Cross-Cultural Discrepancies in Self-Appraisals

Abstract

Two studies examined self-appraisals in Japanese and Canadian samples. Study 1 included open-ended self-descriptions; Study 2 incorporated indirect measures of self-enhancing tendencies. In Study 1, the content analysis assessed spontaneous evaluations of self and others, private and relational self-statements, reflected appraisals, temporal and social comparisons, and evaluations of objects and events. Canadian participants typically provided self-enhancing self-descriptions. Japanese participants were generally evenhanded rather than self-critical or self-enhancing, although they were more favorable about relational than private aspects of self. In Study 2, Canadian participants reported that proud events felt closer in time and were easier to recall than similarly distant embarrassing events. Japanese participants reported that embarrassing and proud events felt equally far away and were equally memorable. The two studies provide evidence that Canadians possess stronger self-enhancing motivations than do Japanese and enable a cross-cultural analysis of several social psychological theories of self-appraisal.

The role of subjective time in identity regulation

“…In Asian cultures, modesty may be valued more highly than self-enhancement. Accordingly, Ross, Heine, Wilson, and Sugimori (2005) found no evidence of a self-enhancement bias in the subjective temporal distance judgments of Japanese participants. It is quite possible (though currently untested) that when an identity goal other than self-enhancement is salient, subjective distance will shift to help attain that goal.…”

Culture and Personality

“…False feedback studies also repeatedly found that Japanese more readily accept negative feedback than positive (Heine, Lehman, & Takata, 2000). In addition, Japanese reported that proud and embarrassing events felt equally far away, whereas North Americans reported that proud event felt closer in time than the embarrassing event in anonymous open-ended self-description task (Ross, Heine, Wilson, & Sugimori, 2005). In short, although there is a great deal of agreement on the sizable East-West difference in explicit measures of self-esteem, the consensus has not yet emerged on why the magnitude of cultural difference on implicit measures of self-esteem is much smaller than that of explicit self-esteem.…”

Unpacking Cultural Variations in Peak-Experiences: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Early Childhood Recollection Between Hong Kong and Brazil

“…Each unit idea of the narratives was coded into the following categories: interpersonal joy (such as laughing merrily with friends), external achievement (such as winning a school mathematics contest), skill mastery (such as learning to ride a bicycle for the first time), materialism (such as receiving a desired birthday present), developmental landmark (such as going to a party without one's parents for the first time), nature (such as caring for a pet dog), aesthetics (such as listening to a beautiful concert), spontaneous moment of bliss (such as walking home from school on an ordinary afternoon and suddenly experiencing ecstasy), serenity (such as feeling utterly carefree on a vacation), recovery from accident or illness (such as awakening after several days of high fever and feeling healthy again), intense and personalized prayer (such as experiencing joy while saying bedtime prayers), uncanny perception (such as seeing glowing lights in one's darkened bedroom), unforgettable dream (such as experiencing a memorable dream about one's future), peak in a formal religious setting (such as participating in a baptismal ritual in religious camp), and profound musing (such as experiencing a new sense of personal identity while reading a juvenile biography). After categorizing the descriptions of peak-experiences, we recorded the length of narratives and then performed content analyses using a coding scheme adapted from previous studies (Campbell and Pennebaker 2003;Ross et al 2005;Wang and Ross 2005).…”