Cross-cultural discrepancies in self-appraisals

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cross-cultural psychology
• Social psychology

Background:

• Self-appraisal, the evaluation of oneself, varies across cultures.
• Previous research suggests cultural differences in self-enhancement tendencies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare self-appraisal tendencies in Japanese and Canadian samples.
• To investigate cultural differences in self-enhancing motivations.

Main Methods:

• Study 1: Content analysis of open-ended self-descriptions.
• Study 2: Indirect measures of self-enhancing tendencies using event recall and temporal proximity.

Main Results:

• Canadian participants exhibited more self-enhancing self-descriptions than Japanese participants.
• Japanese participants were more evenhanded, favoring relational over private self-aspects.
• Canadians perceived proud events as closer and more memorable than embarrassing events, unlike Japanese participants.

Conclusions:

• Evidence suggests stronger self-enhancing motivations in Canadians compared to Japanese.
• Findings facilitate cross-cultural analysis of social psychological theories of self-appraisal.