In Response to Cultural Threat: Cultural Self-Awareness on Collective Movement Participation

Abstract

This study investigated the role of cultural self-awareness, an individual’s awareness of culture’s influence on the self, on collective movement participation. We posited that individuals who were highly aware of their culture’s influence on them would more likely perceive self-relevance of cultural circumstances. In the context of a cultural threat, such perception of self-relevance would lead to psychological and behavioral reactions that affirm one’s collective identity. We tested our predictions during a collective political movement in Hong Kong. Results showed that among Hong Kong university students, the higher the cultural self-awareness, the more they participated in the collective movement. The relationship was mediated by increased pride in Hong Kong and a more exclusive Hong Kong identity. The findings highlighted the importance of metacognitive reflection of the self in collective processes.

Intergroup benefits of metacognitive cultural self? Cultural self-awareness and multicultural involvement on attitudes towards migrants

“…The present findings echo the perspective that metacognition could inform and guide individuals’ sense-making about the self and others (Dimaggio et al, 2008; Efklides, 2008). In addition, we showed that reflection and realization of the self’s connection to one’s culture have psychological consequences beyond personal well-being (Lu & Wan, 2018) and collective actions (Lu et al, 2020). At least for individuals with low multicultural involvement, the awareness of culture’s influence on the self could benefit outgroup attitudes.…”

“…In past research, individuals with high cultural self-awareness exhibited more positive well-being via stronger cultural identification (Lu & Wan, 2018) and showed more collective movement participation in response to a cultural threat (Lu et al, 2020). These findings were based on measuring cultural self-awareness as a dispositional tendency.…”

“…If high multicultural involvement individuals have more well-formed views of outgroups, their perceptions of Southeast Asian workers could incorporate the view of this group as culturally incompatible and threatening. Past research suggests that cultural self-awareness could contribute to culturally defensive responses when the culture is perceived to be under threat, as the cultural threat is perceived as more self-relevant (Lu et al, 2020). In our case, if high multicultural involvement individuals already have well-formed views of Southeast Asian workers as a potential threat, the cultural self-awareness manipulation could have resulted in more self-relevance of such threat, resulting in more cultural defense and thus more unfavorable attitudes towards the workers.…”

Students’ Conceptualization on Citizen Participation in Digital Era: A Mixed Method Research

“…In the context of culture, the availability of cultural awareness affected identity consciousness. Individuals who are well-aware of the influence of their culture, they would feel more engaged with the state's culture (Lu, Wan, Hui, and Tong, 2019;Prabawa, Christianto, Edi, & Darmastuti, 2019). Some theories of selfconfidence explored the effects of different motivation and emotion (Phillips & Silvia, 2005).…”

Perceived financial constraints and normative influence: discretionary purchase decisions across cultures

“…However, under specific circumstances, consumers can make decisions that are agnostic of or even counter to their chronic cultural tendencies. Several variables have been identified to moderate the use of such chronic tendencies in decision making such as cultural self-awareness metacognition (Lu et al, 2020 ), optimal distinctiveness (Brewer, 1991 ), self-affirmation (Lalwani & Shavitt, 2009 ), and public vs. private consumption (Yamagishi et al, 2008 ). To illustrate, self-presentation goals have been shown to differ as a function of self-construal such that independent (vs. interdependent) individuals have a greater tendency to present themselves as high on competence and low on social sensitivity (Lalwani & Shavitt, 2009 ) in accord with their chronic self-construal.…”