Motivation

Motivations for Self-Enhancement

• Self-enhancement is a motivation to
focus on and elaborate more about one’s
strengths than on one’s weaknesses.
• As with most psychological phenomena,
it had primarily been studied with
Western populations, which suggested
the motivation was very pronounced.
 Evidence for North American
Self-Enhancement
• Most North Americans possess high self-esteem.
• Most North Americans view themselves in unrealistically
positive terms.
• Most North Americans use self-esteem maintenance strategies to
discount any negative feedback that they might encounter.
• Is this a basic human
need, or is it culturally
learned?

• Some evidence for the

latter is that the
motivation has been
increasing over time.
Positive Views Have Been Increasing
Over Time in the USA
 East Asians Self-Enhance Less than North Americans

• Example Study - Students at Japanese and American university

clubs were asked to evaluate themselves and four clubmates.

• We compared how positively people evaluated themselves

compared with how positively their four clubmates evaluated
them.

• Self-evaluations that were more positive than evaluations by

one’s peers were evidence for self-enhancement.

• Self-evaluations that were more negative than evaluations by

one’s peers were evidence for self-criticism.
 Evaluating the Evidence for
Self-Enhancement Across Cultures
• Many studies have compared Westerners and East
Asians on different measures of self-enhancement.
• We conducted a meta-analysis on all published
studies comparing Westerners and East Asians on
various measures of self-enhancement.
• Each study produces an effect (d) which is the
measure of self-enhancement - positive effects show
evidence for self-enhancement.
• To summarize, there are large cultural differences in
self-enhancement motivations.

• Whereas Westerners show consistent and strong

evidence for self-enhancement, East Asians do not.

• In many studies, East Asians show evidence for self-

criticism.

• Can you think of any alternative explanations for these

cultural differences?
Do East Asians Enhance their Groups?

• One alternative explanation is that East Asians enhance their

group selves rather than their individual selves.
• We explored this in a study by comparing how people
evaluated their universities (Heine & Lehman, 1997).
• We contrasted two rival universities in Vancouver and in Kyoto.
• In Vancouver we assessed how UBC and SFU students evaluated
both UBC and SFU.

• In Kyoto we assessed how Ritsumeikan and Doshisha students

evaluated both Ritsumeikan and Doshisha.
 Evaluations of Euro-Canadians
UBC SFU
4.50
• Students from both schools
evaluated UBC more
positively than SFU. 4.25

Quality of University
• However, UBC students
viewed the gap between the 4.00
schools to be larger than did
students from SFU.
3.75

• This indicates an overall

university-enhancing bias.
3.50
UBC SFU

Evaluating University
 Evaluations of Japanese
Doshisha Ritsumeikan
4.2
• Students from both schools
evaluated Doshisha more
positively than Ritsumeikan. 3.9

Quality of University
• However, Doshisha students
viewed the gap between the 3.6
schools to be smaller than did
students from Ritsumeikan.
3.3
• This indicates an overall
university-critical bias.
3.0
Doshisha Ritsumeikan

Evaluating University
• Another alternative explanation is
that these studies might just tap
into what people say, and not
what they really feel.

• Perhaps modesty norms make it

difficult for East Asians to
express their self-enhancing
feelings.

• That is, the cultures might have

similar self-enhancing
motivations, but self-presentation
norms conceal this.
• We conducted a study to investigate whether cultural
differences in self-enhancement generalized to their
private thoughts.

• Canadian and Japanese first completed 20 IQ test items

on a computer.

• They were told that the second part of the study

investigated their ability to make decisions with limited
information.

• The decision they were to make is whether their

performance across all 20 IQ items is better or worse
than that of the average student from their school.
• Half were assigned to receive scores better than the
average student, and half were assigned to receive
worse scores.

• Participants viewed their performance alongside that

of the average student for each of the individual IQ
items, one item at a time.

• They were asked to make a decision about their

overall performance (across all 20 items) as soon as a
pattern was evident to them.
 Number of Items Needed to
Make a Decision
• Canadians needed to view more
Better Worse
trials before being able to conclude 11
that they had done worse than

Number of Items Viewed

average than when they concluded
they had done better. 10

• Japanese showed the opposite

pattern. They were more easily 9
convinced that they had done
poorly than that they had done
well. 8

• It is difficult to explain these

7
results as a function of self- Canada Japan
presentation as there was no one to
present to.
Why are East Asians Self-Critical?

• East Asians show more concern for maintaining “face.”

• Face is the amount of social value others give you if you live up to
the standards associated with your position.
• Face is more easily lost than it is gained, so it is crucial to attend to
potential shortcomings.
• Self-criticism allows for self-improvement by directing attention to
those areas where there is the most room for improvement.
• Maintaining face entails two key points:
• Attending to public information about the self and
• Being more sensitive to losses than gains.
• East Asian self-evaluations should be influenced more by
what others think of them.
Attending to Public Self-Information
• One study assessed how much people’s self-evaluations are affected by
other’s knowledge of their performance (Kim, Cohen, & Au, 2010).
• Hong Kong and American participants took a bogus creativity test that
was evaluated by two computer programs. They all received two scores:
92nd and 53rd percentiles.

• Through an apparent mixup, another

subject saw one of their scores.

• Participants then rated their own

performance.
 Self-Evaluations Affected by
Other’s Knowledge
High Score Seen by Other
• Hong Kong participants viewed 5.0 Low Score Seen by Other
themselves more positively if
someone had seen their high
score than if someone had seen
4.5

Self-Evaluations
their low score.

• American participants’
4.0
evaluations were not affected by
knowing that someone else had
seen their scores.
3.5

• Hong Kong self-evaluations are

influenced by what information
3.0
is known by others. Hong Kong USA
 Brand Consciousness
• To enhance one’s face, people
strive to present themselves in
ways that are publicly
recognized as desirable.

• Luxury brands communicate

high status.

• East Asia accounts for about

half of luxury brand purchases.
 Being More Sensitive to Losses than
Gains
• Cultures vary in the extent to which they’re attentive to approaching
good things (promotion), or to avoiding bad things (prevention).
• This cultural difference extends broadly beyond self-relevant
information.

• One study compared how helpful people

viewed book reviews from Amazon.com and
Amazon.co.jp (see Hamamura et al., 2009).

• The researchers coded book reviews in terms of the amount of

positive and negative information that it contained.
 Contents of Helpful Book
•
Reviews
The helpful reviews for American
Positive Info Negative Info
books contained about the same 1.2
amount of positive and negative
information.
1.0
• The helpful reviews of Japanese
books contained more negative
0.8
than positive content.

• Unhelpful reviews, in contrast, 0.6

didn’t show this pattern.

• Japanese find critical feedback 0.4

USA Japan
more helpful than do Americans.
• A desire to maintain face is
associated with attention to
public information about
the self and a prevention
orientation.
 Control
• People from different cultures vary in terms
of how they get control.
• How you seek control depends on the
theories that you have about both yourself
and the social world.
• Two key ways to seek control are evident in
how people might build a stone wall.
Building a Stone Wall
 Primary and Secondary Control
• People with independent views of self tend to have entity
theories of self, but incremental theories of the world.
• People strive to change circumstances to fit their desires.
• This is known as “Primary Control.”
• People with interdependent selves tend to have more
incremental theories of self, but entity theories of the world.

• People strive to adjust themselves to accept circumstances

as they are.

• This is known as “Secondary Control.”

• Secondary control strategies are more common in
non-Western contexts than in Western ones.

• Primary control strategies are more common in the

West than elsewhere.

• Is secondary control really a kind of control?

 Individual vs. Group Agency
• In collectivistic societies, groups are the primary focus,
rather than individuals, and groups should be seen as more
powerful.
• When a negative event happens, who is to blame? The
individual or the group?
 Newspaper References to
Individuals and Firms
USA Japan
80
• American newspapers referred
more to the individuals than to

Percent of References
their companies. 60

• Japanese newspapers made more

references to the companies than 40
to the individuals.

• Groups are a key source of 20

agency in Japan, whereas
Americans consider agency more
in individuals. 0
Individual Company
 Making Choices

• A way that primary control is perhaps most directly evident is when

people make choices.
• Making choices, the freedom to choose, is emphasized more in North
American contexts than it is elsewhere.
• North Americans are more used to making choices than are people in
other cultures.
Americans Prefer More Choice
Options than Do Europeans

Flavors Over 10 Flavors

80

Percent that Prefers 50

60

40

20
Switz. France Ger- Italy UK USA
many

Rozin et al., 2006

 Indians and Americans Make
Choices Differently

• When given a list of objects to indicate which ones they like,

Americans and Indians are equally quick in indicating their
preferences.
• When given a list of objects to choose from, Indians take
significantly longer in making choices than do Americans.
 Preferences vs. Choices
• Preferences seem to be more closely related to choices among
Americans than Indians.
• In one study people were shown a set of 5 pens and were asked to rate
how much they liked them.
• They later chose one of the pens to take home with them.
• Indians were less likely to choose
their top preference than Americans 100

% Choosing Most Highly Rated Item

(Savani et al., 2008).
80

60

40

20

0
Series1
USA India
 What Constitutes a Choice?
• Do all of our behaviors represent choices?
• Choice is an act of self-expression.
• Do cultures differ in what they view to be a choice?
• One study had Americans and
Indians go through a series of set
actions (such as picking up one of 8
two pens to sign one of two consent

Number of Choices Identified

forms). 6

• After they were asked to list all the 4

choices that they had made in the
experiment.
•
2
Americans viewed more of their
behaviors as choices than Indians 0
(Savani et al., 2010). Series1
USA India
• Another study had Americans and Indians describe the most recent
time they engaged in some actions (e.g., purchasing a computer).

• They indicated whether they thought the action was a choice, and how
important the action was to them.

• The more important the action, the more likely Americans were to
view it as a choice.

• For Indians, the more important the action, the less they were likely to
view it as a choice.
• It’s worth noting that there are costs involved in making choices, even
for North Americans.

• Americans provided with free samples from 24 kinds of jam or 6 kinds

of jam, buy more jam when there are only 6 kinds (Iyengar & Lepper,
2000).

• Making choices depletes self-regulatory resources. Americans persist

less, and make more errors, if they have made a series of choices (Vohs
et al., 2008).
Sheena Iyengar: The Art of Choosing

https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_the_art_of_choosing?language=en
 Motivations to Fit In
or to Stick Out

• A key goal in interdependent cultural contexts is to achieve

belongingness with others. This is facilitated by trying to fit in.
• In independent cultures, people are motivated to highlight their
distinctiveness, which fosters a sense of independence.
Asch’s Conformity Studies

• Had participants provide

answers to an unambiguous
task after several confederates
gave incorrect answers.
 Original Stimulus A B C

After hearing other people provide the wrong answer, most

American participants (approximately 3/4) will also give the
wrong answer at least once on subsequent trials.
• This study has now been replicated in 17 countries.
• Everywhere there is considerable conformity.
• The more collectivistic the country, the more
conformity there is. Collectivists are especially
conforming with other ingroup members.
• How would East Asians and Euro-Americans respond to
alternatives that were either in the majority or the
minority( Kim & Markus, 1999)?

• In one case participants had to rate which shape they viewed

as more attractive.

• East Asian participants tended to rate

the common shape as more desirable,
whereas the Euro-Americans rated the
uncommon shape as more desirable.
 Choosing Pens
• In another study, people
were given a choice of a
pen to choose from after
completing a survey.

• East Asians tended to

choose the majority-colored
pen, whereas Westerners
tended to choose the
minority-colored pen.
• Cultural messages are commonly
expressed in advertisements.

• Analyses of magazine ads have

been compared across the US and
East Asia regarding the use of
themes of uniqueness and
conformity.
 Advertising Themes in Korea
and the United States
Uniqueness Fitting In
100

Percent of Ads Containing Themes

American ads more frequently
contained themes of uniqueness 80
than fitting in.
60
• Korean ads more frequently
contained themes of fitting in.
40

• The cultural messages that

people encounter in their daily 20
lives differentially emphasize the
value of fitting in or sticking out.
0
USA Korea