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Journal ArticleDOI

Explaining self-esteem differences between Chinese and North Americans: Dialectical self (vs. self-consistency) or lack of positive self-regard

04 Mar 2008-Self and Identity (Psychology Press)-Vol. 7, Iss: 2, pp 113-128
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...
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Book ChapterDOI
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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Journal ArticleDOI
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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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the use of self-enhancement following a manipulation that made high and low self-esteem participants explicitly consider their sexual risk behaviors and found that participants with high (but not low) selfesteem responded to the manipulation by selfenhancing on both personality ratings and ratings of their contraceptive behavior.
Abstract: Acknowledging that one engages in risk-increasing behavior is a form of self-generated negative feedback that can engender self-protective responses. This experiment examined the use of one of these reactions, compensatory self-enhancement, following a manipulation that made high and low self-esteem participants explicitly consider their sexual risk behaviors. Participants with high (but not low) self-esteem responded to the manipulation by self-enhancing on both personality ratings and ratings of their contraceptive behavior. Positive self-ratings on personality traits were negatively associated with subsequent ratings of perceived vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases.

64 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Three studies examined cultural and situational influences on the tendency for people to use their current life satisfaction to predict future life events and showed that patterns could be obtained by subliminally priming concepts associated with individualism and collectivism.
Abstract: 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.

56 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that Japanese tended to make self-effacing attributions for their success and failure, while they expected their parents, siblings, and close friends to make internal attributions more than for their failure.
Abstract: Past research in cross-cultural psychology has emphasized a contrast between Western self-serving tendency and East Asian self-effacing tendency in attributions. The present author, however, poses a question to this simple dichotomy and presents some empirical evidence for indirect self-enhancement among Japanese. Participants were asked to recall their positive and negative life events and to make attributions. Results showed that Japanese tended to make self-effacing attributions for their success and failure. At the same time, however, they expected their parents, siblings, and close friends to make internal attributions for their success more than for their failure. In addition, they believed that these people understand them to a large extent. Japanese would not enhance or protect their self-esteem explicitly, but that they would do so indirectly through others' eyes.

52 citations


"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…East Asians do not self-enhance and do not need positive self-regard, some East Asian social psychologists have argued with convincing evidence that East Asians also self-enhance despite their self-critical tendency (Kobayashi & Brown, 2003; Kudo & Numazaki, 2003; Muramoto, 2003; Takata, 2003)....

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  • ...Indeed, in response to the claim that East Asians do not self-enhance and do not need positive self-regard, some East Asian social psychologists have argued with convincing evidence that East Asians also self-enhance despite their self-critical tendency (Kobayashi & Brown, 2003; Kudo & Numazaki, 2003; Muramoto, 2003; Takata, 2003)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an experiment was conducted to reexamine self-serving bias for success and failure among Japanese participants and found that participants in the success condition made more internal attribution than those in the failure condition.
Abstract: This study reports an experiment that was conducted to reexamine self-serving bias for success and failure among Japanese participants. Previous research has generally failed to find that Japanese participants exhibit a self-serving bias. However, with careful procedures added to reduce evaluation apprehension of participants, the participants in the success condition made more internal attribution than those in the failure condition. The authors discuss self-serving bias and self-critical bias in terms of evaluation apprehension and social norms.

48 citations


"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background or result in this paper

  • ...…East Asians do not self-enhance and do not need positive self-regard, some East Asian social psychologists have argued with convincing evidence that East Asians also self-enhance despite their self-critical tendency (Kobayashi & Brown, 2003; Kudo & Numazaki, 2003; Muramoto, 2003; Takata, 2003)....

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  • ...However, more recent studies demonstrated that under some specific circumstances (e.g., in private settings and competitive situations; Kudo & Numazaki, 2003; Takata, 2003), East Asians also display the self-serving bias....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors follow the theoretical footsteps of Weber and Habermas to unravel the advent of modernity in terms of the problematic of rationality and rationalization, and argue that a major malaise of modern society stems from the proliferation and domina tion of instrumental rationality on one hand, and the alleged subjective, relativistic nature of value rationality on the other.

38 citations


"Explaining self-esteem differences ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The principle of transformation through harmonization of opposite forces has had profound influence on the social philosophy in major Confucian societies (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean societies; Cheung et al., 2003)....

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