CULTURE

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CULTURE SELF

• The Cultural Construction of Self and Positive
  Self-Regard

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Western concept of Self Independent
Self-Construal

• A view of the self that is characterized by a
  bounded and autonomous sense of self that is
  relatively distinct from others and the
  environment. Those with an independent self
  construal strive to assert their individuality
  and uniqueness and stress their separateness from
  the social world.
• This view is best exemplified by North American
  and Western European cultures.

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Eastern concept of self Interdependent
Self-Construal

• A view of the self that is characterized by an
  emphasis on the interrelatedness of the
  individual to others and to the environment. It
  is only within the contextual fabric of
  individuals social relationships, roles, and
  duties that the self has meaning.
• This construal of self is most represented by
  Asian cultures.

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Self-Construal Diagram
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A person with high self-esteem is someone who

• 1. Is more tuned in to positive attributes
  about the self than to negative attributes (FUE)
• 2. Tends to explain positive behaviors and
  outcome more in terms of personality traits than
  in terms of situational factors (SSB/ fundamental
  attribution error FAE).
• 3. Tends to think that something bad is less
  likely to happen to them than it is to similar
  others (UO)
• Because high self-esteem is desirable, such
  self-enhancing biases are normal and healthy
  psychological processes.
• This is a general psychological principle.

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US-Japan Comparison
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continued
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Do Japanese have depressive tendencies?

• How would a conventional social psychologist
  explain these differences
• Culture is noisy must filter the noise.
• Japanese are presenting themselves to be modest
  (false modesty).
• Once the experiment is cleaned up (controlling
  for false modesty) and the results still indicate
  that self-enhancement is absent among the
  Japanese, what would a conventional social
  psychologist conclude from the results?

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Perceptual Illusions
Ponzo Illusion
Müller-Lyer
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Müller-Lyer Illusion
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Ponzo Illusion
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Lack of susceptibility to the Müller-Lyer
illusion among native of Torres Strait (Rivers,
1901)
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A cultural psychologist would first ask these
questions

• What goals does self-enhancement accomplish for
  North Americans?
• Are these goals related to North American
  self-view and world-view?
• Are Japanese trying to accomplish the same goals?
• If not, do they have a different self-view and
  world-view?
• If so, what are the Japanese goals, and would
  self-enhancement still be useful?
• If self-enhancement is not useful, what
  psychological processes are more constructive and
  beneficial to the Japanese?
• Are conveitional social psychologists confusing
  desirable mental characteristics for the Japanese
  with undesirable mental characteristics for North
  Americans?

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Self-relevant goals (Markus Kitayama, 1991)

• Independent goals
• Distinguishing oneself from others by realizing
  and actualizing one's positive inner attributes,
  preferences, and attitudes
• Determining the "right" choices and actions by
  checking them against one's personal and
  utilitarian satisfaction as a criteria (Bellah,
  et. al., 1985)
• Staying ahead of others (i.e., individual
  achievement)
• Thinking of oneself as "unique" and feeling
  "special" about it.
• Feeling "good" about oneself

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What does self-enhancement accomplish for this
self-view?

• Given the underlying task of an independent
  self-construal to attend, elaborate and emphasize
  positive aspects of the self,
• self-enhancement is conducive for the maintenance
  and nurturing of an independent self-view.

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Self-Relevant Goals (Markus Kitayama, 1991)

• Interdependent goals
• Establish meaningful social relationships.
• Fit in, maintain harmony, and not fall behind
  others
• Meet consensual standards of excellence.
• Secure a sense of belonging to social groups and
  ensure that others are satisfied with their
  contributions to those groups
• Subordinate personal beliefs and needs to norms
  and relationships

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What does self-enhancement accomplish for this
self-view?

• Given that a major task of an interdependent
  self-construal is to fit in and maintain
  harmony
• It is more difficult to see how self-enhancement
  might be relevant to the maintenance and
  nurturing of this self-view.

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The cultural construction of the need for
self-esteem enhancing motivations (Kitayama,
Markus, Matsumoto, Norasakkunkit (1997)

• Study exploring relevance of self-esteem in Japan
• Study
• Sampling self-esteem relevant situations
• Compile these situations into a questionnaire
• Which situations are relevant to your
  self-esteem?
• How does your self-esteem change in this
  situation?
• Self-enhancing situations more relevant for NA
  Self-critical situations more relevant for JPN
• North Americans were more self-enhancing,
  Japanese were more self-critical
• North American situations were self-enhancing and
  Japanese situations were self-critical