Culture, Self, and Personality

1. Culture, Self, and Personality

2. Temperament • First signs of personality • Easy, difficult, slow to warm up • Thomas and chess (1988) think that it is not the temperament per se but the fit between temperament and the environment that is critical for future maladjustment.

3. J. Phillip Rushton • Argues that there are distinct ‘ethnic’ differences in temperament that result from unique survival challenges that humans faced during our evolutionary history. • Asian, European, African • European: long cold winters in closely knit social groups requiring cooperation and impulse control.

4. The Self Concept • William James (1890) postulated that we are multifaceted, that is we have multiple social selves. • We have multiple social selves due to the fact that we occupy multiple roles in life. • Role – set of behavioral expectations for a person who performs a particular social function.

5. William James’ Model of the Self I Me Self as Knower Stream of consciousness Self as Known Object of Reflection Material Self Social Self Spiritual Self Possessions Physical being Impressions we make on others; Recognition we receive from them Inner experiences Social perceptions Traits & attitudes

6. How Do You Know What You Are Like? • Cooley (1902) suggested that others have an important influence on our self-conceptions. • He proposed that we learn about ourselves through perceptions of how it appears in the eyes of others. • He called this the Looking Glass Self.

7. Twenty Statements (Cousins, 1988) • Take a moment and fill it out. • Easy? • What kind of words do you use? • Not as much in content as in structure

8. Twenty statements • I am creative • (enduring trait across situations, inner attribute about self, relatively abstract, can exist by itself {don’t need others around} • I am a brother • (relational, not always enduring, present, hierarchical, need others around) • Americans use psychological attributes more • Japanese use larger context more, preferences, wishes, social categories and activities.

9. Fig. 5.1

10. Americans use microsystem, Japanese use exo and even macro

11. When is this learned? • 8-12 year old American and Hindi kids • Did not differ in significant way • Used more context than personal attributes.

12. Social Identity Theory • Tajfel (1981) notes that the social part of our identity derives from the groups to which we belong. • We tend to favorably compare the attributes of our own group with those of out-groups. • This gives us a positive sense of who we are, and leads to preferential treatment toward in-group members. • BIRGing (Basking In Reflected Glory)

13. Culture and the Self Independent View of Self Interdependent View of Self Mother Father Father Mother SELF SELF Sibling Friend Friend Sibling Co- worker Friend Friend Co- worker

14. Encompassing and Relational

15. Independent View of the Self • Perception of oneself as an independent agent is a major emphasis in the life of Western industrialized nations • Values such as freedom & self-determination are very important • They describe themselves as possessing traits and abilities, such as honest, cautious, friendly, modest, intelligent • They make a sharp distinction between self and others, between the individual and the group.

16. Interdependent View of the Self • Regards the preservation of harmonious relations with other key people in his or her life as the primary goal • Consequently, they will often not maintain a consistent core of actions to people in general across all situations—but rather behave in different ways at different times in order to accommodate others • They describe themselves more in terms of their group affiliations, and in terms of context-specific trait characterizations • There is less of a distinct separation between self and others, between the individual and the group

17. Another Cultural Dimension:Individualism - Collectivism • In the U.S. (in fact, in most of North America and Europe), children are taught to be independent, self-reliant, assertive, to strive to be “a cut above the rest.” • Consider the American proverb “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” • The value is placed on Individualism.

18. Another Cultural Dimension:Individualism - Collectivism • In Japan (in fact, in most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), children are taught to fit into their community, do what is best for their group, don’t draw attention to one’s own accomplishments. • Consider the Japanese proverb “The nail that stands out gets pounded down.” • The value is placed on Collectivism.

19. Characteristics of Individualism • Individualists often give priority to their personal goals, even when they conflict with the goals of important in-groups, such as family, tribe, work group, countrymen. • Individualists are somewhat emotionally detached from their in-groups and emphasize self-reliance, independence, and the individual’s pursuit of happiness. • Individualists are not as willing to self-sacrifice for an in-group.

20. Antecedents of Individualism • More wealth – financial independence leads to social independence. • The more education, the more urban, the more social mobility, the more individualistic the culture is likely to be. • Another way of looking at it is that the more complex the culture is, the more individualistic it is likely to be, because complex cultures give a person the choice of becoming members of various groups.

21. Personhood in a Balinese Village

22. Personhood and identity • 1. personal names • 2. birth order names • 3. kinship names • 4. tekonyms: relationship between 2 people, usually older and younger family • 5. status titles or caste names • 6. public titles, occupational titles (Dr. Brown) • (after child is born, ‘mother-of, or father-of) these become personal names.

23. Culture and Emotional Expression • Nonverbal Expressions of Emotion • Emotional perception across cultures • Universal emotions • Paul Ekman—7 separate emotions (by expression) • Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, & contempt • You identified these in the slide previously • Cultures share facial language for basic emotion…but differ in how much emotion they express • How?

24. Experienced Emotion • Izard (1997) • Isolated 10 emotions • 7 present in infancy • 3 not (contempt, shame, and guilt) • All other emotions are a combination of these 10

25. Self Esteem • Defined as one’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth • It affects how people approach their daily lives • If you feel good about yourself, you tend to: be healthy, successful, productive, happy, persist longer at tasks, sleep better, more accepting of others, less likely to conform.

26. Self Esteem & Self-Discrepancy Theory • Self-discrepancy theory – the level of self-esteem is determined by the magnitude of the discrepancy between your actual self and two self guides: the ought self and the ideal self. • Ought self – refers to characteristics that enable you to meet your sense of obligation, responsibility • Ideal self – embodies your hopes, wishes, dreams of what you’d like to be.

27. Self Esteem & Self-Discrepancy Theory • Actual self – Ought self discrepancy can lead to shame, fear, guilt, anxiety. • these are socially-engaged emotions —help us to assimilate the self in social relationships • Actual self – Ideal self discrepancy can lead to anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness. • These are socially-disengaged emotions – tend to separate and disengage the self from social relationships.

28. Self Esteem & Self-Discrepancy Theory And Culture • For individualists, self-esteem depends on carrying out the cultural valued tasks of gaining independence, being self-sufficient, identifying, pursuing & achieving one’s personally defined goals • In short, the actual-ideal discrepancy matters more to individualists. • For collectivists, self-esteem depends on the degree to which one “fits in,” lives up to one’s social obligations, duties, and responsibilities to others. • In short, the actual-ought discrepancy matters more to collectivists.

29. Self concept and consistency • Kanagawa, Cross & Markus (2001) • Four conditions (Twenty statement test) • Japanese and American participant • Ratio of positive to negative responses

30. Table. 5.3

31. American students consistent across conditions • Japanese rated self much higher in solitary condition • Which is the true self? With others or alone? • Challenges a methodological assumption that context of measuring personality didn’t matter

32. Self awareness • Subjective: consider ourselves from the perspective of the subject. Concerns are external, outside self. More positive • Objective: consider ourselves as the object, how we appear to others. Conscious of being evaluated and compared to others. More negative

33. Does this differ cross culturally? • What are your hypotheses? • Memory and first person vs. third person

34. Fig. 5.6

35. Asian Canadians habitually consider the perspective of the other. (third person) • Asians more often in objective self awareness

36. Heine et al. (2007) tested this with a mirror test. • Evaluate yourself on actual-ideal discrepancy in from of a mirror or not. (larger discrepancy indicates being more critical)

37. Fig. 5.7

38. Adult personality • Gordon Allport came up with 18,000 personality traits words in the English language. • Thought that any language should represent our core personality

39. Openness to experience • Conscientiousness • Extraversion • Agreeableness • Neuroticism • Costa & McCrae (1992) 50 culture study

40. Table. 5.5 top

41. Table. 5.5 bottom

42. Spanish: most neurotic • Hong Kong Chinese: Least extroverted • Austrians: most open • Malaysians: most agreeable • Japan: Least conscientious

43. Cross cultural evidence • Needs to come from cultural or indigenous psychology • Chueng et al. (1996) • Looked at Chinese novels, proverbs, descriptions, and dictionary

44. 26 unique personality constructs • (somatization, face, harmony, modernization,) • 4 factors emerged • 1. Dependability • 2. Interpersonal Relatedness • 3. Social Potency • 4. Individualism

45. Significant overlap with Big Five • But Openness didn’t correlate with any. • Phillipines: two additional constructs • 1. Temprementalness • 2. Negative Valence