Self-construal is thought to mediate and explain the effects of culture on a wide variety of outcome variables. A meta-analysis of published cross-cultural self-construal research is reported in this article, and the results across studies suggests that the evidence for the predicted cultural differences is weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent. The results of 3 priming experiments (N = 121, N = 99, and N = 361) suggest that (a) priming does not account for the inconsistent results observed in the meta-analysis, (b) that scores on a self-construal scale appear to be measuring trait-like constructs that are not sensitive to priming, and (c) that measures of self-construals lack convergent validity. The results of several measurement studies (N = 121, 223, 230, 323, 214, 206, 126, 204, 148, 141, and 150) were inconsistent with the a priori two-factor measurement model in every case. Self-construal scales were found to be radically multidimensional and highly unstable within and across cultures. These results lead us to conclude that catastrophic validity problems exist in research involving the use of self-construal scales in cross-cultural research.

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The present study investigated whether verbal aggression, argument approach, argument avoidance or assertiveness had any effect on how participants in three countries responded to criticism. Consistent with the first hypothesis, men were significantly more aggressive, assertive, less avoidant, and approached argument more than women. However, men did not respond more assertively to criticism. As predicted in the second hypothesis, US Americans responded more assertively to criticism than did Japanese and Chinese. The third hypothesis predicted that verbal aggression, argument approach, argument avoidance and assertiveness would be associated with a more assertive response to criticism. The data obtained were only partially consistent with the third hypothesis. While only a small number of participants in this study indicated that they would respond to criticism with silence, US Americans used silence to mean anger while for Chinese silence showed personal embarrassment. Very few Japanese selected silence as an option for responding to a neighbor's criticism. The implications of these results are discussed.

This study compares the response styles of 2 groups of Chinese men and women who have been described as collectivists—Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan. Participants were presented with one of three request scenarios that controlled participant identity and manipulated the level of imposition of what was requested. Chinese in Singapore were found to prefer complying with the request of a friend compared to Chinese in Taiwan, who were more likely to refuse and who used significantly more tactics to decline a friend’s request. This suggests that although they indicated that they would be more likely to refuse the request, Taiwan Chinese compensated for this preference by embedding declinations in several tactics. There was more request compliance with low imposition and less request compliance with high imposition for all participants, regardless of national group or gender. Independent self-construal was related to direct refusal. Overall, men were more compliant than women.

The present study investigated the effects of assertiveness on compliance in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. In contrast to what was expected, U. S. Americans overall were the least assertive. The study found that females in Japan and Taiwan were more assertive than their male counterparts. In addition, Americans were significantly more compliant with the request of a work supervisor than either Japanese or Taiwan-Chinese. In general, similar compliance was found between men and women. Participants offered more opposition to high imposition requests. While the discomfort factor of assertiveness accounted for significant variance for females in the equal status condition, situational factors such as imposition and status provided a better overall explanation for variance in behavior.