Anthropological View of the Self

Self as Embedded in Culture

What is Anthropology?
 Anthropology
• Human societies and cultures and their
development through time and space.
• Systematic study of humanity, with the goal of
understanding our evolutionary origins, our
distinctiveness as a species, and the great
diversity.
 Culture
• Complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society. (Edward Taylor)
• People’s way of life….the way groups do
things.
• It is passed on to the next generation by
learning.
 Culture and Concepts of Self
• Our sense of Self is at the core of our being, and
consciously and unconsciously, influences our
every thought, action, and feeling.
• The self “makes sense” within an individual’s
culture.
– Example: In Individualistic Cultures the self is seen as
internal attributes, including needs, abilities, motives,
and rights.
– Different cultures produce different self-concepts.
 Independent and
Interdependent Selves

• Independent Construal of Self

– To maintain the independence of the
individual as a separate, self-contained entity.
– Individuals focus on personal, internal
attributes-individual ability, intelligence,
personality traits, goals or preferences-
expressing them in public and confirming
them in private.
• Interdependent Construal of Self
– To fit in and maintain the interdependence
among individuals.
– The self is unbounded, flexible, and
contingent on context. The most salient self is
defined in relationships.
 Graphical Illustration (from text)

Mother Father
Mother Father
X X XX
X X X XX
Self: X Self:
Sibling
X X
X X XX X X X X Sibling
X X
X X X X
X X X X X
X
Coworker
Coworker Friend
Friend
Independent Interdependent
Construal of Self Construal of Self

Bold X’s=most salient self

 Consequences

• Self-Perception
– Several studies have supported the notion that
with an independent self, internal attributes
are most salient and less salient for
interdependent selves.
– In research by Bond and Tak-Sing’s (1983),
subjects wrote down as many of their own
characteristics.
• One response type was abstract.
• Another response was situation specific.
 Consequences (cont.)

– Findings confirmed that Americans with

independent self concepts reported more
abstract types, whereas Asians with
interdependent self views reported more
situation specific.
– Interdependent Selves find it difficult to
describe themselves in abstract internal
attributes (“I am sociable”)
 Consequences (cont.)
• Social Explanation
– Self construals serve as a cognitive templates
for interpreting behaviors of others as well.
• Those with independent selves assume other
people are the same.
– Fundamental Attribution Error - the bias to
explain another’s behavior in terms of your
own construal of self.
 Consequences (cont.)
– J.G. Miller (1984) examined patterns of social
explanation in Americans and Hindu Indians.
• Both were asked to describe someone they
knew well who did something good for another
person or who did something bad and explain
why.
• Americans described behavior in terms of
general dispositions, whereas Hindus provided
explanations in terms of the actor’s duties,
social roles, and other situation-specific factors.
 Consequences (cont.)
• Achievement Motivation or Need for
Achievement refers to desire for
excellence
– Independent Construal - excellence linked to
individual’s tendency to push himself or
herself ahead and see individual success.
Motivated by individual achievement.
– Interdependent Construal - excellence sought
to achieve broader social goals. Motivated by
collective or group achievement.
 Consequences (cont.)
– Yuang (1982) distinguished between
individually oriented and socially oriented
achievement motivation.
• Yu (1974) related this to filial piety (duties
and obligations to family members,
especially parents).
• Bond (1986) found that Chinese show
higher levels of socially oriented motivation.
 Consequences (cont.)
• Self-Enhancement - a collection of
psychological processes by which
individuals reinforce or enhance their self-
esteem.
– In the U.S. people tend to exhibit a self-
serving bias (attribute good deeds and
successes to our own internal attributes but
bad deeds or failures to external factors
(Bradley, 1978).
 Consequences (cont.)

– In the U.S. people also use the false

uniqueness effect (consider themselves to be
more intelligent and more attractive than
average).
– These construals are not prevalent outside of
the U.S.
• Japanese students claimed that 50% of
other students would be better than them
and attributed success to good luck and
failures to insufficient abilities.
 Consequences (cont.)
• Social Connotation of emotion (positive
and negative)
– Socially disengaged emotions tend to
separate or disengage the self from social
relationships and to promote the perceived
independence of the self from those
relationships (e.g. pride and anger).
– Socially engaged emotions further engage
and assimilate the self in the relationship and
enhance the perceived interdependence of
the self with relevant others (e.g. friendly
feelings and guilt).
 Consequences (cont.)
• Social Connotation and Indigenous
Emotions (culture-specific emotions)
– Anthropological Studies suggest that some
socially engaged emotions are virtually absent
in Western cultures.
 Consequences (cont.)

– Lutz (1988) studied Micronesian cultures

and found one emotion central to the
culture.

• Fago - a combination of compassion,

love, and sadness (socially engaged
emotion).
• Ker - combination of happiness and
excitement (perceived as dangerous
and socially disruptive)
 Consequences (cont.)

• Happiness - most generic, unqualified

state of feeling good (relaxed, elated, and
calm)
• People experience this feeling when they
have successfully accomplished the
cultural task involving either
independence or interdependence.
 Consequences (cont.)
– Kitayama, Markus, Kurokawa, and Negishi
(1993) asked Japanese and American
undergraduates to report how often they
experienced different emotions.
• For American students, generic positive
emotions were associated with socially
disengaged emotions (pride), whereas for
Japanese students, generic positive
emotions were associated with socially
engaged emotions (feelings of respect).
 Consequences (cont.)
Another study by Oyserman (1995)-studied
European Americans and African Americans
concepts of self on school persistence
• Findings supported multiple concepts of self.

Cultural Reaffirmation-bicultural individuals identify

more closely with their native culture.
– Matsumoto et al(1997)-found that Japanese
Americans are more collectivistic than Japanese
nationals.
 What’s new?
• New research paints a much richer picture of
diversity in cultural models of selfhood. It
shows that Western cultures tend to
emphasize certain ways of being independent
(e.g. being different from others, self-directed,
and self-expressive), but not others (e.g.
beings self-interested, self-reliant, and
consistent across contexts).
 Conclusion
• Different ways of seeing oneself as both
independent and interdependent were
emphasized in different parts of the world,
and this was partly explained by
socioeconomic development and religious
heritage of the cultural groups studied.