Cultural Psych Chp 6: Self and Personality

Self concept

How we view ourself

Two models of self concept

• independent

• Interdependent

The independent view of the self

• derives its identity from inner attributes and has the following characteristics

  • Distinct from their relationships

  • stable across situations and life span

  • unique, self contained, and coherent

  • fluid between ingroups and outgroup

The interdependent view of the self

• a relational entity that is fundamentally connected to important relationships and has the following characteristics

  • defined by social relationships and roles

  • flexible across situations and roles

  • Not bounded or separate from others and context

  • Clear ingroup-outgroup distinction

Ingroup and outgroup relationships for the interdependent self

• ingroup-outgroup distinctions are crucial to determining to whom people have obligations

• it is difficult to get into a person’s ingroup

• it is rare for ingroup member to lose status and fall into the outgroup

• ingroup-outgroup boundaries are stable

• Ex: Asian Americans more accurate than Europeans at identifying close friends emotions

Ingroup and outgroup relationships for the independent self

• relationships can be formed and dissolved relatively more easily w less impact on self identity

• people are more willing to form new social connections and maintain larger networks

• they are also less distressed when relationships fade over time

• the ingroup-outgroup boundary is more fluid and permeable

• Ex: European Americans more accurate at recognizing emotions of strangers

Individualistic cultures

• encourage thoughts and behaviors fostering independent self concepts

• value distinctiveness from others and being self sufficient

Collectivist cultures

• encourage thoughts and behaviors fostering interdependent self concepts

• value close relationships and group memberships

Impact of diff in SES —> show diversity among individuals and cultures

• independent and interdependent self concepts are not meant to be a dichotomy but rather a continuum

• individualism and collectivism are also the end points of a continuum

• cultural findings reflect general patterns or average group differences, there is often a range of possible behaviors and exceptions to the norm

• in Iceland, higher SeS predicts high individualism and lower SES predicts higher collectivism

• in Japan, however, higher SES is associated with greater interdependence 

Are women more interdependent and men more independent?

• a study found that there was only one reliable difference: women scored higher on relatedness than men

• no gender differences were found for collectivism, agency or assertiveness

Cultures have diff views on gender equality (gender egalitarianism)

• high gender egalitarianism: women should be treated the same as men (ex: Finland, Germany)

• low gender egalitarianism: men should be granted more rights privileges and power than women (ex: Pakistan, Nigeria)

• Males and females in a given culture found to share fairly similar views on gender equality

• Most cases, men had more trad gender role beliefs than women

Predictors of high gender egalitarianism

• religion

• geographic location

  • ex: the more north, the more egalitarianism

• urbanization

  • ex: ppl that are more urbanized, more egalitarianism

• These findings are correlational, not causal

• Case study: bosterup (1970): diff gender norms may results from diff traditional cultivation methods

• shifting cultivation: soil is dug up w a tool similar to a garden hoe and women do most of the agricultural work

• plow cultivation: a large animal pulls a plow which is generally controlled by a man

  • women tend not to participate in labor outside and focus on domestic matters

  • children stay w women due to the dangers of being around plows

Case study: alesina, Giuliano, and nun (2011) tested Bosterup’s thesis

• question

  • does the historical use of the plow predict current attitudes toward gender roles?

• results

  • places that had adopted the plow are low on gender egalitarianism and female labor force participation today

  • The same pattern can be seen in the United States when using immigrant’s cultures of origin as a predictor

  • this is evidence of the persistence of culture

self consistency

• Cultures differ in motivation to be consistent across situations

• in one study participants described themselves while in diff contexts: w a professor and w a fellow student

  • Japanese participants varied in their self descriptors depending on context

  • American participants responded similarly across contexts

cognitive dissonance

• a distressed feeling from observing ourselves behaving inconsistently

• cognitive dissonance theory proposes that:

  • we are motivated to be consistent

  • observing our own inconsistencies leads to distress

  • self consistency motivates us toward dissonance reduction or attempts to resolve distress by

    • changing behaviors to match to attitudes

    • changing attitudes to no longer appear inconsistent

• EX: smoking kills you, but people smoke

Ppl from diff cultures may show dissonance reduction in diff ways

• Canadians rationalized their decisions after making a choice for themselves while Japanese did not

• japanese rationalized their decisions after making a choice for someone else 

Self has two vantage points

• subjective self awareness

• Objective self awareness

Subjective self awarness

• taking on the perspective of the subject — an “I” perspective that is focused on the outside world, not the self

objective self awareness

• experiencing the self as the object — a “me” perspective that is focused inward and conscious of how people see and evaluate us

Self awareness for the independent self

• less concerned w others assessments of us

• Often hv subjective self awarness

Self awareness for the interdependent self

• more concerned w others’ assessments

• Often have objective self awareness

Two implicit theories of self

• incremental theory of self

• Entity theory of self

Incremental theory of self

belief that abilities and traits are malleable and can change or improve

Entity theory of self

belief that abilities and traits are largely fixed and resistant to change, reflecting innate features of the self

Diff in response to failure

• incremental theories focus on efforts and strats used —> change methods to improve

• entity theories: blame one’s own innate lack of ability

Cultural differences in theories of self

• incremental theories generally characteristic of people w an interdependent sense of self (ex: Asian cultures)

• entity theories generally characteristic of people w an independent sense of self (North Americans)

Five factor model of personality (the big five)

• O — Openness to experience: creativity and curiosity about the world

• C — Conscientiousness: responsible, dependable, self disiciplined

• E — Extraversion: outgoing, social, dominant

• A — Agreeableness: cooperative, pleasant, considerate

• N — Neuroticism: emotional instability, and unpredictability 

Limitations of the big five

• created using English personality terms, and investigations in a number of cultures, including Spain, Greece, the Philippines, and china, yielded additional factors

• conducted mostly w WEIRD samples