Although a robust finding in cross-cultural research is that Japanese exhibit less self-enhancement than North Americans, all of these studies have employed questionnaire measures susceptible to self-presentational biases. The present study assessed self-enhancement in a laboratory that covertly measured participants’ behaviors. Whereas Canadians were reluctant to conclude that they had performed worse than their average classmate, Japanese were hesitant to conclude that they had performed better. This research provides evidence that cultural differences in self-enhancement and self-criticism go beyond mere self-presentation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baumeister, R. G. , Tice, D. M., & Hutton, D. G. (1989). Self-presentational motivations and personality differences in self-esteem. Journal of Personality, 57, 547-577.
2.
Bond, M. H. , & Leung, K., & Wan, K. C. (1982). The social impact of self-effacing attributions: The Chinese case. Journal of Social Psychology, 118, 157-166.
3.
Doi, T. (1986). The anatomy of self. Tokyo: Kodansha.
4.
Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist, 35, 603-618.
5.
Heine, S. J. , Kitayama, S., Lehman, D. R., Takata, T., & Ide, E. (1998). It is whether you win or lose and where you play the game: Japanese work harder after failure, and North Americans after success. Manuscript under review.
6.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1995a). Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more invulnerable than the East?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 595-607.
7.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1995b). Social desirability among Canadian and Japanese students. Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 777-779.
8.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1997a). The cultural construction of self-enhancement: An examination of group-serving biases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1268-1283.
9.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1997b). Culture, dissonance, and self-affirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 389-400.
10.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1999). Culture, self-discrepancies, and self-satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 915-925.
11.
Heine, S. J. , Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1998). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Manuscript submitted for publication.
12.
Kashima, Y. , Siegal, M., Tanaka, K., & Kashima, E. S. (1992). Do people believe behaviors are consistent with attitudes? Towards a cultural psychology of attribution processes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 111-124.
13.
Kitayama, S. (1998). Self-criticism in Japan: Critical self-appraisal or modest self-presentation? Unpublished manuscript, Kyoto University.
14.
Kitayama, S. , Markus, H. R., Matsumoto, H., & Norasakkunkit, V. (1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1245-1267.
15.
Kitayama, S. , Masuda, T., & Lehman, D. R. (1998). Cultural psychology of social inference: The correspondence bias largely vanishes in Japan. Manuscript in preparation, Kyoto University.
16.
Kitayama, S. , Takagi, H., & Matsumoto, H. (1995). Causal attribution of success and failure: Cultural psychology of the Japanese self. Japanese Psychological Review, 38, 247-280.
17.
Lebra, T. S. (1976). Japanese patterns of behavior. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
18.
Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1991a). Cultural variation in the self-concept. In G. R. Goethals & J. Strauss (Eds.), Multidisciplinary perspectives on the self (pp. 18-48). New York: Springer-Verlag.
19.
Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1991b). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.
20.
Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
21.
Meijer, Z. Y. , & Semin, G. R. (1998). When the self-serving bias does not serve the self: Attributions of success and failure in cultural perspective. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Virginia.
22.
Miller, J. G. , (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 961-978.
23.
Morris, M. W. , & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949-971.
24.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
25.
Schwartz, J. M. , & Smith, W. P. (1976). Social comparison and the inference of ability difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 1268-1275.
26.
Shedler, J. , Mayman, M., & Manis, M. (1993). The illusion of mental health. American Psychologist, 48, 1117-1131.
27.
Stevenson, H. W. (1995). The Asian advantage: The case of mathematics. In J. J. Shields, Jr. (Ed.), Japanese schooling: Patterns of socialization, equality, and political control (pp. 85-95). University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
28.
Takata, T. (1987). Self-depreciative tendencies in self evaluation through social comparison. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27(1), 27-36.
29.
Taylor, S. E. , & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
30.
Tesser, A. (1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 181-227). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
31.
Weisz, J. R. , Rothbaum, F. M., & Blackburn, T. C. (1984). Standing out and standing in: The psychology of control in America and Japan. American Psychologist, 39, 955-969.
