Culture, Self, and

Personality
 Culture’s Impact on Personality
 Before highlighting some important concepts
and research findings noted by Matsumoto and
Juang, I need to set the stage.
 To start, the human personality and how it
develops has stimulated the interest of scholars
long before Sigmund Freud proposed his
revolutionary ideas.
 Role of Culture
 When the role of cultures is brought in, the
theoretical controversy becomes more
pronounced.
 In fact, underscoring the need for a cross-
cultural perspective in psychology, The Five
Factor Theory, the most well-known attempt at
pulling together research on personality, does
not formally address to role of culture.
 “The Big Five”

 Neuroticism (N3)
- Depression: a tendency to experience
dysphoric effect (sadness, helplessness & guilt).

 Extraversion (E2)
- Gregariousness: a preference for
companionship and social stimulation.
 Openness to Experience (O4)
- Action: a need for variety, novelty & change.

 Agreeableness (A4)
- Compliance: a willingness to defer to others during
interpersonal conflict.

 Conscientiousness (C4)
- Achievement striving: a strong sense of purpose and
high aspiration levels.
 Culture and Theoretical
Perspectives
 Broadly speaking, there are three contrasting
views of personality development:

 CONFLICT MODEL (Freud)

 FULFILLMENT MODEL (Humanistic)
 CONSISTENCY MODEL (Cognitive)
 Freud’s Intra-psychic Model

 Even at the purely theoretical level, as you will

see, the role which culture plays varies
according to model..

 Conflict Model
- Culture plays an inhibitory or repressing
role.
- As stated in the title of Jules Henry’s book,
it’s “Culture against Man“.
 The Humanistic/Existential Model

 Fulfillment Model
- Culture provides various channels for self
realization.
- According to Bronislaw Malinowski,
“…every type of civilization, every custom, material
object, idea, and belief fulfills some vital function,
has some task to accomplish, represents an
indispensable part within a working whole”.
- Hence, according to the Fulfillment Model,
culture is not against man, but rather culture
allows various human needs to be met and
goals attained.
 The Consistency or “Cognitive” Model

 Consistency Model
--The role of culture is to reduce anxiety.
--Culturally based routines enable
predictable patterns of behavior which in
turn keep anxiety low.
--Culture provides structure and meaning in
our lives.
 Culture and Concepts of Self
 Our sense of Self is at the core of our being, and
consciously and unconsciously, influences our
every thought, action, and feeling.
 The self “makes sense” within an individual’s
culture.
 Example: In Individualistic Cultures the self is
seen as internal attributes, including needs,
abilities, motives, and rights.
 Different cultures produce different self-concepts.
 Independent and
Interdependent Selves

 Independent Construal of Self

 To maintain the independence of the individual as
a separate, self-contained entity.
 Individuals focus on personal, internal attributes-
individual ability, intelligence, personality traits,
goals or preferences-expressing them in public
and confirming them in private.
 Interdependent Construal of Self
 To fit in and maintain the interdependence among
individuals.
 The self is unbounded, flexible, and contingent on
context. The most salient self is defined in
relationships.
 Graphical Illustration (from text)

Mother Father
Mother Father
X X XX
X X X XX
Self: X Self:
Sibling
X X
X X XX X X X X Sibling
X X
X X X X
X X X X X
X
Coworker
Coworker Friend
Friend

Independent Interdependent
Construal of Self Construal of Self

Bold X’s=most salient self

 Consequences

 Self-Perception
 Several studies have supported the notion that
with an independent self, internal attributes are
most salient and less salient for interdependent
selves.
 In research by Bond & Tak-Sing’s (1983), subjects
wrote down as many of their own characteristics.
 One response type was abstract.
 Another response was situation specific.
 Consequences (cont.)

 Findings confirmed that Americans with

independent self concepts reported more
abstract types, whereas Asians with
interdependent self views reported more
situation specific.
 Interdependent Selves find it difficult to
describe themselves in abstract internal
attributes (“I am sociable”)
 Consequences (cont.)

 Social Explanation
 Self construals serve as a cognitive templates for
interpreting behaviors of others as well.
 Those with independent selves assume other
people are the same.
 Fundamental Attribution Error - the bias to explain
another’s behavior in terms of your own construal
of self.
 Consequences (cont.)
 J.G. Miller (1984) examined patterns of social
explanation in Americans and Hindu Indians.
 Both were asked to describe someone they
knew well who did something good for
another person or who did something bad
and explain why.
 Americans described behavior in terms of
general dispositions, whereas Hindus
provided explanations in terms of the
actor’s duties, social roles, and other
situation-specific factors.
 Consequences (cont.)
 Achievement Motivation or Need for
Achievement refers to desire for
excellence
 Independent Construal - excellence linked to
individual’s tendency to push himself or herself
ahead and see individual success. Motivated by
individual achievement.

 Interdependent Construal - excellence sought to

achieve broader social goals. Motivated by
collective or group achievement/
 Consequences (cont.)
 Yuang (1982) distinguished between
individually oriented and socially oriented
achievement motivation.
 Yu (1974) related this to filial piety (duties
and obligations to family members,
especially parents).
 Bond (1986) found that Chinese show
higher levels of socially oriented motivation.
 Consequences (cont.)

 Self-Enhancement - a collection of psychological

processes by which individuals reinforce or
enhance their self-esteem.
 In the U.S. people tend to exhibit a self-serving
bias (attribute good deeds and successes to our
own internal attributes but bad deeds or failures
to external factors (Bradley, 1978).
 Consequences (cont.)

 In the U.S. people also use the false uniqueness

effect (consider themselves to be more intelligent
and more attractive than average).
 These construals are not prevalent outside of the
U.S.
 Japanese students claimed that 50% of
other students would be better than them
and attributed success to good luck and
failures to insufficient abilities.
 Consequences (cont.)
 Social Connotation of emotion (positive and
negative)
 Socially disengaged emotions tend to separate
or disengage the self from social relationships
and to promote the perceived independence of
the self from those relationships.
 Socially engaged emotions further engage and
assimilate the self in the relationship and
enhance the perceived interdependence of the
self with relevant others.
 Consequences (cont.)
 Social Connotation and Indigenous Emotions
(culture-specific emotions)
 Anthropological Studies suggest that some
socially engaged emotions are virtually absent in
Western cultures.
 Consequences (cont.)

 Lutz (1988) studied Micronesian

cultures and found one emotion central
to the culture.

 Fago - a combination of compassion,

love, and sadness (socially engaged
emotion).
 Ker - combination of happiness and
excitement (perceived as dangerous
and socially disruptive)
 Consequences (cont.)

 Happiness - most generic, unqualified state of

feeling good (relaxed, elated, and calm)
 People experience this feeling when they have
successfully accomplished the cultural task
involving either independence or
interdependence.
 Consequences (cont.)
 Kitayama, Markus, Kurokawa, and Negishi (1993)
asked Japanese and American undergraduates
to report how often they experienced different
emotions.
 For American students, generic positive
emotions were associated with socially
disengaged emotions (pride), whereas for
Japanese students, generic positive
emotions were associated with socially
engaged emotions (feelings of respect).
 Consequences (cont.)
Another study by Oyserman (1995)-studied
European Americans and African Americans
concepts of self on school persistence
 Findings supported multiple concepts of self.

Cultural Reaffirmation-bicultural individuals identify

more closely with their native culture.
 Matsumoto et al(1997)-found that Japanese
Americans are more collectivistic than Japanese
nationals.