Chapter 5: Culture, Self, and Identity: Self-Concepts, Self-Esteem, and Multicultural Identities
Self, Culture, and Identity: Key Concepts
Purpose of the chapter: explore the association among culture, self, and identity; define the self, its origins, and how it may differ across cultures; review self-esteem across cultures; define and discuss identity with a focus on cultural and multicultural identities and their roles in psychological functioning.
Core themes:
Self as a core aspect of being, linked to how we perceive the world, ourselves, and our relations with others.
Self-concept as a product of culture and a universal human toolkit, underpinned by unique human abilities (e.g., shared intentionality).
Self-esteem as a key construct with cross-cultural variations and implications for adaptation and social behavior.
Identity as a dynamic, culturally situated construct, including multicultural identities and the roles they play in psychological functioning.
Self-Concepts: Origins, Nature, and Worldviews
Self-concepts are internal attributes and their conscious/unconscious associations with thoughts, actions, and feelings across social contexts.
Why do people have self-concepts? They arise because humans can; self-concepts are important products of human cultures and universal psychological toolkits.
Cultural worldviews include self-concepts; they are products of uniquely human abilities (e.g., shared intentionality) and generalizations about oneself and one
’s culture.Self-concepts and cultural worldviews are rooted in the capacity to think, reflect, and coordinate with others across social groups.
Dynamic and Contextual Nature of Self-Concepts
Self-concepts are not static; they are dynamic, contextualized, and multifaceted. They organize past thoughts/behaviors and regulate future ones.
Markus & Wurf (1987): the self organizes thoughts/behaviors across time.
Knowledge about the self is in flux and context-dependent.
Self-concepts have multiple domains that can be assessed differently (e.g., physical, moral, personal, family, social, academic).
Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS) illustrates domain-specific differences.
The self is linked with ideal and ought selves:
Ideal self: who we want to be.
Ought self: what we should be.
(Higgins, 1987)
Contextualized self-concepts: cultures differ in how self-views are emphasized in different situations.
Independent vs Interdependent Self-Construals: Theory and Evidence
The theory of independent vs. interdependent self-construals is a foundational framework that helps organize and interpret various cross-cultural research findings, often serving as a variable to explain cultural differences in self-perception and behavior.
At its core, it proposes two primary ways individuals conceive of themselves in relation to others and society:
Independent Self-Construal: Emphasizes individualism, uniqueness, and self-reliance. The self is viewed as distinct from others and autonomous, with internal attributes (traits, abilities, values) driving behavior. This self is often defined by differentiating oneself from others.
Interdependent Self-Construal: Emphasizes connectedness, relationality, and embeddedness within a larger social network. The self is seen as intertwined with significant others and group memberships, with behavior often dictated by social roles, obligations, and the pursuit of harmony. This self is defined by one's relationships and group affiliations.
Classic evidence for this theory often comes from cross-cultural studies comparing self-perception and self-descriptions, particularly between European Americans (often associated with independent construals) and East Asians (often associated with interdependent construals).
A key finding, as illustrated in studies like Figure 5.4 comparing American and Japanese students, revealed a nuanced picture:
There was no significant difference in the independent self-construals reported by American and Japanese students.
However, clear differences emerged in interdependent self-construals, with Americans reporting significantly less interdependence than Japanese students.
This challenges simplistic predictions that entire cultures neatly map onto a single, dominant self-construal (e.g., all Westerners are purely independent, all East Asians are purely interdependent). Instead, individuals and cultures possess both independent and interdependent aspects, with varying degrees of emphasis.
Conclusion: The independent vs. interdependent self-construal theory highlights that while both construals exist within individuals and cultures, the degree to which one is emphasized varies significantly across cultural contexts. This differential emphasis, rather than outright absence or presence, is crucial for understanding self-perception and behavior in diverse populations and suggests a dynamic interplay between individual and collective aspects of the self, often activated contextually.
Contemporary Perspectives on Culture and Self: Multifaceted, Contextualized, Dynamic Views of Self
Moving beyond rigid notions of self, contemporary research emphasizes the self as a highly complex, fluid, and adaptable system.
This modern view encapsulates that the self is:
Multifaceted: Individuals possess a repertoire of self-aspects, identities, and self-construals (e.g., independent, interdependent, relational, collective) that are not mutually exclusive but coexist and can be selectively brought forth.
Contextualized: The specific self-aspects or construals that are salient or activated depend heavily on the social, cultural, and situational context. This includes the environment, social roles, interaction partners, and even language.
Dynamic: The self is not static but constantly evolving and responsive. It actively organizes past experiences and regulates future behaviors, and can undergo significant shifts based on new experiences, cultural immersion, or developmental stages.
This contemporary lens integrates concepts such as cultural frame switching, where multicultural individuals adeptly navigate and activate different cultural meaning systems depending on the context.
It also acknowledges that within any given culture, individuals may exhibit a range of self-construals, with cultural norms influencing which aspects are more frequently emphasized or rewarded.
This perspective highlights the adaptive capacity of the self, allowing individuals to successfully function across diverse cultural landscapes and social demands.
Cultural Frame Switching and Multicultural Identities
Self-construals are multifaceted and can be dynamically activated by various situational cues (contextual framing).
Multicultural individuals are particularly adept at this, possessing multiple cultural systems in their minds. They can access one or another depending on the context, a phenomenon known as cultural frame switching (Oyserman, Gant, Ager, 1995; Benet-Martínez et al., 2002; Hong et al., 2000).
Language often acts as a potent cultural symbol; switching languages or linguistic contexts can trigger the activation of different cultural meanings and associated self-construals.
This flexibility in emphasizing or de-emphasizing certain identities based on context is an adaptive feature, especially for bi-cultural individuals navigating diverse environments (Ferguson et al., 2017).
Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews
Self-esteem definition: cognitive and affective evaluations we make about ourselves.
Example items aligned with Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965):
I am pretty satisfied with myself.
I have a number of good qualities.
I am able to do things as well as anyone else.
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: widely used to assess global self-worth via positive/negative self-feelings.
Origin theories of self-esteem:
Terror management theory (Becker, 1971, 1973): human cognitive abilities create awareness of mortality; to cope, cultures provide meanings and self-esteem through cultural worldviews.
Self-esteem as a culturally-based construction that arises from how individuals live up to culturally derived contingencies of value (Pyszczynski et al., 2004; Becker, 1971).
Cultural worldviews: fabrications that give life meaning and elevate human existence above nature, contributing to self-esteem; meaning is not purely physical or objective but culturally derived (Triandis, 1972).
Self-esteem and mortality: the balance between the life-promoting tendencies and the awareness of death underpins why people attach value to themselves through cultural worldviews.
Self-Concepts: Dynamic, Contextual, and Multidimensional Nature (Expanded)
Self-concepts are contextualized and dynamic; they vary by situation and culture.
The self serves as a bridge between internal states and social contexts; it mediates thoughts and behaviors across time.
The meaning and worth we place on ourselves depend on cultural worldviews, which are constructed by people
’s minds and life experiences.
Identity, Group Membership, and Denial
Identity is not fixed; it changes with context (whom you
’re talking to, where you are).Americans abroad may identify as Americans; in different subcontexts (e.g., New York vs. California) regional identities may emerge (e.g., Californian); ethnic or racial identities may shift depending on the group being discussed (e.g., Hispanic, African, Asian American).
Being American is sometimes implicitly linked to being White in the U.S.; cross-cultural research shows variation in this association.
Devos & Banaji (2005): African and Asian Americans were less associated with the category “American” than White Americans, despite egalitarian values.
Identity denial: individuals may be less recognized as members of a group with which they identify (Cheryan & Monin, 2005).
Multicultural identities and identity denial have real-world implications for social inclusion and perceived belonging.
Cross-Cultural Evidence: Major Studies and Findings
Across cultures, multiple self-construals exist within individuals and cultures (Kashima & Hardie, 2000; Kashima et al., 1995; Uleman et al., 2000).
Harb & Smith (2008) and Hardin et al. (2004) proposed a six-dimensional framework of self-construals.
A seven-dimensional framework by Vignoles et al. (2016) adds additional nuance to how independence/dependence and related dimensions manifest across cultures.
Cultural groups emphasize independent and dependent aspects differently depending on values and contexts.
Cross-cultural data show variability within cultures by region and context, suggesting that self-construals are multifaceted and situational rather fleeting rather than fixed.
Self-Enhancement, Distinctiveness, and Cultural Differences
False uniqueness effect (Myers, 1987): about 70% of U.S. students believed they were above average in leadership; ~$60\%~placed themselves in the top 10% as leaders who get along with others; 0% believed they were below average.
Early cross-cultural studies in Japan did not always replicate U.S.-style self-enhancement:
Markus & Kitayama (1991a); Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama (1997): about 50% of Japanese students thought others would be better than them on some abilities/traits.
These findings fueled debates about whether self-enhancement is unique to individualistic cultures or varies across cultures.
Distinctiveness motive: Becker et al. (2012) found that the motivation to maintain a distinct identity is stronger in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures.
Cognitive Performance, Confidence, and Cross-Cultural Variation
Across 33 countries and nine world regions, participants completed Number Series tasks to determine the next number in a sequence:
Example sequence:
After five items, participants rated their confidence on a scale from to .
Findings: large regional differences in actual accuracy, but relatively little difference in confidence ratings across regions.
This highlights a global bias toward overconfidence in many contexts, even when objective performance varies.
Language, Identity, and Multiculturalism
Multicultural individuals often switch between cultural meaning systems when switching languages or contexts (Ferguson et al., 2017).
Cultural frame switching reflects greater variability in cultural identity for multilingual/multicultural individuals.
Language acts as a symbolic representation of how the world is understood within a culture; switching languages can cue different self-views and behaviors.
Practical Implications and Ethical Considerations
Understanding cross-cultural self-construals is critical for:
Cross-cultural psychology research design and interpretation.
Multicultural counseling, education, and workplace settings.
Social inclusion and combating identity denial or stereotyping.
The concept of the true self and culturally varying self-views has implications for identity development across diverse