Measured Cross-Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancement and the Sensitivity of the Self-Enhancement Measure to the Modesty Response

Abstract

Two studies show the importance of culturally determined modesty for measured self-enhancement level. The first study shows differences between three self-enhancement measures in their sensitivity to modesty: The measure of academic self-enhancement was found to be the most sensitive to modesty. The above average response was less sensitive, whereas the correlation between criteria for inclusion in a desired group and self-characteristics was found not to be sensitive to the modesty response (n = 346). The second study compared the level of self-enhancement among three cultural groups: Singaporeans (n = 166), Israeli Druze (n = 177), and Israeli Jews (n = 206). The magnitude of cross-cultural differences for the different measures corresponded to their sensitivity to the modesty response. The role of modesty in measured cross-cultural differences in self-enhancement is discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abu-Izzeddin, N. M. (1984). The Druze. Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brill.

Almog, O. (1994). “Hazabar”: Diokan sociology. (The “Sabras”: a Sociological Profile). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Haifa, Israel.

Ben-Dor, G. (1979). The Druzes in Israel: A political study. Jerusalem: Magnes.

Bond, M. H. , & Cheung, T. S. (1983). The spontaneous self-concept of college students in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 14, 153-171.

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.

Campbell, J. D. , & Tesser, A. (1985). Self-evaluation maintenance processes in relationships. In S. Duch & D. Perlman (Eds.), Understanding personal relationships: An interdisciplinary approach(pp. 107-153). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Conway, M. , & Howell, A. (1989). Ego-involvement leads to positive self-schema activation and to a positivity bias in information processing. Motivation and Emotion, 13, 159-177.

Dunning, D. , & Cohen, G. L. (1992). Egocentric definitions of traits and abilities in social judgement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 341-355.

Dunning, D. , Meyerowitz, A. ,& Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definition in self-serving assessments of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082-1090.

10.

Dunning, D. , Perie, M. ,& Story, A. L. (1991). Self-serving prototypes of social categories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 957-968.

11.

Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist, 35, 603-618.

12.

Harter, S. (1986). Processes underlying the construction, maintenance, and enhancement of self-concept in children. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on the self(Vol. 3, pp. 137-181). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

13.

Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1997). The culture construction of selfenhancement: An examination of group serving biases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1268-1283.

14.

Hwang, C. H. (1982). Studies in Chinese personality: A critical review. Bulletin of Educational Psychology, 15, 227-240.

15.

Kitayama, S. , Markus, H. R. , Matsumoto, H. ,& Norasakkunkit, V. (1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Selfenhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1245-1267.

16.

Kitayama, S. , Takagi, H. ,& Matsumoto, H. (1995). Seiko to shippai no kiin: Nihonteki jiko no bunka-shinrigaku (Causal attribution of success and failure: Cultural psychology of Japanese selves). Japanese Psychological Review, 38, 247-280.

17.

Kunda, Z. (1987). Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 636-647.

18.

Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480-498.

19.

Kurman, J. (2001). Self-enhancement: Is it restricted to individualistic cultures? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1705-1716.

20.

Kurman, J. , & Eshel, Y. (1998). Self-enhancement, generality of selfevaluation and emotional adjustment. Journal of Social Psychology, 138, 549-563.

21.

Kurman, J. , & Sriram, N. (1997). Self-enhancement, generality level of self-evaluation and affectivity in Israel and Singapore. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 421-441.

22.

Kurman, J. , & Sriram, N. (2002). Interrelationships among vertical and horizontal collectivism, modesty, and self-enhancement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33,70-85.

23.

Linville, P. W. (1985). Self-complexity and affective extremity: Don't put all of your eggs in one cognitive basket. Social Cognition, 3, 94-120.

24.

Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

25.

McCall, R. B. (1994). Fundamental statistics for behavioral sciences. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.

26.

Osborne, R. E. (1996). Self: An eclectic approach. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

27.

Patai, R. (1976). The Arab mind. New York: Scribner.

28.

Pyszczynski, T. ,& Greenberg, J. (1987). Toward an integration of cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference: A biased hypothesistesting model. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology(Vol. 20, pp. 297-340). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

29.

Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Beyond individualism/collectivism, new cultural dimensions of values. In U. Kim , H. Triandis , C. Kagitcibasi , S. Choi ,& G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism(pp. 85-119). London: Sage.

30.

Seginer, R. , & Halabi, H. (1991). Cross-cultural variations of adolescents' future orientation: The case of Israeli Druze versus Israeli Arab and Jewish males. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 22, 224-237.

31.

Sinha, R. R. , & Krueger, J. (1998). Idiographic self-evaluation and bias. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 131-155.

32.

Snyder, C. R. (1985). Collaborative companions: The relationship of self-deception and excuse making. In M. W. Martin (Ed.), Self-deception and self-understanding(pp. 35-51). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

33.

Urban, M. S. ,& Witt, L. A. (1990). Self-serving bias in group member attributions of success and failure. Journal of Social Psychology, 130, 417-418.

34.

Whetstone, M. R. , Okun, M. A. , & Cialdini, R. B. (July, 1992). The Modest Responding Scale. Paper presented at the convention of the American Psychological Society, San Diego, CA.

35.

White, W. G. ,& Chan, E. (1983). A comparison of self-concept scores of Chinese and White graduate students. Journal of Non-White Concerns in Personnel and Guidance, 11, 138-141.

36.

Yamaguchi, S. (1994). Collectivism among the Japanese, a perspective from the self. In U. Kim , H. Triandis , C. Kagitcibasi , S. Choi , & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism(pp. 175-188) London: Sage.

37.

Yoshida, T. , Kojo, K. , & Kaku, H. (1982). A study on the development of self-presentation in children. Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 30, 30-37.