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Dialectical self-esteem and East-West differences in psychological well-being
Julie Spencer-Rodgers1, Kaiping Peng, Lei Wang
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. rodgers@socrates.berkeley.edu
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
|September 28, 2004
Summary
East Asian cultures show more self-contradiction, impacting self-esteem. Naive dialecticism explains these differences and can decrease psychological adjustment when heightened.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Cross-cultural psychology
- Social psychology
Background:
- East Asian cultures often report lower self-esteem and psychological well-being compared to Western cultures.
- Cultural differences in psychological reasoning, specifically regarding contradiction, are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine cultural differences in reasoning about psychological contradiction.
- To investigate the effects of naive dialecticism on self-evaluations and psychological adjustment across cultures.
Main Methods:
- Four studies were conducted comparing East Asian (Mainland Chinese, Asian Americans) and Western participants.
- Methods included self-report measures of self-esteem, spontaneous self-descriptions, and the Dialectical Self Scale.
- Study 4 involved priming naive dialecticism to assess its impact.
Main Results:
- East Asian participants exhibited greater ambivalence and evaluative contradiction in self-attitudes than Western participants.
- Naive dialecticism mediated the cultural differences observed in self-esteem and psychological well-being.
- Priming naive dialecticism led to decreased psychological adjustment.
Conclusions:
- Cultural differences in self-esteem and well-being may be partly explained by dialectical reasoning.
- The conceptualization and measurement of self-esteem and psychological well-being require cultural sensitivity.
- Naive dialecticism's role in psychological adjustment warrants further investigation across diverse cultural contexts.
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