[The structure of self in Japanese culture: aspects and age differences]

A questionnaire was administered to college students and adult members of society to tap the structure and content of self that are characteristic of Japanese culture. The items measured some of the constructs that presumably characterize self in Japanese culture: namely, "amae" (Doi, 1971), "Japanese ego" (Minami, 1983), and "Kanjinshugi" (Hamaguchi, 1982). Factor analysis found eight factors, which were classified into two aspects: social and individualistic. These two aspects both included universal and culture-specific factors, and the universal factors appeared to correspond fairly well to Markus and Kitayama's (1991) "interdependent and independent construals of the self". College students see more importance in the social aspects of the self than adults in both universal and culture-specific factors. On the individualistic side, however, they rated themselves as being less independent in the universal factors, but more exclusively egocentric in the other factors. The findings were discussed in terms of the development of self of young adults in Japan.