Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama
In America, "the
squeaky wheel gets the grease." In Japan, "the nail that stands out
gets pounded down." American parents who are trying to induce their
children to eat their suppers are fond of saying "think of the starving
kids in Ethiopia, and appreciate how lucky you are to be different from
them" Japanese parents are likely to say "Think about the farmer who
worked so hard to produce this rice for you; if you don't eat it, he
will feel bad, for his efforts will have been in vain" (H. Yamada, February
16, 1989). A small Texas corporation seeking to elevate productivity
told its employees to look in the mirror and say "I am beautiful" 100
times before coming to work each day. Employees of a Japanese supermarket
that was recently opened in New Jersey were instructed to begin the
day by holding hands and telling each other that "he" or "she is beautiful"
("A Japanese Supermarket." 1989).
Such anecdotes suggest that people in Japan and America may hold strikingly
divergent construals of the self, others, and the interdependence of
the two. The American examples stress attending to the self, the appreciation
of one's difference from others, and the importanc eof asserting the
self. The Japanese examples emphasize attending to and fitting in with
others and the
importance of harmonious interdependence with them. These construals
of the self and others are tied to the implicit, normative tasks that
various cultures hold for what people should be doing in their lives
(cf. Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Erikson, 1950; Veroff, 1983). Anthropologists
and psychologists assume that such construals can influence, and in
many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience.
Despite the growing body of psychological and anthropological evidence
that people hold divergent views about the self, most of what psychologists
currently know about human nature is based on one particular view-the
so-called Western view of the individual as an independent, self-contained,
autonomous entity who (a) comprises a unique configuration of internal
attributes (e.g., traits, abilities, motives, and values) and (b) behaves
primarily as a consequence of these internal attributes (Geertz, 1975;
Sampson, 1988,1989; Shweder & LeVine, 1984). As a result of this
monocultural approach to the self (see Kennedy, Scheier, & Rogers,
1984), psychologists' understanding of those phenomena that are linked
in one way or another to the self may be unnecessarily restricted (for
some important exceptions, see Bond, 1986,1988; Cousins, 1989; Fiske,
in press; Maehr & Nicholls, 1980; Stevenson, Azuma, & Flakuta,
1986; Triandis, 1989; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca,
1988). In this article, we suggest that construals of the self, of others,
and of the relationship between the self and others may be even more
powerful than previously suggested and that their influence is clearly
reflected in differences among cultures. In particular, we compare an
independent
view of the self with one other, very different view, an
interdependent
view. The independent view is most clearly exemplified in some sizable
segment of American culture, as well as in many Western European cultures.
The interdependent view is exemplified in Japanese culture as well as
in other Asian cultures. But it is also characteristic of African cultures,
Latin-American cultures, and many southern European cultures. We delineate
how these divergent views of the self-the independent and the interdependentcan
have a systematic influence on various aspects of cognition, emotion,
and motivation.
We suggest that for many cultures of the world, the Western notion of
the self as an entity containing significant dispositional attributes,
and as detached from context, is simply not an adequate description
of selfhood. Rather, in many construals, the self is viewed as interdependent
with the surrounding context, and it is the "other" or the "self-in-relation-to-other"
that is focal in individual experience. One general consequence of this
divergence in self-construal is that when psychological processes (e
cognition, emotion, and motivation) explicitly, or even quite implicitly,
implicate the self asa target or as a refer ent, the nature of these
processes will vary according to the exact form or organization of self
inherent in a given construal. With respect to cognition, for example,
for those with interdependent selves, in contrast to those with independent
selves, some aspects of knowledge representation and some of the processes
involved in social and nonsocial thinking alike are influenced by a
pervasive attentiveness to the relevant
others in the social context. Thus, one's actions s are more like likely
to be seen as
situationally bound, and characterizations of the individual will include
this context Furthermore, for those with interdependent construals of
the self, both the expression and the experience of emotions and motives
may be significantly shaped and governed by a consideration of the reactions
of others. Specifically, for example, some emotions, like anger, that
derive from and promote an independent view of the self may be less
prevalent among those with interdependent selves, and self-serving motives
may be replaced by what appear as other-serving motives. An examination
of cultural variation in some aspects of cognition, emotion, and motivation
will allow psychologists to ask exactly what is universal in these processes,
and it has the potential to provide some new insights for theories of
these psychological processes.
In this analysis, we draw on recent research efforts devoted to characterizing
the general differences between American or Western views of personhood
and Eastern or Asian perspectives (e.g., Heelas & Lock, 1981; Hofstede,
1980; Marsella et al., 1985; Roland, 1988; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990;
Shweder, 1990; Shweder & LeVine, 1984; Stigler, Shweder, & Herdt,
1990; Triandis, 1989; Triandis & Brislin, 1980; Weisz et al., 1984).
We extract from these descriptions many important differences that may
exist in the specific content, structure, and functioning of the self-systems
of people of different cultural backgrounds. The distinctions that we
make between independent and interdependent construals must be regarded
as general tendencies that may emerge when the members of the culture
are considered as a whole. The prototypical American view of the self,
for example, may prove to be most characteristic of White, middle-class
men with a Western European ethnic background. It may be somewhat less
descriptive of women in general, or of men and women from other ethnic
groups or social classes.'
Moreover, we realize that there may well he important distinctions among
those views we discuss as similar and that there may be views of the
self and others that cannot easily be classified as either independent
or interdependent.
Our intention is not to catalog all types of self-construals, but rather
to highlight a view of the self that is often assumed to be universal
but that may be quite specific to some segments of Western culture.
We argue that self-construals play a major role in regulating various
psychological processes. Understanding the nature of divergent self-construals
has two important consequences. On the one hand, it allows us to organize
several apparently inconsistent empirical findings and to pose questions
about the universality assumed for many aspects of cognition, emotion,
and motivation (see Shweder, 1990). On the other hand, it permits us
to better specify the precise role of the self in mediating and regulating
behavior.
The Self: A Delicate Category
In exploring the possibility of different types of self-construals,
we begin with Hallowell's (1955) notion that people everywhere are likely
to develop an understanding of themselves as physically distinct and
separable from others. Head (1920), for example, claimed the existence
of a universal schema of the body that provided one with an anchor in
time and space. Similarly, Allport (1937) suggested that there must
exist an aspect of personality that allows one, when awakening each
morning, to be sure that he or she is the same person who went to sleep
the night before. Most recently, Neisser (1988) referred to this aspect
of self as the ecological self, which he defined as "the self as perceived
with respect to the physical environment: 'I' am the person here in
this place, engaged in this particular activity" (p. 3). Beyond a physical
or ecological sense of self, each person probably has some awareness
of internal activity, such as dreams, and of the continuous flow of
thoughts and feelings, which are private to the extent that they cannot
be directly known by others. The awareness of this unshared experience
will lead the person to some sense of an inner, private self.
Some understanding and some representation of the private, inner aspects
of the self may well be universal, but many other aspects of the self
may be quite specific to particular cultures. People are capable of
believing an astonishing variety of things about themselves (cf. Heelas
& Lock, 1981; Marsella et al., 1985; Shweder & LeVine, 1984;
Triandis, 1989). The self can be con
strued,
framed, or conceptually represented in multiple ways. A cross-cultural
survey of the self lends support to Durkheim's (1912/1968) early notion
that the category of the self is primarily the product of social factors,
and to Mauss's (1938/1985) claim that as a social category, the self
is a "delicate" one, subject to quite substantial, if not infinite,
variation.
The current analysis focuses on just one variation in what people in
different cultures can come to believe about themselves. This one variation
concerns what they believe about the relationship between the self and
others and, especially, the degree to which they see themselves as separate
from others or as connected with others. We suggest that the significance
and the exact functional role that the person assigns to the other when
defining the self depend on the culturally shared assumptions about
the separation or connectedness between the self and others.
Two Construals of the Self: Independent
and Interdependent
In many Western cultures, there is a faith in the inherent separateness
of distinct persons. The normative imperative of this culture is to
become independent from others and to discover and express one's unique
attributes (Johnson, 1985; Marsella et al, 1985; J. G. Miller, 1988;
Shweder & Bourne, 1984). Achieving the cultural goal of independence
requires construing oneself as an individual whose behavior is organized
and made meaningful primarily by reference to one's own internal repertoire
of thoughts, feelings, and action, rather than by reference to the thoughts,
feelings, and actions of others. According to this construal of self,
to borrow Geertz's (1975) often quoted phrase, the person is viewed
as "a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive
universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action
organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against
other such wholes and against a social and natural background" (p. 48).
This view of the self derives from a belief in the wholeness and uniqueness
of each person's configuration of internal attributes (Johnson, 1985;
Sampson, 1985, 1988, 1989; Waterman, 1981). It gives rise to processes
like "self-actualization," "realizing oneself," "expressing one's unique
configuration of needs, rights, and capacities," or "developing one's
distinct potential?' The essential aspect of this view involves a conception
of the self as an autonomous, independent person; we thus refer to it
as the
independent construal of the self Other similar labels include individualist,
egocentric, separate, autonomous, idiocentric, and self-contained. We
assume that, on average, relatively more individuals in Western cultures
will hold this view than will individuals in non-Western cultures. Within
a given culture, however, individuals will vary in the extent to which
they are good cultural representatives and construe the self in the
mandated way.
The independent self must, of course, be responsive to the social environment
(Fiske, in press). This responsiveness, however, is fostered not so
much for the sake of the responsiveness itself. Rather, social responsiveness
often, if not always, derives from the need to strategically determine
the best way to express or assert the internal attributes of the self.
Others, or the social situation in general, are important, but primarily
as standards of reflected appraisal, or as sources that can verify and
affirm the inner core of the self.
In contrast, many non-Western cultures insist, in Kondo's (1982) terms,
on the fundamental connectedness of human beings to each other. A normative
imperative of these cultures is to maintain this interdependence among
individuals (De Vos, 1985; Hsu, 1985; Miller, 1988;Shweder& Bourne,
1984). Experiencing interdependence entails seeing oneself as part of
an encompassing social relationship and recognizing that one's behavior
is determined, contingent on, and, to a large extent organized by what
the actor perceives to be the thoughts, feelings, and actions of
others
in the relationship. The Japanese experience of the self, therefore,
includes a sense of interdependence and of one's status as a participant
in a larger social unit (Sampson, 1988). Within such a Construal, the
self becomes most meaningful and complete when it is cast in the appropriate
social relationship. According to Lebra (1976) the Japanese are most
fully human in the context of others.
This view of the self and the relationship between the self and others
features the person not as separate from the social context but as more
connected and less differentiated from others. People are motivated
to find a way to fit in with relevant others, to fulfill and create
obligation, and in general to become part of various interpersonal relationships.
Unlike the independent self, the significant features of the self according
to this construal are to be found in the interdependent and thus, in
the more public components of the self. We therefore call this view
the
interdependent Construal
of the self
The same notion has been variously referred to, with somewhat different
connotations, as sociocentric, holistic, collective, allocentric,
ensembled, constituitive
con contextualist, connected, and relational. As with the independent
self, others are critical for social comparison and self-validation,
yet in an interdependent formulation of the self, these others become
an integral part of the setting, situation, or context to which the
self is connected, fitted, and assimilated. The exact manner in which
one achieves the task of connection therefore, depends crucially on
the nature of the context, particularly the others present in the context.
Others thus participate actively and continuously in the definition
of the interdependent self.
The interdependent self also possesses and expresses a set of internal
attributes, such as abilities, opinions, judgments, and personality
characteristics. However, these internal attributes are understood as
situation specific, and thus as sometimes elusive and unreliable. And,
as such, they are unlikely to assume a powerful role in regulating overt
behavior, especially if this behavior implicates significant others.
In many domains of social life, one's opinions, abilities, and characteristics
are assigned only secondary roles-they must instead be constantly controlled
and regulated to come to terms with the primary task of interdependence.
Such voluntary control of the inner attributes constitutes
the core of the cultural ideal of becoming mature. The understand of
one's autonomy as secondary to, and constrained by, the primary task
of interdependence distinguishes interdependent
selves from independent selves for whom autonomy and its expression
is often afforded primary significance. An independent behavior (e.g.,
asserting an opinion) exhibited by a person in an interdependent culture
is likely to be based on the premise of underlying interdependence and
thus may have a somewhat different significance than it has for a person
from an independent culture... The fundamental units of the self-system,
the core conceptions, or self-schemata are thus predicated on significant
interpersonal relationships.
An interdependent self cannot be properly characterized as a bounded
whole, for it changes structure with the nature of the particular social
context. Within each particular social situation, the self can be differently
instantiated. The uniqueness of such a self derives from the specific
configuration of relationships that each person has developed. What
is focal and objectified in an interdependent self, then, is not the
inner self, but the relationships of the person to other actors (Hamaguchi
1985)
The notion of an interdependent self is linked with a monistic philosophical
tradition in which the person is thought to be of the same substance
as the rest of nature (see Bond, 1986; Phillips, 1976; Roland, 1988;
Sass, 1988). As a consequence, the relationship between the self and
other, or between subject and object, is assumed to be much closer.
Thus, many non-Western cultures insist on the inseparability of basic
elements (Galtung, 1981), including self and other, and person and situation.
In Chinese culture, for instance, there is an emphasis on synthesizing
the constituent parts of any problem or situation into an integrated
or harmonious whole (Moore, 1967; Northrop, 1946). Thus, persons are
only parts that when separated from the larger social whole cannot be
fully understood (Phillips, 1976; Shweder, 1984). Such a holistic view
is in opposition to the Cartesian, dualistic tradition that characterizes
Western thinking and in which the self is separated from the object
and from the natural world.
Examples of the interdependent self An interdependent view of the self
is common to many of the otherwise highly diverse cultures of the world.
Studies of the mainland Chinese, for example, summarized in a recent
book by Bond (1986), show that even among the most rapidly modernizing
segments of the Chinese population, there is a tendency for people to
act primarily
in accordance with the anticipated expectations of others and social
norms rather than with internal wishes or personal attributes (Yang,
198 I b). A premium is placed on emphasizing collective welfare and
on showing a sympathetic concern for others. Throughout the studies
of the Chinese reported by Bond, one can see the clear imprint of the
Confucian emphasis on interrelatedness and kindness. According to Hsu
(1985), the supreme Chinese virtue, lenj implies the person's capability
to interact with fellow human beings in a sincere, polite, and decent
fashion (see also Elvin, 1985).
Numerous other examples of cultures in which people are likely to have
some version of an interdependent self can also be identified. For example,
Triandis, Mann, Lisansky and Betancourt (1984) have described the importance
of simpatico among Hispanics. This quality refers to the ability to
both respect and share others' feelings. In characterizing the psychology
of Filipinos, Church (1987) described the importance that people attribute
to smooth interpersonal relations and to being "agreeable even under
difficult circumstances, sensitive to what others are feeling and willing
to adjust one's behavior accordingly" Similarly Weisz (in press) reported
that Thais place a premium on self-effacement, humility, deference,
and on trying to avoid disturbing others. Among the Japanese, it is
similarly crucial not to disturb the
Wa,
or the harmonious ebb and flow of interpersonal relations (see also
Geertz, 1974, for characterizations of similar imperatives among the
Balinese and Moroccans).
Beattie (1980) claimed that Africans are also extremely sensitive to
the interdependencies among people and view the world and others in
it as extensions of one another. The self is viewed not as a hedged
closure but as an open field. Similarly Marriott (19 76) argued that
Hjndu conceptions assume that the self is an open entity that is given
shape by the social, context. In his insightful book, Kakar (1978) described
the Hindu's ideal of interpersonal fusion and how it is accompanied
by a personal, cultural sense of hell, which is separation from others.
In fact, Miller, Bersoff, and Harwood (1990), in a recent, carefully
controlled study on moral reasoning, found that Indians regard responsiveness
to the needs of others as an objective moral obligation to a far greater
extent than do Americans. Although the self-systems of people from these
cultures are markedly different in many other important respects, they
appear to be alike in the greater value (when compared with Americans)
that is attached to proper relations with others, and in the requirement
to flexibly change one's own behavior in accordance with the nature
of the relationship.
Even in American culture, there is a strong theme of interdependence
that is reflected in the values and activities of many of its subcultures.
Religious groups, such as the Quakers, explicitly value and promote
interdependence, as do many small towns and rural communities (e.g.,
Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985). Some notion
of a more connected, ensembled, interdependent self, as opposed to a
self-contained, independent self, is also being developed by several
of what Sampson (1989) calls "postmodern" theorists. These theorists
are questioning the sovereignty of the American view of the mature person
as autonomous, self-determined, and unencumbered. They argue that psychology
is currently dominated by a view of the person that does not adequately
reflect the extent to which people
everywhere are created by, constrained by, and respon sive to their
various interpersonal contexts (see Gergen & gen, 1988; Gilligan,
1982; Miller, 1986; Tajfel, 1984).
Further definition of the interdependent self Theorists
of Japanese culture are beginning to characterize the interdependent
self
much more specifically than was previously attempted. These descriptions
offer some more refined ideas of how an interdependent view of self
can depart markedly from an inde.. pendent view of self (see Nakane,
1970; Plath, 1980; R. J. Smith, 1983). For example, building on a study
of L. T. Doi (1973); Bachnik (1986) wrote:
(in Japanese society) rather than there being a single social reality,
a number of possible perspectives of both self and social life are
acknowledged. Interaction in Japanese society then focuses on the
definition of the appropriate choice, out of all the various possibilities.
This means that what one says and does
will
be different in different situations, depending on how one defines
one's particular perspective versus the social other. (p. 69)
The Japanese anthropologist Lebra (1976) defined the essence of Japanese
culture as an "ethos of social relativism" This translates into a constant
concern for belongingness, reliance, dependency, empathy, occupying
one's proper place, and reciprocity. She claimed the Japanese nightmare
is exclusion, meaning that one is failing at the normative goal of connecting
to others. This is in sharp contrast to the American nightmare, which
is to fail at separating from others, as can occur when one is unduly
influenced by others, or does not stand up for what one believes, or
when one goes unnoticed or undistinguished.
An interdependent view of self does not result in a merging of self
and other, nor does it imply that one must always be in the company
of others to function effectively, or that people do not have a sense
of themselves as agents who are the origins of their own actions. On
the contrary, it takes a high degree of self-control and agency to effectively
adjust oneself to various interpersonal contingencies. Agentic exercise
of control, however, is directed primarily to the inside and to those
inner attributes, such
as desires, personal goals, and private emotions, that can such disturb
the harmonious equilibrium of interpersonal transaction. This can be
contrasted with the Western notion of control, which primarily implies
an assertion of the inner attributes and a consequent attempt to change
the outer aspects, such as one's public behaviors and the social situation
(see also Weisz et al., J984).
Given the Japanese notion of control that is inwardly directed, the
ability to effectively adjust in the interpersonal domain may form an
important basis of self-esteem, and individualized styles of such adjustment
to social contingencies may contribute to the sense of self-uniqueness.
Thus, Hamaguchi (1985).
for example, reported that for the Japanese, "the straightforward claim
of the naked ego" (p. 303) is experienced as childish. Self-assertion
is not viewed as being authentic, but instead immature. This point is
M. White and LeVine's (1986) description of the meaning of
sunao,
a term used by Japanese parents to characterize what they value in their
children: A
child that is sunao has not yielded his or her personal autonomy for
the sake of cooperation; cooperation does not suggest giving up the
self, as it may in the West; it implies that working with others is
the appropriate way of expressing and enhancing the self. Engagement
and harmony with others is, then, a positively valued goal and the
bridge-to open-hearted cooperation, as in sunaois through sensitivity,
reiterated by the mother's example and encouragement. (p. 58)
Kumagai (1981) said
sunao
"assumes cooperation to be an act of affirmation of the self" (p. 261).
Giving in is not a sign of weakness; rather, it reflects tolerance,
self-control, flexibility, and maturity.
The role of the other in the interdependent self In
an interdependent view, in contrast to an independent view, others will
be assigned much more importance, will carry more weight, and will be
relatively focal in one's own behavior. There are several direct consequences
of an interdependent construal of the self. First, relationships, rather
than being means for realizing various individual goals, will often
be ends in and of themselves. Although people everywhere must maintain
some relatedness with others, an appreciation and a need for people
will be more important for those with an interdependent self than for
those with an independent self. Second, maintaining a connection to
others will mean being constantly aware of others and focusing on their
needs, desires, and goals. In some cases, the goals of others may become
so focal in consciousness that the goals of others may be experienced
as personal goals. In other cases, fulfilling one's own goals may be
quite distinct from those of others, but meeting another's goals, needs,
and desires will be a necessary requirement for satisfying one's own
goals, needs, and desires. The assumption is that while promoting the
goals of others, one's own goals will be attended to by the person with
whom one is interdependent. Hence, people may actively work to fulfill
the others' goals while passively monitoring the reciprocal contributions
from these others for one's own goalfulfillment. Yamagishi (1988), in
fact, suggested that the Japanese feel extremely uncomfortable, much
more so than Americans, when the opportunity for such passive monitoring
of others' actions is denied.
From the standpoint of an independent, "self-ish" self, one might be
led to romanticize the interdependent self, who is ever attuned to the
concerns of others. Yet in many cases, responsive and cooperative actions
are exercised only when there is a reasonable assurance of the "good-intentions"
of others, namely their commitment to continue to engage in reciprocal
interaction and mutual support. Clearly, interdependent selves do not
attend to the needs, desires, and goals of
all
others. Attention to others is not indiscriminate; it is highly selective
will be most characteristic o relationships with "in-group" members.
These are others with whom one shares éi common fate such as
family members or members of the same lasting social group, such as
the work group. Out-group members are typically treated
quite differently and are unlikely to experience either the advantages
or disadvantages of interdependence. Independent selves are also selective
in their association with others but not to the extent of interdependent
selves because much less of their behavior is directly contingent on
the actions of others: Given the importance of others in constructing
reality and regulating behavior, the in-group-out-group distinction
is a vital one for interdependent selves and the subject eboudaiy of
one's "in-group" may tend to be narrower for the interdepen dent selves
than for the independent selves (Triandis, 1989).
The reciprocal interdependence with others that is the sign of the interdependent
self seems to require constant engagement of what Mead (1934) meant
by taking the role of the other. It involves the willingness and ability
to feel and think what others are feeling and thinking, to absorb this
information without) being told, and then to help others satisfy their
wishes and realize their goals. Maintaining connection requires inhibiting
the"!" perspective and processing instead from the "thou" perspective
(Hsu, 1981). The requirement is to "read" the other's mind and thus
to know what the other is thinking or feeling. In contrast, with an
independent self, it is the individual's responsibility to "say what's
on one's mind" if one expects to be attended to or understood.
Consequences of an Independent or an Interdependent
View of the Self
...
In the current analysis, we hypothesize that the independent versus
interdependent construals of self are among the most general and overarching
schemata of the individual's self-system. These construals recruit and
organize the more specific self-regulatory schemata.' We are suggesting
here, therefore, that the exact organization of many self-relevant processes
and their outcomes depends crucially on whether these processes are
rooted in an independent construal of the self or whether they are based
primarily on an interdependent construal of the self. For example, in
the process of lending meaning and coherence to the social world, we
know that people will show a heightened sensitivity to self-relevant
stimuli. For those with an independent view of self, this includes information
relevant to one's self-defining attributes. For one with an interdependent
view of self, such stimuli would include information about significant
others with whom the person has a relationship or information about
the self in relation to another person.
Affect regulation involves seeking positive states and avoiding negative
ones. Positive states are those that enhance or promote one's view of
the self, and negative states are those that challenge this view. For
a person with an independent view of self, this involves seeking information
that confirms or enhances one's internal, private attributes. The most
desirable situations are those that allow one to verify and express
those important internal attributes and that convey the sense that one
is appropriately autonomous. In contrast, for a person with an interdependent
view of self, one might expect the most desirable states to be those
that allow one to be responsive to one's immediate context or that convey
the sense that one is succeeding in his or her interdependent relationships
or statuses.
A third importnat function of the self-concept suggested by Markus and
Wurf (1987) is that of motivating persons, of moving them to action.
The person with an independent view of self should be motivated to those
actions that allow expression of one's important
self-defining,
inner attributes (e.g., hardworking, caring, independent, and powerful),
whereas the person with an interdependent view of self should be motivated
to those actions that enhance or foster one's relatedness or connec
tion to others. On the surface, such actions could look remarkably similar
(e.g., working incredibly hard to gain admission to a desirable college),
but the exact source, or etiology, of the energizing motivation may
be powerfully different (De Vos, 1973; Maehr & Nicholls, 1980).
In the following sections, we discuss these ideas in further detail
and review the empirical literature, which suggests that there are significant
cognitive, emotional, and motivational consequences of holding an independent
or an interdependent view of the self.
If a cognitive activity implicates the self, the outcome of this activity
will depend on the nature of the self-system. Specifically, there are
three important consequences of these divergent self-systems for cognition.
First we may expect those with interdepcpdcnt selves to be more attentive
and sensitive to others than those with independent selves. The attentiveness
and sensitvity to others,
characterizing the interdependent selves, will result in a relatively
greater cognitive elaboration of the other or of the self-in-relation-to-other.
Second, among those with interdependent selves, the unit of re sentation
of both the self and the other will include a relatively specific social
context in which the self and the other are embedded. This means that
knowledge about persons, either the self or others, will not be abstract
and generalized across contexts, but instead will remain specific to
the focal context. Third, a consideration of the social context and
the reactions of others may also shape some basic, nonsocial cognitive
activities such as categorizing and counterfactual thinking.
In exploring the impact of divergent cultural construals on thinking,
we assume that how people think (the process) in a social situation
cannot be easily separated from what they think about (the content;
Shweder, 1990; Shweder & Bourne, 1984). Extensive research on social
cognition in the past decade has suggested the power of content in social
inference (e.g., see Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Markus & Zajonc,
1985, for reviews). It is the nature of the representation (e.g., self,
another person, a weed, or clam chowder) that guides attention, and
that determines what other relevant information will be retrieved to
fill in the gap of available sense data. For example, investigations
by D)ndrade (1981) and Johnson-Laird (1983) indicate that the greater
the familiarity with the stimulus materials, the more elaborate the
schemata for framing the problem, and the better the problem solving.
In general, then, how a given object is culturally construed and represented
in memory should importantly influence and even determine how one thinks
about the object. Accordingly, the divergent representations of the
self we describe should be expected to have various consequences for
all cognition relevant to self, others, or social relationships.
More interpersonal knowledge. If the most significant elements of the
interdependent self are the self-in-relation-toothers elements, there
will be a need, as well as a strong normative demand, for knowing and
understanding the social surrounding, particularly others in direct
interaction with the self. That is, if people conceive of themselves
as interdependent parts of larger social wholes, it is important for
them to be sensitive
to and knowledgeable about the others who are the coparticipants in
various relationships, and about the social situations that enable these
relationships. Maintaining one's relationships and ensuring a harmonious
social interaction requires a full understanding of these others, that
is, knowing how they are feeling, thinking, and likely to act in the
context of one's relationships to them. It follows that those with interdependent
selves may develop a dense and richly elaborated store of information
about others or of the self in relation.
Kitayama, Markus, Tummala, Kzrokawa, and Kato (1990) examined this idea
in a study requiring similarity judgments between self and other. A
typical American finding i that the self is judged to be more dissimilar
to other than other is to the self (Holyoak & Gordon, 1983; Srull
& Gaelick, 1983). This finding has been interpreted to indicate
that for the typical American subject, the representation of the self
is more elaborated and distinctive in memory than the representation
of another person. As a result, the similarity between self and other
is judged to be less when the question is posed about a more distinctive
object (Is self similar to other?) than when the question is posed about
a less distinctive object (Is
other
similar to self?). If, however, those with interdependent selves have
at least as much knowledge about some others as they have about themselves,
this American pattern of findings may not be found.
To test these predictions, Kitayama et al. (1990) compared students
from Eastern cultural backgrounds (students from India) with those from
Western cultural backgrounds (American students). As shown in Figure
2, for the Western subjects, Kitayama et al. replicated the prior findings
in which the self is perceived as significantly more dissimilar to the
other than is the other to the self. Such a finding is consistent with
a broad range of studies showing that for individuals with a Western
background, supposedly those with independent selves, selfknowledge
is more distinctive and densely elaborated than knowledge about other
people (e.g., Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984). This pattern, however,
was nonsignificantly reversed for the Indian subjects, who judged the
self to be somewhat more similar to the other than is the other to the
self. It appears, then, that
for the latter, more interdependent subjects, knowledge about others
is relatively more elaborated and distinctive than knowledge about the
self. Asymmetry in similarity judgments is an indirect way to evaluate
knowledge accessibility, but a more direct measure of cross-cultural
differences in knowledge of the other should reveal that those with
interdependent selves have more readily accessible knowledge of the
other.
Context-specific
knowledge of self
and
other. A
second consequence of having an interdependent self as opposed to an
independent self concerns the ways in which knowledge about self and
other is processed, organized, and retrieved from memory. For example,
given an interdependent self, knowledge about the self may not be organized
into a hierarchical structure with the person's characteristic attributes
(e.g., intelligent, competent, and athletic) as the superordinate nodes,
as is often assumed in characterizations of the independent self. In
other words, those with interdependent selves are less likely to organize
knowledge about the "self in general" or about the "other in generaL"
Specific social situations are more likely to serve as the unit of representation
than are attributes of separate persons. One learns about the self with
respect to a specific other in a particular context and, conversely
about the other with respect to the self in a particular context.
In exploring variations in the nature of person knowledge, Shweder and
Bourne (1984) asked respondents in India and America to describe several
close acquaintances. The descriptions provided by the Indians were more
situationally specific and more relational than those of Americans.
Indian descriptions focused on behavior; they described what was done,
where it was done, and to whom or with whom it was done. The Indian
respondents said, "He has no land to cultivate but likes to cultivate
the land of others," or "When a quarrel arises, he cannot resist the
temptation of saying a word," or "He behaves properly with guests but
feels sorry if money is spent on them" It is the behavior itself that
is focal and significant rather than the inner attribute that supposedly
underlies it. Notably this tendency to provide the specific situational
or interpersonal context when providing a description was reported to
characterize the free descriptions of Indians regardless of social class,
education, or literacy level. It appears, then, that the concreteness
in person description is not due to a lack of skill in abstracting concrete
instances to form a general proposition, but rather a consequence of
the fact that global inferences about persons are typically regarded
as not meaningful or informative.
Americans also describe other people in terms of the specifics of their
behavior, but typically this occurs only at the beginning of relationships
when the other is relatively unknown, or if the behavior
is
somehow distinctive and does not readily lend itself to a trait characterization.
Rather than saying "He does not disclose secrets," Americans are more
likely to say "He is discreet or principled?' Rather than "He is hesitant
to give his money away," Americans say "He is tight or selfish?' Shweder
and Bourne (1984) found that 46% of American descriptions were of the
cntext free variety, whereas this was true of only 20% from the Indian
sample - -
A study by J. 0. Miller (1984) on patterns
of
explanation among Indian Hindus and Americans revealed the same tendency
for contextual and relational descriptions
of
behavior among
Indian respondents. In the first phase of her study, respondents generated
two prosocial behaviors and two deviant behaviors
and then explained why each behavior was undertaken. For example, in
the prosocial case, respondents were asked
to "describe something a person you know well did re cently that you
considered good for someone else." Miller coded the explanations for
reference to dispositional explanations; for reference to social, spatial,
temporal location; and for reference to specific acts or occurrences.
Like Shweder and Bourne (1984), she found that on average, 40% of the
reasons given by American respondents referred to the general dispositions
of the actor. For the Hindu respondents, dispositional explana tions
constituted less than 20% of their responses.
In a second phase of the study, Miller (1984) asked both American and
Indian respondents to explain several accounts of the deviant behaviors
generated by the Indian respondents. For example, a Hindu subject narrated
the following incident:
This concerns a motorcycle accident. The back wheel burst on the motorcycle.
The passenger sitting in the rear jumped. The moment the passenger
fell, he struck his head on the pavement. The driver of the motorcycle-who
is an attorney-as he was on his way to court for some work, just took
the passenger to a local hospital and went on and attended to his
court work. I personally feel the motorcycle driver did a wrong thing.
The driver left the passenger there without consulting the doctor
concerning the seriousness of the injury-the gravity of the situation-whether
the passenger should be shifted immediately-and he went on to the
court. So ultimately the passenger died. (p. 972)
Respondents were asked why the driver left the passenger at the hospital
without staying to consult about the seriousness of the passenger's
injury On average, Americans made 36% of their attributions to dispositions
of the actors (e.g., irresponsible, pursuing success) and 17% of their
attributions to contextual factors (driver's duty to be in court). In
comparison, only 15% of the attributions of the Indians referred to
dispositions, whereas 32% referred to contextual reasons. Both the American
and the Indian subjects focused on the state of the driver at the time
of the accident, but in the Indian accounts, the social role of the
driver appears to be very important to understanding the events. He
is obligated to his role, he has a job to perform. Actions are viewed
as arising from relations or interactions with others; they are a product
of obligations, responsibilities, or commitments to others and are thus
best understood with respect to these interpersonal relations. This
preference for contextual explanations has also been documented by Dalal,
Sharma, and Bisht (1983).
These results call into question the exact nature of the fundafundamentla
attribution error (Ross, 1977). In this error, people, in their efforts
to understand the causes of behavior, suffer from an inescapable tendency
to perceive behavior as a consequence of the internal, personal attributes
of the person. Miller's (1984) Indian respondents also explained events
in terms of properties or features of the person, yet these properties
were their role relationships-their socially determined relations to
specific others or groups. Because role relationships necessarily implicate
the social situation that embeds the actor, it is unclear whether the
explanations of the Indian respondents can be viewed as instances of
the fundamental attribution error. It may be that the fundamental attribution
error is only characteristic of those with an independent view of the
self.
The tendency to describe a person in terms of his or her specific behavior
and to specify the context for a given behavior is also evidenced when
those with interdependent selves provide self-descriptions. Cousins
(1989) compared the self-descriptions of American high school and college
students with the self-descriptions of Japanese high school and college
students. He used two types of free-response formats, the original Twenty
Statements Test (TST; Kuhn & McPartland, 1954), which simply asks
"Who Am I?" 20 consecutive times, and a modified TST, which asks subjects
to describe themselves in several specific situations (me at home, me
with friends, and me at school). When responding to the original TST,
the Japanese self-descriptions were like those of the Indians in the
Shweder and Bourne (1984) study. They were more concrete and role specific
("I play tennis on the weekend"). In contrast, the American descriptions
included more psychological trait or attribute characterizations ("l
am optimistic:' and "lam friendly"). However, in the modified TST, where
a specific interpersonal context was provided so that respondents could
envision the situation (e.g., me at home) and presumably who was there
and what was being done to whom or by whom, this pattern of results
was reversed. As shown in Figure 3, the Japanese showed a stronger tendency
to characterize themselves in psychological trait or attribute terms
than did Americans. In contrast, Americans tended to qualify their self-descriptions,
claiming, for example, "I am sometimes lazy at home?'
Cousins (1989) argued that the original TST essentially isolates or
disembeds the "I" from the relational or situational context, and thus
self-description becomes artificial for the Japanese respondents, who
are more accustomed to thinking about themselves within specific social
situations. For these resPondents, the contextualized format "Describe
yourself as you are with your family" was more "natural" because it
locates the self
in a habitual unit of representation, namely in a particular terpersonal
situation. Once a defining context was specified, Japanese respondents
were decidedly more willing to make generalizations
about their behavior and to describe themselves abstractly using trait
or attribute characterizations.
American students, in contrast to their Japanese counterparts, were
more at home with the original TST because this test elicits the type
of abstract, situation-free self-descriptions that form the core of
the American, independent self-concept. Such abstract or global characterizations,
according to Cousins (1989), reflect a claim of being a separate individual
whose nature is not bound by a specific situation. When responding to
the contextualized self-description questions, the American students
qualified their descriptions as if to say "This is how I am at home,
but don't assume this is the way I am everywhere?' For American respondents,
selfness, pure and simple, seems to transcend any particular interpersonal
relationships.
Basic cognition in an interpersonal context.
One's view of self can have an impact even on some evidently nonsocial
cognitive activities. I. Liii (1986) described the emphasis that the
Chinese place on being loyal and pious to their superiors and obedience
to them, whether they are parents, employers, or government officials.
He claimed that most Chinese adhere to a specific rule that states "If
your superiors are present, or indirectly involved, in any situation,
then you are to respect and
obey
them" (I. Liu, 1986, p. 78). The power and the influence of this rule
appear to go considerably beyond that provided by the American admonition
to "respect one's elders?' I. Liu (1986) argued that the standard of
self-regulation that involves the attention and consideration of others
is so pervasive that it may actually constrain verbal and ideational
fluency. He reasoned that taking account of others in every situation
is often at odds with individual assertion or with attempts at innovation
or unique expression. This means, for example, that in an unstructured
creativity task in which the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible,
Chinese subjects may be at a relative disadvantage. In a similar vein,
T. Y Liu and Hsu (1974) suggested that consideration of the rule "respect
and
obey
others" uses up cognitive capacity that might otherwise be devoted to
a task, and this may be the reason that Chinese norms for some creativity
tasks fall below American norms.
Charting the differences between an independent self and interdependent
self may also illuminate the controversy surrounding the debate between
Bloom (1981, 1984) and Au (1983, 1984) over whether the Chinese can
reason counterfactually (for a thorough review of this debate, see Moser,
1989). Bloom's studies (1981) on the counterfactual began when he asked
Chinese-speaking subjects questions like "If the Hong Kong government
were to pass a law requiring that all citizens born outside of Hong
Kong make weekly reports of their activities to the police, how would
you react?" Bloom noted that his respondents consistently answered "But
the government hasn't," "It can't:' or "It won't?' Pressed to think
about it anyway, the respondents became frustrated, claiming that it
was unnatural or un-Chinese to think in this way. American and French
respondents answered similar questions readily and without complaint.
From this and subsequent studies, Bloom (1981, 1984) concluded that
Chinese speakers "might be expected typi
cally
to encounter difficulty in maintaining a counterfactual perspective
as an active point of orientation for guiding their cognitive activities"
(1984, p. 21).
Au (1983) challenged Bloom's conclusions. Using different stimulus
materials and also different translations of the same stimulus materials,
she reported that Chinese subjects performed no differently from their
Western counterparts. The controversy continues, however, and many investigators
remain unconvinced that the differences Bloom and others have observed
in a large number of studies on counterfactual reasoning are solely
a function of awkward or improper translations
of stimulus materials.
Moser
(1989),
for example, discussed several
of
Bloom's
(1981, 1984)
findings that are not easily explained away. He described the following
question that Bloom
(1981, pp. 53-54) gave to Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and American subjects
in their native language.
Everyone has his or her own method for teaching children to respect
morality. Some people punish the child for immoral behavior, thereby
leading him to fear the consequences of such behavior. Others reward
the child for moral behavior, thereby leading him to want to behave
morally Even though both of these methods lead the child to respect
morality, the first method can lead to some negative psychological
consequences-it may lower the child's self-esteem.
According to the above paragraph, what do the two methods have in
common? Please select only one answer.
A. Both methods are useless.
B. They have nothing in common, because the first leads to negative
psychological consequences.
C. Both can reach the goal of leading the child to respect morality
D. It is better to use the second.
E. None of the above answers makes sense. (If you choose this
answer,
please explain
Bloom
(1984)
reported that
97% of
American subjects responded C, but that only
55% of
the Taiwanese and
65% of the Hong
Kong respondents answered C. In explaining his results, he wrote:
Most of the remaining Chinese-speaking subjects chose D or E and then
went on to explain, based on their own experience and often at great
length and evidently after much reflection, why, for instance, the
second method might be better, or why neither method works, or why
both methods have to be used in conjunction with each other, or perhaps,
why some other specified means is preferable. For the majority of
these subjects, as was evident from later interviewing, it was not
that they did not see the paragraph as stating that both methods lead
the child top morality, but they felt that choosing that alternative
and leaving it at that would be misleading since in their experience
that response was untrue. As they saw it, what was expected, desired,
must be at a minimum an answer reflecting their personal considered
opinion, if not a more elaborated explanation of their own experiences
relevant to the matter at hand. Why else would anyone ask the question?
American subjects, by contrast, readily accepted the question as a
purely "theoretical" exercise to be responded to according to the
assumptions of the world it creates rather than in terms of their
own experiences with the actual world. (Bloom, 1981, p. 54)
It is our view that the differences in response between the Americans
and the Chinese may be related to whether the respondent has an independent
or interdependent construal
of the self. If one's actions are contingent on, determined by, or made
meaningful by one's relationships and social situations, it is reasonable
to expect that respondents with interdependent selves might focus on
the motivation of the person administering the question and on the nature
of their current relationship with this person. Consequently in the
process of responding, they might ask themselves, "What is being asked
of me here? What does this question expect
of
me or require from me? What are potential ramifications
of
answering in one way or another in respect to my relationship with this
person?" In Lebra's
(1976)
terms, what is "my proper place?" in this social interaction [i.e.,
me and the interviewer], and what are the "obligations attached to [it?]"
(p. 67). To
immediately respond to the question as a purely abstract or theoretical
exercise would require ignoring the currently constituted
social
situation and the nature
of
one's relationship with the other. This,
of
course, can be done, but it does not mean that it
will
be easily, effortlessly or automatically done. And this
is
especially true when the pragmatics
of
a given context appears to require just the opposite. It requires ignoring
the other's perspective and a lack
of
attention
to
what the other must be thinking or feeling to ask such a question. One's
actions are made meaningful by reference to a particular set
of
contextual factors.
If
these are ignored or changed, then the self that is determined by them
changes also. Those with relatively unencumbered, self-contained, independent
selves can readily, and without hesitation, entertain any of a thousand
fanciful possible worlds because there are fewer personal consequences-the
bounded, autonomous self remains essentially inviolate.
One important implication of this analysis is that people with interdependent
selves should have no disadvantage in counterfactual reasoning if the
intent of the questioner and the demand of the situation is simply to
test the theoretical reasoning capacities of the person. One such situation
would involve an aptitude test such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test
(SAT). Indeed, on the quantitative portion of the SAT that requires
substantial hypothetical and counterfactual reasoning (e.g, "If Tom
walked 2 miles per hour, then how far will he have walked in 4 hours?"),
both Taiwanese and Japanese children perform considerably better than
their American peers (Stevenson et al., 1986).
It would appear important, therefore,
to
distinguish between competence and performance or between the presence
of particular inference skills and the application of these skills in
a particular pragmatic context (see also Laboratory of Comparative Human
Cognition, 1982). The discussion thus far implies that regardless of
the nature of the self-system, most people with an adequate level of
education possess the skills of hypothetical reasoning and the ability
to think in a counterfactual fashion. Yet, the application of these
skills in a particular situation varies considerably with the nature
of the self-system. Some people may invoke these skills much more selectively.
For those with interdependent selves, in contrast to those with independent
selves, a relatively greater proportion of all inferences will be contingent
on the pragmatic implications of a given situation, such as the perceived
demands of the interviewer, the convention of the situation, and the
rules of conversation.
Do styles of thinking and inference vary above and beyond those that
derive from the pragmatic considerations of particular social situations?
This question has yet to be more carefully addressed. However, given
the tendency to see people, events, and objects as embedded within particular
situations and relationships, the possibility seems genuine. Chiu (1972),
for example, claimed that the reasoning of American children is characterized
by an inferential-categorical style, whereas the reasoning of Taiwanese
Chinese subjects displays a relationalcontextual style. When American
children described why two objects of a set of three objects went together,
they were likely to say "because they both live on a farm" In contrast,
Chinese children were more likely to display a relational-contextual
style, putting two human figures together and claiming the two go together
"because the mother takes care of the baby" In the latter case, the
emphasis is on synthesizing features into an organized whole. Bruner
(1986) referred to such differences as arising from a paradigmatic versus
a narrative mode of thought. In the former, the goal is abstraction
and analyzing common features, in the latter, establishing a connection
or an interdependence among the elements.
In psychology, emotion is often viewed as a universal set of largely
prewired internal processes of self-maintenance and self-regulation
(Buck, 1988; Darwin, 1896; Ekman, 1972; LeDoux, 1987). This does not
mean, though, that emotional experience is also universal. On the contrary,
as suggested by anthropologists Rosaldo (1984), Lutz (1988), and Solomon
(1984), culture can play a central role in shaping emotional experience.
As with cognition, if an emotional activity or reaction implicates the
self, the outcome of this activity will depend on the nature of the
self-system. And apart from the fear induced by bright lights and loud
sounds, or the pleasure produced by a sweet taste, there are likely
to be few emotions that do not directly implicate one's view of the
self. Thus, Rosaldo (1984) contended "feelings are not substances to
be discovered in our blood but social practices organized by stories
that we both enact and tell. They are structured by our forms of understanding"
(p. 143), and we would add, specifically, by one's construal of the
self. In an extension of these ideas, Lutz (1988) argued that although
most emotions are viewed as universally experienced "natural" human
phenomena, emotions are anything but natural. Emotion, she contended,
"can be viewed as cultural and interpersonal products of naming, justifying,
and persuading by people in relationship to each other. Emotional meaning
is then a social rather than an individual achievement-an emergent product
of social life" (Lutz, 1988, p. 5).
Among psychologists, several cognitively oriented theorists
of
emotion have suggested that emotion is importantly implicated and embedded
in
an actual social situation as construed by the person (e.g., De Riviera,
1984; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, 1984). Accordingly, not only does the
experience of an emotion depend on the current construal of the social
situation (e.g Frijda,
Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor,
1987; C. Smith & Ellsworth, 1987), but the experienced emotion in
turn plays a pivotal role in changing and transforming the very nature
of the social situation by allowing anew construal of the situation
to emerge and, furthermore, by instigating the person to engage in certain
actions. From the current perspective, construals of the social situation
are constrained by, and largely derived from, construals of the self,
others, and the relationship between the two. Thus, emotional experience
should vary systematically with the construal of the self.
The present analysis suggests several ways in which emotional processes
may differ with the nature of the self-system. First, the predominant
eliciting conditions of many emotions may differ markedly according
to one's construal of the self. Second, and more important, which emotions
will be expressed or experienced, and with what intensity and frequency,
may also vary dramatically.
Ego-focused versus other-focused emotions. The
emotions systematically vary according to the extent to which they follow
from, and also foster and reinforce, an independent or an interdependent
construal of the self. This is a dimension that has largely been ignored
in the literature. Some emotions, such as anger, frustration, and pride,
have the individual's internal attributes this or her own needs 1oals,
desires, or abilities) as the primary referent. Such emotions may be
called ego
focused. They result most typically from the blocking (e.g., "I was
treated In
contrast to the ego-focused emotions, some other emotions, such as sympathy,
feelings of interpersonal communion and shame, have another person,
rahter than one's internal attricbutes, as the primary rferent. Such
emotions may be called other focused They typically result from being
sensitive to the other, taking the perspective of the other, and attempting
to promote interdependence. Experiencing these emotions highlights one's
interdependence, facilitates the reciprocal ex-
Ego-focused emotions-emotions that foster and create independence. In
a comparison of American and Japanese undergraduates, Matsumoto, Kudoh,
Scherer, and Wallbott (1988) found that American subjects reported experiencing
their emotions longer than did Japanese subjects, even though the two
groups agreed in their ordering of which emotions were experienced longest
(i.e., joy = sad > anger guilt > fear = shame = disgust) Americans
also reported feeling these emotions more intensely than the Japanese
and reported more bodily symptoms (e.g., lump in throat, change in breathing,
more expressive reactions, and more verbal reactions) than did the Japanese.
Finally, when asked what they would do to cope with the consequences
of various emotional events, significantly more of the Japanese students
reported that no action was necessary.
One interpretation of this pattern of findings may assume that most
of the emotions examined, with the exception of shame and possibly guilt,
are what we have called ego-focused emotions. Thus, people with independent
selves will attend more to these feelings and act on the basis of them,
because these feelings are regarded as diagnostic of the independent
self. Not to attend to one's inner feelings is often viewed as being
inauthentic or even as denying the "real" self. In contrast, among those
with more interdependent selves, one's inner feelings may be less important
in determining one's consequent actions. Ego-focused feelings may be
regarded as by-products of interpersonal relationships, but they may
not be accorded privileged status as regulators of behavior. For those
with interdependent selves, it is the interpersonal context that assumes
priority over the inner attributes, such as private feelings. The latter
may need to be controlled or dc-emphasized so as to effectively fit
into the interpersonal context.
Given these differences in emotional processes, people with divergent
selves may develop very different assumptions about the etiology of
emotional expressions for ego-focused emotions. For those with independent
selves, emotional expressions may literally "express" or reveal the
inner feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear. F those with interdependent
selves, however. an emotional expression may be more often regarded
as a public instrumental action that may or may not be related di- with
this analysis, Matsumoto (1989), using data from 15 cultures, reported
that individuals from hierarchical cultures (that we would classify
as being generally interdependent; see Hofstede, 1980), when asked to
rate the intensity of an angry, sad, or fearful emotion displayed by
an individual in a photograph, gave lower intensity ratings than those
from less hierarchical cultures. Notably, although the degree of hierarchy
inherent in one's cultures was strongly related to the intensity ratings
given to those emotions, it was not related to the correct identification
of these emotions. The one exception to this finding was that people
from more hierarchical cultures (those with more interdependent selves)
were less likely to correctly identify emotional expressions of happiness.
Among those with interdependent selves (often those from hierarchical
cultures), positive emotional expressions are most frequently used as
public actions in the service of maintaining interpersonal harmony and,
thus, are not regarded as particularly diagnostic of the actor's inner
feelings or happiness.
For those with interdependent selves (composed primarily of relationships
with others instead of inner attributes), it may be very important not
to have intense experiences of eüo-focused emotions, and this may
be particularly true for negative emotions like anger. Anger may sriously
threaten an interdendent self and thus may be highly dysfunctional In
fact, some anthropologists explicitly challenge the universalist ilist
view that all people experience the same negative emotions. Thus, in
Tahiti, anger is highly feared, and various anthropological accounts
claim that there is no expression of anger in this culture (see Levy,
1973; Solomon, 1984). It
is
not that these people have learned to inhibit or suppress their "real"
anger but that they have learned the importance of attending to others,
considering others, and being gentle in all situations, and as a consequence
very little anger is elicited. In other words, the social reality
is construed and actually constructed in such a
way that it does not lend itself to the strong experience, let alone
the outburst, of negative ego-focused emotions such as anger. The same
is claimed for Ukta Eskimos (Briggs, 1970). They are said not to feel
anger, not to express anger, and not even to talk about anger. The claim
is that they do not show anger even in those circumstances that would
certainly produce complete outrage in Americans. These Eskimos use a
word that means "childish" to label angry behavior when it is observed
in foreigners.
Among the Japanese, there
is
a similar concern with averting anger and avoiding a disruption of the
harmony of the social situation. As a consequence, experiencing anger
or receiving anger signals may be relatively rare events. A study by
Miyake, Campos, Kagan, and Bradshaw (1986), which compared Japanese
and American infants of 11 months of age, provides suggestive evidence
for this claim. These investigators showed each infant an interesting
toy and paired it with a mother's vocal expression of joy, anger, or
fear. Then they measured the child's latency to resume locomotion toward
the toy after the mother's utterance. The two groups of infants did
not differ in their reactions to expressions of joy or fear. But, after
an angry vocal expression of the mother, there was a striking difference
between the two groups. The Japanese children resumed locomotion toward
the toy after 48 s, American children after only 18 s. It may be that
the Japanese children are relatively more traumatized by their mother's
anger expressions because these are such rare events.
Notably, in the West, a controversy exists about the need, the desirability,
and the importance of expressing one's anger. Assuming a hydraulic model
of anger, some argue that it is necessary to express anger so as to
avoid boiling over or blowing up at a later point (Pennebaker, 1982).
Others argue for the importance of controlling one's anger so as not
to risk losing control. No such controversy appears to exist among those
in predominantly interdependent cultures, where a seemingly unchallenged
norm directs individuals to restrain their inner feelings and particularly
the overt expression of these feelings. Indeed, many interdependent
cultures have well-developed strategies that render them expert at avoiding
the expression of negative emotions. For example, Bond (1986) reported
that in China discussions
have a clear structure that is explicitly designed to prevent conflict
from erupting. To begin with, discussants present their common problems
and identify all the constraints that all the participants must meet.
Only then do they state their own views. To Westerners, such a pattern
appears as vague, beating around the bush, and not getting to the heart
of the matter, but it is part of a carefully executed strategy of avoiding
conflict, and thus perhaps the experience of negative emotions. Bond,
in fact, noted that among school children in Hong Kong and Taiwan, there
is a tendency to cooperate with opponents even in a competitive reward
structure and to rate future opponents more positively than others who
will not be opponents (Li, Cheung, & Kau. 1979, 1982).
In a recent cross-cultural comparison of the eliciting conditions of
several emotions, Matsumoto et al. (1988) also found that Japanese respondents
appear to be avoiding anger in close relations. Specifically, for the
Japanese, closely related others were rarely implicated in the experience
of anger. The Japanese reported feeling anger primarily in the presence
of strangers. It4 thus appears that not only the expression but also
the experience of such an ego-focused emotion as anger is effectively
averted within an interdependent structure of relation. When anger arises,
it happens outside of the existing interdependence, as in confrontation
with out-groups (e.g., Samurai warfare in feudal Japan). In _contrast
Americans and Western Europeans report experiencing anger primarily
in the presence of closely r-elate others. This is not surprising, given
that expressing and experiencing ego-focused, even negative emotions,
is one viable way to assert and affirm the status of the self as an
independent entity. Consistent with this analysis, Stipek, Weiner, and
Li (1989) found that when describing situations that produce anger.
Chinese subjects were much more likely than American subjects to describe
a situation that happened to someone else ("a guy on a bus did not give
up a seat to an old woman"). For Americans, the major stimulus to anger
was the situation where the individual was the victim ("a friend broke
a promise to me").
Other emotions, such as pride or guilt, may also differ according to
the nature of the mediating self-system. As with anger, these expressions
may be avoided, or they will assume a somewhat different form. For example,
if defined as being proud of one's own individual attributes, pride
may mean hubris, and its expression may need to be avoided for those
with interdependent selves.' Consistent with the idea that pride in
one's own performance may be inhibited among those with interdependent
selves, Stipek et al. (1989) found that the Chinese were decidedly less
likely to claim their own successful efforts as a source of pride than
were Americans. These investigators also reported that the emotion of
guilt takes on somewhat different connotations as well. Among those
with independent selves, who are more likely to hold stable, cross-situational
beliefs and to consider them self- definitional. "violating a law cause
of guilt. Among however, the most com reported source of guilt was "hurting
others psychologically."
Other-focused emotions-emotions that create and foster interdependence.
Those with interdependent selves may inhibit the experience, or at least
the expression, of some ego-focused emotions, but they may have a heightened
capacity for the experience and expression of those emotions that derive
primarily from focusing on the other. In Japan and China, for example,
there is a much greater incidence of cosleeping, cobathing, and physical
contact between mother and child than is typically true in most Western
countries. The traditional Japanese mother carries the child on her
back for a large part of the first 2 years. Lebra (1976) claimed that
Japanese mothers teach their children to fear the pain of loneliness,
whereas Westerners teach children how to be alone. Japanese and Chinese
socialization practices may help the child develop an interdependent
self in the first place, and at the same time, the capacity for the
experience of a relatively greater variety of other-focused emotions.
The greater interdependence that results between mothers and their children
in Japan is reflected in the finding that the classification of infants
according to the nature of their attachments to their mothers (i.e.,
secure, ambivalent, and avoidant) departs markedly from the pattern
typically observed in Western data. Specifically, many more Japanese
infants are classified as "ambivalently attached" because they seem
to experience decidedly more stress following a brief separation from
the mother than do American infants (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton,
1974; Miyake, Chen, & Campos, in press). This finding also indicates
that a paradigm like the typical stranger situation is inhere linked
to and independent view of self and thus may not be appropriate for
guaging attachment in non-Western cultures.
In Japan, socialization practices that foster an intense closeness between
mother and child give rise to the feeling of amae. Amae is typically
defined as the sense of, or the accompanying hope for, being lovingly
cared for and involves depending on and presuming another's indulgence.
Although,
as detailed by Kumagai
and Kumagai (1985), the exact meaning of amae is open
to some debate, it is clear that "the other" is essential. When a person
experiences amae, she or he "feels the freedom to do whatever he or
she wills" while being accepted and cared for by others with few strings
attached. Some say amae is a type of complete acceptance, a phenomenal
replication of the ideal mother-infant bond (L. T Doi, 1973). From our
point of view, experiencing amae with respect to another person maybe
inherent in the formation and maintenance of a mutually reciprocal,
interdependent
relationship with another person. If the other person accepts one's
amae the reciprocal relationship is symbolically completed, leading
to a significant form of self-validation. If, however, the other person
rejects one's amae, the relationship will be in jeopardy.
For the purpose of comparing indigenous feelings, such as amae, with
the more universal ones, such as anger and happiness, Kitayama and Markus
(1990) used a multidimensional scaling technique which allows the identification
of the dimensions that individuals habitually or spontaneously use when
they make judgments about similarities among various emotions. Recent
studies have demonstrated that people are capable of distinguishing
among various emotions on as many as seven or eight cognitive dimensions
(Mauro, Sato, & Tucker, 1989; C. Smith & Ellsworth, 1987). In
these studies, however, the dimensions have been specified a priori
by the experimenter and given explicitly to the respondents to use in
describing the emotions. When the dimensions are not provided but allowed
to emerge in multidimensional scaling studies, two
dimensions are typically identified: activation (or exciteint) id pleasantness
(e.g., Russell, 1980). And it appears that most Western emotions can
be readily located on a circumplex plane defined by these two dimensions.
Thus, although people are capable of discriminating among emotions on
a substantial number of dimensions, they habitually categorize the emotions
only on the dimensions of activation and pleasantness.
More recently Russell (1983; Russell, Lewicka, & Nut, 1989) applied
the same technique to several non-Western cultural groups and replicated
the American findings. He thus argued that the lay understanding of
emotional experience may indeed be universal. Russell used, however,
only those terms that have clear counterparts in the non-Western groups
he studied. He did not include any emotion terms indigenous to the non-Western
groups such as amae It is possible that once terms for such indigenous
feeling states are included in the analysis, a new dimension, or dimensions,
may emerge. To explore this possibility, Kitayama and Markus (1990)
sampled 20 emotions from the Japanese language. Half of these terms
were also found in English and were sampled so that they evenly covered
the circumplex space identified by Russell. The remaining terms were
those indigenous to Japanese culture and those that presuppose the presence
of others. Some (e.g., fureai [feeling a close connection with someone
else]) refer primarily to a positive association with others (rather
than events that happen within the individual, such as success), whereas
others refer to interpersonal isolation and conflict (e.g., oime [the
feeling of indebtedness]). Japanese college students rated the similarity
between 2 emotions for each of the 190 pairs that could be made from
the 20 emotions. The mean perceived similarity ratings for these pairs
were then submitted to a multidimensional scaling.
Replicating past research, Kitayama and Markus (1990) identified two
dimensions that closely correspond to the activation and the pleasantness
dimensions. In addition, however, a new dimension emerged. This third
dimension represented the extent to which the person is engaged in or
disengaged from an interpersonal relationship. At the interpersonal
engagement end were what we have called other-focused emotions, such
as shame, fureai [feeling a close connection with somebody else], and
shitashimi [feeling familiar], whereas at the disengagement
end
were found some ego-centered emotions, such as pride and tukeagari [feeling
puffed up with the sense of self-importance], along with sleepiness
and boredom. This interpersonal engagement-disengagement dimension also
differentiated between otherwise very similar emotions. Thus, pride
and elation were equally positive and high in activation, yet pride
was perceived as considerably less interpersonally engaged than elation.
Furthermore, anger and shame were very similar in terms of activation
and pleasantness, but shame was much higher than anger in the extent
of interpersonal engagement.
More important, this study located the indigenous emotions within the
three-dimensional structure, permitting us to understand the nature
of these emotions in reference to more universal emotions. For instance,
amae was low in activation, and neither positive nor negative, fairly
akin to sleepiness, except that the former was much more interpersonally
engaged than the latter. This may indicate the passive nature of amae,
involving the hopeful expectation of another person's favor and indulgence
without any active, agentic solicitation of them. Completion of amae
depends entirely on the other person, and, therefore, amae is uniquely
ambivalent in
its
connotation on the pleasantness dimension. Another indigenous emotion,
oime, involves the feeling of being psychologically indebted to somebody
else. Oime was located at the very negative end of the pleasantness
dimension, perceived even more negatively than such universal negative
emotions as anger and sadness. The extreme unpleasantness of oime suggests
the aversive nature of unmet obligations and the press of the need to
fulfill one's obligations to others and to return favors. It also underscores
the significance of balanced and harmonious relationships in the emotional
life of those with interdependent selves.
The finding that the Japanese respondents clearly and reliably discriminated
between ego-focused emotions and otherfocused emotions on the dimension
of interpersonal engagement versus disengagement strongly suggests the
validity of this distinction as an essential component of emotional
experience at least among Japanese and, perhaps, among people from other
cultures as well. In a more recent study Kitayama and Markus (1990)
further tested whether this theoretical dimension of emotion also underlies
and even determines how frequently people may experience various emotions
and whether the frequency of emotional experience varies with their
dominant construal of self as independent or interdependent.
Kitayama and Markus (1990) first sampled three emotions common in Japanese
culture that were expected to fall under one of the five types theoretically
derived from the current analysis. These types are listed in Table 2.
Ego-focused positive emotions (yuetukan [feeling superior], pride, and
tukeagari [feeling puffed up] are those that are most typically associated
with the confirmation or fulfillment of one's internal attributes, such
as abilities, desires, and needs. Ego-focused, negative emotions (anger,
futekusare [sulky feeling], and yokyufuman [frustration]) occur primarily
when such internal attributes are blocked or threatened. Also included
were those correspondingly positive or negative emotions associated
with the maintenance or enhancement of interdependence. Thus, three
emotions are commonly associated with the affirmation or the completion
of interdependent relationships (fureai [feeling of connection with
someone], shitashimi [feeling of familiarity to
Universal
Aspects of the Self
The exact content and structure of the inner self may differ considerably
by culture. Furthermore, the nature of the outer or public self that derives
from one's relations with other people and social institutions may also
vary markedly by culture. And, as suggested by Triandis (1989), the significance
assigned to the private, inner aspects versus the public, relational aspects
in regulating behavior will vary accordingly. In fact, it may not be unreasonable
to suppose, as did numerous earlier anthropologists (see Allen, 1985),
that in some cultures, on certain occasions, the
individual
in the sense of a set of significant inner attributes of thePerson, may
cease to be the primary unit of consciousness. instead, the sense of belongingness
to a social relation may become so strong that it makes better sense to
think of the relationship as the functional unit of conscious reflection.
The Independent Construal
The Interdependent Construal
In Japan, the word for jibun, refers to "one's share of the shared life
space" (Hamaguchi 1985). The self, Kimura (cited in Hamaguchi, 1985) claimed,
is "neither a substance nor an attribute having a constant oneness" (p.
302). According to Hamaguchi (1985), for the Japanese, "a sense of identification
with others (sometimes including conflict) pre-exists and selfness is
confirmed only through interpersonal relationships
....
Self-ness is not a constant like the ego but denotes a fluid concept which
changes through time and situations according to interpersonal relationships"
(p. 302).
belief in the same assumption. This script is "natural," however, only
within the independent view of self. What would happen if the friend were
a visitor from Japan? A likely response to the question "Hey, Tomio, what
do you want?" would be a little moment of bewilderment and then a noncommital
utterance like "I don't know" This happens because under the assumptions
of an interdependent self, it is the responsibility of the host to be
able to "read" the mind of the friend and offer what the host perceives
to be the best for the friend. And the duty of the guest, on the other
hand, is to receive the favor with grace and to be prepared to return
the favor in the near future, if not right
at the next moment. A likely, interdependent script for the same situation
would be: "Hey, Tomio, I made you a turkey sandwich because I remember
that last week you said you like turkey more than beef. And Tomio will
respond, "Oh, thank you, I really like turkey" -
Consequences for Cognition
Consequences for Emotion
unfairly"), the satisfaction, or the confirmation (e.g., "I performed
better than others") of one's internal attributes. Experiencing and
expressing these emotions further highlights these self-defining, internal
attributes and leads to additional attempts to assert them in public
and confirm them in private. As a consequence, for those with independent
selves to operate effectively, they have to be "experts" in the expression
of these emotions. They will manage the expression, and even the experience,
of these emotions so that they maintain, affirm, and bolster the construal
of the self as an autonomous entity. The public display of one's own
internal attributes can be at odds with the maintenance of interdependent,
cooperative social interaction, and when unchecked can result in interpersonal
confrontation, conflict, and possibly even overt aggression. These negative
consequences, however, are not as severe as they might be for interdependent
selves because the expression of one's internal attributes is the culturally
sanctioned task of the independent self. In short, the current analysis
suggests that, in contrast to those with more interdependent selves,
the ego-focused emotions will be more frequently expressed, and perhaps
experienced, by those with independent selves.
changes of well-intended actions, leads to further cooperative social
behavior, and thus provides a significant form of self-validation for
interdependent selves. As a consequence, for those with interdependent
selves to operate effectively, they will have to be "experts" in the
expression and experience of these emotions. They will manage the expression,
and even the experience, of these emotions so that they maintain, affirm,
and rein-
force the construal of the self as an interdependent entity. The other-focused
emotions often discourage the autonomous expression to inhibition and
ambivalence. Although among inde selves these consequences are experienced
negatively (e.g., as timidity) and
can, in fact, have a negative impact, they are tolerated, among interdependent
selves, as the "business of living" kakar1978 p. 34). Creating and maintaining
a connection to others is the primary task of the interdependent self.
In short, this analysis suggests that, in contrast to those with more
independent selves, these other-focused emotions will be more frequently
expressed and perhaps even experienced among those with interdependent
selves.