Self-Construal Differences in Chile and South Korea: A Brief Report

Abstract

Latin American and East Asian cultures are generally considered to be collectivistic cultures. However, there are very few cross-cultural studies contrasting these two cultures against each other, as most studies in this field compare them to Western culture. Self-construal is one of the most used constructs to explain cultural differences, elucidating whether individuals of a cultural group see themselves as independent of their environment and others, focusing on personal motivations, or interdependent of others and their context, recognizing their role within it. This study intends to compare the self-construal of Chileans and South Koreans and observe the variability in the presence of these dimensions in these two cultures. A total of 200 participants from Chile and South Korea responded to the Self-Construal Scale. Chileans presented significantly higher scores on independent and interdependent self-construal simultaneously when compared to South Koreans. Also, Chileans presented higher scores on independent self-construal than on interdependent self-construal, while Koreans did not show a preference for either dimension. These results are consistent with previous studies on Chileans, implying that not all Latin American countries would adhere to collectivism.