Problem 1
THE SELF-CONCEPT – HEINE ET AL. (2010)
Independent vs interdependent self-concepts
Self-concept = Not innate, shaped by cultural experiences, present already in
kindergarten-aged children
o Influence psychological processes as perception, cognition, motivation,
emotion and behavior
o Evidence of different self-concept Twenty Statements Test
Western cultures = Statements reflecting inner psychological
characteristics (attitudes, personality traits, abilities)
Non-Western cultures = Statements indicating relational roles and
membership possessed
Independent self-concept = Inner attributes reflecting the essence of a person
o Stable across situations and lifespan, unique, significant for regulating
behaviors, people feel obligated to publicly advertise themselves in ways
consistent with these attributes
More common in Western cultures
Interdependent self-concept = The self derives from relations with significant
others
o Attend how their behavior affects others and it is not so stable or unique,
rather embedded in a larger social group (e.g., Japanese person acting
different based on who is in the room)
More common in not-Western cultures
Self-consistency vs flexibility
Independent self = Relatively stable across situations People would make
sacrifices in order to preserve a semblance of self-consistency
o Not much variability in emotions
More research focused on this type
Interdependent self = More unstable across situations Depends on one’s
relationships
o More variability in emotions & contradictory self-views
It does not mean that self-concept is unstable but context-specific
self-view!
Insider vs outside phenomenological experiences
Insider = People prioritize their own perspective, thereby making sense of the
world in terms of how it unfolds in front of their own eyes Independent
Outsider = People prioritize the perspective of an audience and attend to the
world and themselves in terms of how they imagine it appears to others
Interdependent
o E.g., East Asians are less impacted by the presence of a mirror because
they already consider themselves from the perspective of an audience
Multicultural selves
Two complementary perspectives:
Multiple self-concepts Both simultaneously accessible (e.g., Asian-American
performing intermediately on psychological tests compared to Asian in Asia)
, Sequentially activated self-concepts Frame-switching depending on
situations or primes
o Likely when the dual cultural identities are integrated rather than in
opposition & in second-generation immigrants
People have multiple knowledge structures associated together
One facilitates the activation of another part of the same network
! People with monocultural experiences also frame-switch but multicultural do it more
Multicultural people are more creative and flexible
MOTIVATION
Motivation for self-enhancement and self-esteem
Self-enhancement = Desire to view oneself positively
o More common in Western than not-Western cultures who attend negative
information about themselves in order to improve – Possible explanations:
East Asians are more motivated to enhance their group selves
(Inconsistent)
East Asians are more self-critical for domains considered important
to them (Inconsistent)
East Asians are presenting themselves self-critically but privately
evaluate themselves in self-enhancing manners (Mixed)
Approach and avoidance motivation
Western cultures = More evidence for approach motivation People do not
want to lose their “face”
Not-Western cultures = More evidence for avoidance motivation
o E.g., Opportunities to lose are more important, persist more on a task after
failure, more motivated by negative role models
Agency and control
Independent cultures = World seen malleable and their selves stable Sense
of primary control over perceptions, goals, wishes
o Stronger motivation for uniqueness
o Defend your honor
Interdependent cultures = World seen stable and their selves malleable
Likely to engage in secondary control strategies
o More likely to conform
o Power & agency concentrated in groups
Critical life decision made my family and not the individual (e.g.,
Marriage)
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships hold a more privileged position in interdependent cultures and are
viewed in less conditional terms as compared to independent cultures
o They remain stable over the years and there are few opportunities to form
new relationship or dissolve existing ones
In independent cultures = Relationship mobility A relationship
must benefit both parts
Limitations: Database largely focused on North American and East Asians – Not all
processes are universal
, INDIVIDUALISISM VS COLLECTIVISM - MA AND SCHOENEMAN (1997)
Aim: The article compared Kenyan & American self-concept based on the Twenty
Statements Test (TST)
Cultural differences in self-concept
Individualism (North America and norther and western Europe)
o People emphasize their private self and prioritize personal goals
Egocentric, separate, autonomous, independent
Based on exchange relationship with concern for equity
Children encouraged to explore and to be autonomous
Collectivism (Latin America, Asia, Africa)
o People emphasize relationships with others and prioritize collective goals
Important attributes are public roles, statuses, relationships
More likely to conform
Children are taught obedience, reliability and proper behavior
Hypotheses & Sample:
o Samburu and Maasai tribes expected to respond with more social
categories to the TST
o Nairobi sample expected to be less collective because of the urbanization,
modernization, westernization and education in the capital
o American college students sample expected to be individualistic
o Women expected to have higher percentages of social responses
17 American college students, 15 Kenyan college students, 10
employed adults in Nairobi, 21 members of Maasai tribe and 18
members of Samburu Tribe
Results
o Pastoral nomads in Kenya are more collective and had a less individualized
self-concept
o Decreased level of collectivism in Nairobi caused by urbanization,
development, modernization and education
College students responded with fewer social categories than
university staff and hotel employees (who were older) Likely to
be more traditional in self-concept
o Women in all groups have more social responses than men
Limitations
o Small sample size
o Methodological issue 2 pastoral nomads group responded to TST in an
interview because the majority were illiterate while the rest in a written
form
o Interview TST was administered with a number of people presented while
the written form was completed individually
SUBJECTIVE CULTURE – TRIANDIS (2002)
Culture = Shared pattern of beliefs, attitudes, norms, role perception & values
o Material culture = Dress, food, houses, highways, tools, machines
o Subjective culture = Language, economy, education, politics, law,
philosophy and religion
Subculture = Shared other elements as gender, physical type,
neighborhood, occupation, standard of living…
, When studying culture it is important to check:
1. Whether or not ideas are shared
2. Whether shared responses correspond to a language, a time period and a
geographic region
ELEMENTS OF SUBJECTIVE CULTURE
Categories
Categories are used to describe different stimuli (e.g., Colors)
o Some cultures have many words for a particular domain while others have
few words
Etic categories = Occur universally
Emic categories = Culture specific, associations
Categories are linked to each other also as beliefs (e.g., Religion = If I believe I
go the heaven; If I donate organs I can save a life)
Attitudes = Ideas charged with affect (emotion) predisposing action (e.g., “My
family"; I feel scared when I see a snake, so I go away)
Norms = Ideas about behavior expected of members of a group
o Tight cultures = People are expected to behave as specified by norms or
you get punished
Usually when a culture is homogenous, and people are very
interdependent
o Loose cultures = People are less likely to be punished, less strict
Usually when a culture is under the influence of many other
cultures, people are not too interdependent, or supervision is
difficult
o Roles = Part of norms, correct behavior of people who hold a position in a
social group (e.g., Father)
Prescriptive elements = What is recommended/established (e.g.,
Father should protect their daughters)
Proscriptive elements = What is not allowed (e.g., Father should
not hit their daughters)
Tasks = Sequence of behaviors (e.g., Passing a law)
Values = Conceptions of the desirable states or behaviors
o Self-direction = Creativity, freedom, choosing own goals, curious
o Stimulation = Varied life, exciting life, daring
o Hedonism = Pleasure, enjoying life
o Achievement = Ambitious, successful, capable
o Power = Authority, wealth, social recognition
o Security = Social order, clean, health, sense of belonging
o Conformity = Obedient, self-disciplined, politeness
o Tradition = Respect for tradition, humble, devout
o Benevolence = Helpful, loyal, forgiving
o Universalism = Broadminded, social justice, world of beauty (e.g., Donate
organs)
Value orientation
Human nature: evil, neutral, mixture, good; mutable or immutable
Man-nature-can: subjugation to, harmony with or mastery over
nature
Human activities: being, being-in-becoming or doing
Relationship of humans:
Lineal (e.g., doing what the elders want)
THE SELF-CONCEPT – HEINE ET AL. (2010)
Independent vs interdependent self-concepts
Self-concept = Not innate, shaped by cultural experiences, present already in
kindergarten-aged children
o Influence psychological processes as perception, cognition, motivation,
emotion and behavior
o Evidence of different self-concept Twenty Statements Test
Western cultures = Statements reflecting inner psychological
characteristics (attitudes, personality traits, abilities)
Non-Western cultures = Statements indicating relational roles and
membership possessed
Independent self-concept = Inner attributes reflecting the essence of a person
o Stable across situations and lifespan, unique, significant for regulating
behaviors, people feel obligated to publicly advertise themselves in ways
consistent with these attributes
More common in Western cultures
Interdependent self-concept = The self derives from relations with significant
others
o Attend how their behavior affects others and it is not so stable or unique,
rather embedded in a larger social group (e.g., Japanese person acting
different based on who is in the room)
More common in not-Western cultures
Self-consistency vs flexibility
Independent self = Relatively stable across situations People would make
sacrifices in order to preserve a semblance of self-consistency
o Not much variability in emotions
More research focused on this type
Interdependent self = More unstable across situations Depends on one’s
relationships
o More variability in emotions & contradictory self-views
It does not mean that self-concept is unstable but context-specific
self-view!
Insider vs outside phenomenological experiences
Insider = People prioritize their own perspective, thereby making sense of the
world in terms of how it unfolds in front of their own eyes Independent
Outsider = People prioritize the perspective of an audience and attend to the
world and themselves in terms of how they imagine it appears to others
Interdependent
o E.g., East Asians are less impacted by the presence of a mirror because
they already consider themselves from the perspective of an audience
Multicultural selves
Two complementary perspectives:
Multiple self-concepts Both simultaneously accessible (e.g., Asian-American
performing intermediately on psychological tests compared to Asian in Asia)
, Sequentially activated self-concepts Frame-switching depending on
situations or primes
o Likely when the dual cultural identities are integrated rather than in
opposition & in second-generation immigrants
People have multiple knowledge structures associated together
One facilitates the activation of another part of the same network
! People with monocultural experiences also frame-switch but multicultural do it more
Multicultural people are more creative and flexible
MOTIVATION
Motivation for self-enhancement and self-esteem
Self-enhancement = Desire to view oneself positively
o More common in Western than not-Western cultures who attend negative
information about themselves in order to improve – Possible explanations:
East Asians are more motivated to enhance their group selves
(Inconsistent)
East Asians are more self-critical for domains considered important
to them (Inconsistent)
East Asians are presenting themselves self-critically but privately
evaluate themselves in self-enhancing manners (Mixed)
Approach and avoidance motivation
Western cultures = More evidence for approach motivation People do not
want to lose their “face”
Not-Western cultures = More evidence for avoidance motivation
o E.g., Opportunities to lose are more important, persist more on a task after
failure, more motivated by negative role models
Agency and control
Independent cultures = World seen malleable and their selves stable Sense
of primary control over perceptions, goals, wishes
o Stronger motivation for uniqueness
o Defend your honor
Interdependent cultures = World seen stable and their selves malleable
Likely to engage in secondary control strategies
o More likely to conform
o Power & agency concentrated in groups
Critical life decision made my family and not the individual (e.g.,
Marriage)
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships hold a more privileged position in interdependent cultures and are
viewed in less conditional terms as compared to independent cultures
o They remain stable over the years and there are few opportunities to form
new relationship or dissolve existing ones
In independent cultures = Relationship mobility A relationship
must benefit both parts
Limitations: Database largely focused on North American and East Asians – Not all
processes are universal
, INDIVIDUALISISM VS COLLECTIVISM - MA AND SCHOENEMAN (1997)
Aim: The article compared Kenyan & American self-concept based on the Twenty
Statements Test (TST)
Cultural differences in self-concept
Individualism (North America and norther and western Europe)
o People emphasize their private self and prioritize personal goals
Egocentric, separate, autonomous, independent
Based on exchange relationship with concern for equity
Children encouraged to explore and to be autonomous
Collectivism (Latin America, Asia, Africa)
o People emphasize relationships with others and prioritize collective goals
Important attributes are public roles, statuses, relationships
More likely to conform
Children are taught obedience, reliability and proper behavior
Hypotheses & Sample:
o Samburu and Maasai tribes expected to respond with more social
categories to the TST
o Nairobi sample expected to be less collective because of the urbanization,
modernization, westernization and education in the capital
o American college students sample expected to be individualistic
o Women expected to have higher percentages of social responses
17 American college students, 15 Kenyan college students, 10
employed adults in Nairobi, 21 members of Maasai tribe and 18
members of Samburu Tribe
Results
o Pastoral nomads in Kenya are more collective and had a less individualized
self-concept
o Decreased level of collectivism in Nairobi caused by urbanization,
development, modernization and education
College students responded with fewer social categories than
university staff and hotel employees (who were older) Likely to
be more traditional in self-concept
o Women in all groups have more social responses than men
Limitations
o Small sample size
o Methodological issue 2 pastoral nomads group responded to TST in an
interview because the majority were illiterate while the rest in a written
form
o Interview TST was administered with a number of people presented while
the written form was completed individually
SUBJECTIVE CULTURE – TRIANDIS (2002)
Culture = Shared pattern of beliefs, attitudes, norms, role perception & values
o Material culture = Dress, food, houses, highways, tools, machines
o Subjective culture = Language, economy, education, politics, law,
philosophy and religion
Subculture = Shared other elements as gender, physical type,
neighborhood, occupation, standard of living…
, When studying culture it is important to check:
1. Whether or not ideas are shared
2. Whether shared responses correspond to a language, a time period and a
geographic region
ELEMENTS OF SUBJECTIVE CULTURE
Categories
Categories are used to describe different stimuli (e.g., Colors)
o Some cultures have many words for a particular domain while others have
few words
Etic categories = Occur universally
Emic categories = Culture specific, associations
Categories are linked to each other also as beliefs (e.g., Religion = If I believe I
go the heaven; If I donate organs I can save a life)
Attitudes = Ideas charged with affect (emotion) predisposing action (e.g., “My
family"; I feel scared when I see a snake, so I go away)
Norms = Ideas about behavior expected of members of a group
o Tight cultures = People are expected to behave as specified by norms or
you get punished
Usually when a culture is homogenous, and people are very
interdependent
o Loose cultures = People are less likely to be punished, less strict
Usually when a culture is under the influence of many other
cultures, people are not too interdependent, or supervision is
difficult
o Roles = Part of norms, correct behavior of people who hold a position in a
social group (e.g., Father)
Prescriptive elements = What is recommended/established (e.g.,
Father should protect their daughters)
Proscriptive elements = What is not allowed (e.g., Father should
not hit their daughters)
Tasks = Sequence of behaviors (e.g., Passing a law)
Values = Conceptions of the desirable states or behaviors
o Self-direction = Creativity, freedom, choosing own goals, curious
o Stimulation = Varied life, exciting life, daring
o Hedonism = Pleasure, enjoying life
o Achievement = Ambitious, successful, capable
o Power = Authority, wealth, social recognition
o Security = Social order, clean, health, sense of belonging
o Conformity = Obedient, self-disciplined, politeness
o Tradition = Respect for tradition, humble, devout
o Benevolence = Helpful, loyal, forgiving
o Universalism = Broadminded, social justice, world of beauty (e.g., Donate
organs)
Value orientation
Human nature: evil, neutral, mixture, good; mutable or immutable
Man-nature-can: subjugation to, harmony with or mastery over
nature
Human activities: being, being-in-becoming or doing
Relationship of humans:
Lineal (e.g., doing what the elders want)
