculturally valued, and it is so over the relational or collective self; (2) The self-enhancement/self-protection motives are equally potent in East and West; (3) The structure of self-enhancement and self-protection strivings is similar across the cultural divide; and (4) the desire for self-esteem is pancultural The SCENT-R model's four key postulates address cross-cultural variability First, Easterners assign relative importance to, and report higher, liking-based self-esteem, as well as consider collectivistic attributes important and self-enhance on them, whereas Westerners assign relative importance to, and report higher, competence-based self-esteem, as well as consider individualistic attributes important and self-enhance on them Second, when constraints on candid self-enhancement are lifted, Easterners behave like Westerners: they report higher modesty and lower self-esteem than Westerners, but, controlling for modesty, differences in self-esteem disappear; they self-enhance in competitive, but self-efface in cooperative, settings; they profit from other-mediated than own-initiated self-enhancement Third, implicit self-esteem is similarly high across cultures Fourth, self-esteem and self-enhancement/self-protection confer parallel benefits in East–West, depending in part on domain relevance Self-enhancement and self-protection, as well as self-esteem, reflect fundamental human motivation
111 citations
Cites background from "Explaining self-esteem differences ..."
...Finally, self-esteem is inversely related to neuroticism (a marker of psychological distress) and is positively related to extraversion (a general marker of psychological well-being) in both Eastern and Western samples (Diener & Diener, 1995; Kim et al., 2008; Schmitt & Allik, 2005)....
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TL;DR: Support is found for the hypothesis that differences in subjective well-being between Europeans and European Americans may be due to the psychological meanings Eastern and Western cultures attach to positive and negative affect.
Abstract: East Asians and Asian Americans report lower levels of subjective well-being than Europeans and European Americans. Three studies found support for the hypothesis that such differences may be due to the psychological meanings Eastern and Western cultures attach to positive and negative affect. Study 1 demonstrated that the desire to repeat a recent vacation was significantly predicted by recalled positive affect-but not recalled negative affect-for European Americans, whereas Asian Americans considered both positive and negative affect. Study 2 replicated this effect in judging satisfaction with a personal friendship. Study 3 linked changes in European Americans' life satisfaction to everyday positive events caused by the self (vs. others) and changes in Japanese life satisfaction to everyday negative events caused by others (vs. the self). Positive affect appears particularly meaningful for European Americans and negative affect for Asian Americans and Japanese when judging a satisfying vacation, friendship, or life.
94 citations
References
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01 Jan 2000
350 citations
"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background in this paper
...Furthermore, although both East Asians and North Americans have the need for positive self-regard, there may still be marked cultural variations in its sources, manifestations, and normative display rules (Kitayama & Markus, 2000; Kitayama & Uchida, 2003)....
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TL;DR: For example, the authors found that the revised positive version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale had less overlap with a measure of depression, and both revised versions had fewer overlap with self-deception, whereas the reworded versions generally fit a one-factor model.
344 citations
"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background in this paper
...However, when North Americans respond to the revised positive and revised negative versions of the RSES in the Greenberger et al. (2003) study, responses to the two versions may show different patterns of associations with measures of persistence, challenge seeking, perceived invulnerability, and…...
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...Version 3 was the revised positive version and Version 4 was the revised negative version in the Greenberger et al. (2003) study....
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...In one study, Greenberger et al. (2003) formed a revised negative version of the RSES by rephrasing the positively worded items in the original RSES into negatively worded items (e.g., ‘‘On the whole, I am satisfied with myself’’ was changed to ‘‘On the whole, I am not satisfied with myself’’)....
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TL;DR: 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.
Abstract: 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.
340 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that participants in Poland and the United States, two countries that differ in individualistic-collectivistic orientation, indicated their willingness to comply with a request to participate without pay in a marketing survey, while considering their own history of compliance with such requests, whereas the other half were asked to do so after considering information regarding their peers' history of such compliance.
Abstract: University students in Poland and the United States, two countries that differ in individualistic-collectivistic orientation, indicated their willingness to comply with a request to participate without pay in a marketing survey. Half were asked to do so after considering information regarding their own history of compliance with such requests, whereas the other half were asked to do so after considering information regarding their peers’ history of such compliance. This was designed to assess the impact of two social influence principles (commitment/consistency and social proof, respectively) on participants’ decisions. As expected, although both principles were influential across cultures, the commitment/consistency principle had greater impact on Americans, whereas the social proof principle had greater impact on Poles. Additional analyses indicated that this effect was due principally, but not entirely, to participants’ personal individualistic-collectivistic orientations rather than to the dominant in...
322 citations
TL;DR: The authors present the results of four studies that examined cultural differences in reasoning about psychological contradiction and the effects of naive dialecticism on self-evaluations and psychological adjustment and found that increased dialecticism was related to decreased psychological adjustment.
Abstract: A well-documented finding in the literature is that members of many East Asian cultures report lower self-esteem and psychological well-being than do members of Western cultures. The authors present the results of four studies that examined cultural differences in reasoning about psychological contradiction and the effects of naive dialecticism on self-evaluations and psychological adjustment. Mainland Chinese and Asian Americans exhibited greater "ambivalence" or evaluative contradiction in their self-attitudes than did Western synthesis-oriented cultures on a traditional self-report measure of self-esteem (Study 1) and in their spontaneous self-descriptions (Study 2). Naive dialecticism, as assessed with the Dialectical Self Scale, mediated the observed cultural differences in self-esteem and well-being (Study 3). In Study 4, the authors primed naive dialecticism and found that increased dialecticism was related to decreased psychological adjustment. Implications for the conceptualization and measurement of self-esteem and psychological well-being across cultures are discussed.
309 citations
"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background or result in this paper
...As in previous studies (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004), North Americans tended to agree with positively worded items and disagree with negatively worded ones, and Chinese tended to agree with both kinds of items....
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...They also tend to attribute similar percentages of positive and negative characteristics to the self (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004)....
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...Interestingly, a recent study showed that this cultural difference results in part from East Asians’ stronger belief in dialecticism, which in turn leads to stronger agreement with negatively worded self-esteem items (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004, Study 3)....
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