BPA EC 1A UCC Congress

2022-2023
GEC 001 Discovering the Self
Prof. Shiele Lipata
Every Saturday 6pm – 9pm

Report by:
Mr. Jason S. Del Rosario

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Report:
The Self in
Western and
Eastern Thought

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Objective:
- Have a clear understanding of the self across
the western and eastern cultures
- Respect the role of the western and eastern
concepts in the human experience
- Appreciate the various processes in enhancing
the self by understanding from different
backgrounds
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The Self across the World
Different cultures appear to have fundamentally
different views of the individual or “self”. Individualistic
cultures assume the self to have an independent and
separate existence. Collectivist cultures view the self as
imbedded in a larger social context of obligations and
relationships. This relates to modern research in 2
ways:

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1. Anthropological analysis suspects that
the “self” is actually a Western cultural
artifact that has no meaning in other
cultures.
2. Addresses the way the self and its
implications differ across cultural
contexts.
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 The Evaluation of the Self across Cultures
 Abraham Maslow – without the fulfilment of these needs, an
individual is unable to pursue higher motivations and potentially
will die. Thus, these essential human needs can be perceived as
universal. Regardless of culture, all humans have basic necessities
for life.
 Abrahan Tesser - Self-evaluation maintenance processes can
therefore be seen as being directly involved in the
manipulation of the fundamental building blocks of global self-
esteem, particularly as it relates to changes in self-definition
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Approach-avoidance Motivation
 Higgins - People approach pleasure and avoid pain. To
discover the true nature of approach–avoidance
motivation, psychologists need to move beyond this
hedonic principle to the principles that underlie the
different ways that it operates. One such principle
is regulatory focus, which distinguishes self-regulation
with a promotion focus (accomplishments and
aspirations) from self-regulation with a prevention
focus (safety and responsibilities). 7
Approach-avoidance Motivation
 This principle is used to reconsider the fundamental nature
of approach–avoidance, expectancy–value relations, and
emotional and evaluative sensitivities. Both types of
regulatory focus are applied to phenomena that have been
treated in terms of either promotion (e.g., well-being) or
prevention (e.g., cognitive dissonance). Then, regulatory
focus is distinguished from regulatory anticipation and
regulatory reference, 2 other principles underlying the
different ways that people approach pleasure and avoid
pain. 8
Approach-avoidance Motivation
 This was the GENERAL DISCUSSION of Andrew J. Elliot, Valary I. Chirkov, Youngmee
Kim, and Kennon M. Sheldon, University of Rochester and University of Missouri-
Columbia when they conducted study on this - The results from the present
research supported our primary hypothesis that the adoption of avoidance (relative
to approach) personal goals varies as a function of individualism-collectivism.
Interdependent self-construals were positively related and independent self-
construals were negatively related to adoption of avoidance goals, Asian Americans
adopted more avoidance goals than non-Asian Americans, and persons from
collectivistic countries (South Korea and Russia) adopted more avoidance goals
than those from an individualistic country (the United States). Thus, the proposition
that collectivism, compared with individualism, promotes adoption of avoidance
goals was documented across the three most common representations of
individualism-collectivism utilized in the literature—psychological construal, ethnic9
category, and cultural attribute (i.e., country).
Approach-avoidance Motivation
 Cross-cultural comparisons have revealed that collectivism, relative to
individualism (whether operationalized in terms of cultural attribute, ethnic
category, or psychological construal), is associated with more pessimism,
higher fear of academic failure, a greater attentiveness to negative self-
relevant information, a preference for loss-framed information, a valuing of
shame tactics in child rearing, and a tendency toward self-criticism (see
Heine et al., 1999; Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000). In the present research, our
primary hypothesis was that persons with interdependent self-construals
(Study 1), Americans of Asian descent (Study 2), and persons in collectivistic
countries (Studies 3 and 4) would adopt more avoidance personal goals in
negotiating their daily lives than persons with independent self-construals,
Americans of non-Asian descent, and persons in individualistic countries, 10

respectively.
Approach-avoidance Motivation
 Based on East Asian and North American differences in holistic versus analytical
cognitive processing style and the tendency to predict cyclical versus linear trends, this
review proposes cultural differences in their temporal orientation. Building on prior
research that has compared the cultural differences on past, present, and future
orientation, this review hypothesizes that East Asians focus on the past and future more
than North Americans, and North Americans focus on the present more than East
Asians. It is suggested that in addition to a cultural difference in the focus on the 3
temporal domains, when moving from any past or future time point toward the present,
North Americans’ focus on the temporal domain grows more than East Asians’ focus. I
present evidence in three categories based on how temporal orientation is defined.
Specially, I compare East Asians’ and North Americans’ focus on a temporal domain,
their mental representation of a temporal domain and their subjective temporal
distance to a temporal domain. - Xuan Gao, Department of Psychology, University of
Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Solomon Lab Building, Philadelphia, PA 11
Approach-avoidance Motivation
 Much recent research suggests that North Americans more frequently experience
approach motivations and East Asians more frequently experience avoidance motivations.
The current research explores some cognitive implications of this cultural difference.
North Americans should be more attentive to approach-oriented information, whereas
East Asians should be more attentive to avoidance-oriented information. Three studies
confirmed this hypothesis. When asked to recall information framed in either approach or
avoidance terms, a predicted interaction between culture and information frame was
observed (Study 1 and 2). Moreover, analyses of consumer book reviews found that
among reviews that were rated as helpful, approach-focused content was more prevalent
in American reviews compared to Japanese reviews, in which avoidance-focused content
was more prevalent (Study 3). Findings from the current research add to the growing
literature of cross-cultural research on approach—avoidance motivations. - Takeshi
Hamamura The Chinese University of Hong Kong Zita Meijer Amsterdam, Netherlands
Steven J. Heine University of British Columbia Kengo Kamaya Hokkaido University Izumi 12

Hori University of British Columbia

Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 However, few psychological phenomena are more fundamental than approach
and avoidance motivations, which have been implicated in a wide range of
psychological processes (e.g., Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999; Elliot &
Church, 1997; Higgins, 1997) and are shared across a diverse array of species
(Elliot, 1999). Despite being basic elements of psychological processing,
identified cultural variation in the frequency of these two motivations (e.g.,
Elliot, Chirkov, Kim, & Sheldon, 2001; Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000) indicates that
approach and avoidance motivations are not accessibility universals, or
psychological processes that are accessible to the same extent across cultures
(Norenzayan & Heine, 2005), but are shaped considerably by cultural
experiences. There are many important implications that follow from the
observed cross-cultural variation in this critical dimension.
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Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 Mark R. Leary and Roy F. Baumeister - Self-esteem is a sociometer, essentially an
internal monitor of the degree to which one is valued or devalued as a relational
partner. We evaluate a series of specific, testable hypotheses about self-esteem and
examines laboratory and other findings in relevance to the sociometer theory and
its specific hypotheses. This sociometer theory also reinterprets several
interpersonal phenomena that have been explained previously in terms of the self-
esteem motive. In specific, self-esteem refers to a person's appraisal of his or her
value. Global self-esteem denotes a global value judgment about the self, whereas
domain-specific self-esteem involves appraisals of one's value in a particular area.
Self-esteem is an affectively laden self-evaluation. Self-evaluations are in turn
assessments of one's behavior or attributes along evaluative dimensions. Some self-
evaluations are dispassionate. whereas others are affectively laden. Self-esteem
focuses primarily on individual differences in dispositional or trait self-esteem. 14
Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 There appears to be a universal desire to understand individual differences. This common desire
exhibits both universal and culturally specific features. Motivations to view oneself positively
differ substantially across cultural contexts, as do a number of other variables that covary with
this motivation (i.e., approach-avoidance motivations, internal-external frames of reference,
independent-interdependent views of self, incremental-entity theories of abilities, dialectical
self-views, and relational mobility). The structure of personality traits, particularly the five-
factor model of personality, emerges quite consistently across cultures, with some key variations
noted when the structure is drawn from indigenous traits in other languages. The extent to
which each of the Big 5 traits is endorsed in each culture varies considerably, although we note
some methodological challenges with comparing personality traits across cultures. Finally,
although people everywhere can conceive of each other in terms of personality traits, people in
collectivistic cultures appear to rely on traits to a lesser degree when understanding themselves
and others, compared with those from individualistic cultures.
 - Steven J. Heine and Emma E. Buchtel Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia,
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Vancouver, British Columbia,
Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 Cohen & Gunz (2002) demonstrated that in comparison with
Westerners, East Asians are more likely to recall memories
of themselves when they were at the center of attention
from a third-person perspective. Apparently, East Asians’
attention to an audience leaked into and distorted their
memories of themselves. Similarly, East Asians
outperformed Westerners on a visual perspective-taking
task, making fewer visual fixations on objects that were not
visible to a person who was giving instructions to them (Wu
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& Keysar 2007).

Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 Cross-cultural research on self-awareness also
identifies cultural divergences in frames of reference.
When individuals are aware of how they appear to
others, they are said to be in the state of objective
self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund 1972), and this
leads to a number of predictable response (e.g.,
people become more self-critical and are less likely to
engage in counter-normative behaviors; Diener &
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Wallbom 1976, Fejfar & Hoyle 2000).

Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 In a state of objective self-awareness, people are aware of
how they appear as an object (a “me”) in contrast to the
experience of being a subject (an “I”). To the extent that
East Asians are aware of an audience and adjust their
behaviors to that audience, they would more likely be in a
habitual state of objective self-awareness than would North
Americans. If this is the case, then stimuli that enhance
objective self-awareness (for example, seeing oneself in
front of a mirror) should have little effect on East Asians.
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Internal versus External Frame of Reference
 Even without a mirror present, East Asians should be considering themselves in
terms of how they appear to others. Some recent cross-cultural research
corroborates this hypothesis: whereas North Americans were more self-critical
and were less likely to cheat on a test when a mirror was present compared to
when it was absent, the presence of a mirror had no effect on Japanese for
either dependent variable (Heine et al. 2008b). Moreover, although North
American self-evaluations were much more positive that Japanese when the
mirror was not present, they were at relatively similar levels to Japanese when
they were in front of the mirror. One reason that self-evaluations tend to be so
much more positive for North Americans than for Japanese may be that North
Americans are less likely to consider how they appear to others. Objectively
constrains the ability to maintain a positive self-view.
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 BPA EC 1A UCC Congress

Thank you 2022-2023

GEC 001 Discovering the Self
Prof. Shiele Lipata

for listening Every Saturday 6pm –

Report:
9pm
The Self in Western and Eastern Thought
By: Mr. Jason S. Del Rosario

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