Consider these two examples:
Katie, a third grader in a small Midwestern city in the United States, decides to wear her favorite pink and purple dress with matching socks and ribbons on this important day of school. Her name is emblazoned on her backpack, which is also pink. She is especially excited and almost dances down the sidewalk to school, because this is her week to be the Star of the Week in her third-grade classroom. She has prepared a poster full of pictures and descriptions of the things that make her special and unique. It includes a picture of her bunny, Fluffy, and a story about how he likes spinach and dandelions; a picture of her with her best friend; and pictures of her family and her house. She gets to spend the opening period in class today describing these things and answering her classmates’ questions. Her teacher praises her clear handwriting and the creativity of the posters’ design before starting the day’s lessons.
Chie has also been eagerly anticipating this day in her third-grade classroom in a small city in Japan. She pulls on her navy school uniform and combs her hair into the required ponytail. She says good morning to her grandparents, who live with her family, before having breakfast. Her mother has prepared beans for breakfast, which she dislikes but she knows her grandmother enjoys them, so she takes a few bites without comment. As she walks to school with her mother, her eagerness is tinged with a bit of anxiety; it is her turn to be one of the class monitors, who lead the class in setting goals for the day, move the class from activity to activity, and end the day with a discussion of their success and failures in meeting their goals. She walks quietly to school with her mother, who helps her find the right line for entering the building.
These examples represent only snippets of the life of children in two different cultural contexts. But embedded in these small episodes are myriad cultural beliefs, values, norms, expectations, and practices for the good child, for how one grows into a mature person, and for the ways to be a well-socialized member of one’s group. In the first case, Katie’s family and school afford opportunities for her to identify and display the ways that she is special and distinctive, and they encourage her to develop her unique interests and preferences. In the second case, Chie’s family and school afford opportunities for her to learn to fit into the social group, to be a good member of her family and her class, and to put the needs of these important relationships before her own.
In this chapter, we refer to a community’s or society’s assemblage of beliefs, values, norms, expectations, and practices as cultural models—they are representations of the nature of persons, the ideal attributes of members of that society, and the goals of a well-functioning adult in the society. Cultural models of self are part of a larger universe of cultural models, defined as “presupposed, taken-for-granted models of the world that are widely shared (although not always to the exclusion of other, alternative models) by the members of a society and that play an enormous role in the understanding of that world and their behavior in it” (Quinn & Holland, 1987, p. 4; for similar constructs see Markus, Mullaly, & Kitayama, 1997). These models are not necessarily explicit to people in a cultural group; instead, they are constituted by norms, beliefs, injunctions, socialization practices, and institutions that convey a particular conception of the person and persons’ place in society. Cultural models organize a group’s knowledge, beliefs, practices, and emotions regarding specific social institutions, such as marriage, parent-child relationships, emotion, commerce, and education. Cultural models of self may vary for men and women and for people in different strata or positions in the society (Cross & Madson, 1997; Stephens, Markus, & Fryberg, 2012), and in some societies, they are more diverse and flexible than in others (Gelfand, 2012).
To date, most psychological research on cultural models of self has focused on two primary models (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; see Markus & Kitayama, 1994 for the historical and philosophical foundations of these cultural models): one that represents persons as basically independent of others (i.e., independent self-construal) and another that represents persons as basically interdependent with others (i.e., interdependent self-construal). The independent model is a conception of the self that frames the person as a bounded, unique, independent entity who is fundamentally, morally, and legally prior to society (Geertz, 1975). The independent, autonomous adult is assumed to be free to enter and exit relationships and roles at will, and his or her primary obligation is to discover, enhance, and express his or her strengths, abilities, desires, and goals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 1994). The mature self is viewed as relatively stable and consistent, and the ideal person expresses an authentic or “real” self across situations. Belonging and intimacy are critical needs for all persons, but for persons with independent self-construal, close relationships and group memberships are inherently voluntary and ideally serve to enhance and fulfill one’s own goals and desires.
The interdependent model, in contrast, frames the person as fundamentally connected to others; the self is defined at least in part in terms of relationships with others and social roles (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989). Boundaries between the self and close others are porous, open, and flexible. Roles and relationships are prior to the individual, and so the good, socially approved person must fit into and strive to meet the standards of particular relationships and roles. Consequently, the self is understood to be flexible, malleable, and situation-specific. Maintenance of harmony in close relationships and social groups is a core goal of persons with interdependent self-construal.
Since the initial elaboration of these two cultural models of self by Markus and Kitayama (1991) and Triandis (1989), researchers have acknowledged that these two ways of thinking about the person are available to all people, but they are emphasized to different degrees in different cultural contexts. In Western, individualistic cultural contexts, an emphasis is placed on the independent self-construal, but people also have conceptions of themselves as interdependent with others. Likewise, in East Asian, collectivist cultural contexts, the interdependent self-construal is emphasized, but people also have conceptions of themselves as independent and separate from others.
In addition, since the initial theoretical papers, other variations on these cultural models have been articulated, including a relational-interdependent self-construal, in which close relationships (rather than group memberships) are the specific focus of self-definition (Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000). Others have identified ways that culturally specific ways of thinking—specifically, dialecticism—influence self-views (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Spencer-Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010; see Boucher & English, Volume 3, Chapter 7 in this book set). Interdependence reflects the interrelatedness of the self and others (such as ingroup members), whereas dialecticism is a mode of cognition that taps contradiction and change; there are cultures that are interdependent and dialectical (e.g., East Asians) and cultures that are interdependent but not dialectical (e.g., Africans and Latino Americans).
Research thus far on cultural models of self has had a relatively narrow focus on European heritage (which we will abbreviate as EuH) and Asian heritage (abbreviated as AH) cultural groups. Research in EuH contexts has included participants in North America (the United States and Canada), Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Research in AH contexts has tended to focus on Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and India. We recognize that lumping together fairly diverse groups of people under these broad umbrella terms is problematic, and we strive to be specific in the rest of the chapter about the national origins of the participants in studies. These umbrella terms, however, are useful in differentiating groups with very different philosophical, religious, and political backgrounds, which have shaped psychological phenomena over the centuries (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001).
Furthermore, these models are useful starting points for examination of models of self in other groups, and research from other cultural contexts is emerging (Adams, 2005; Kağitçiba¸si, 2005; Ma & Schoeneman, 1997). For example, Chinese and Turkish cultural contexts both foreground an interdependent model of self, but the ways in which that model is expressed varies (Güngör, Karasawa, Boiger, Dinçer, & Mesquita, 2014; Leung & Cohen, 2011). In addition, working class contexts in the United States tend to promote an interdependent model of self (Stephens, Markus, & Phillips, 2014). In the remainder of this chapter, we highlight the evidence linking independent and interdependent models to cultural variation in cognition, emotion, motivation, and social behavior, and we briefly go beyond these domains to review research in neuroscience and other cultural contexts.
Since the initial attempt to conceptualize independent and interdependent models of self by Markus and Kitayama (1991), researchers have developed a variety of ways to measure cultural models of self (Markus & Kitayama, 2010). Many early studies relied on comparing samples from EuH and AH cultures, assuming that they differ on the dimensions of independence and interdependence. Few, however, actually measured these dimensions empirically (Matsumoto, 1999). Despite efforts to refine the self-report measurement of independence and interdependence, findings are mixed regarding differences in models of self across cultures. Indeed, a recent large-scale multinational study by Vignoles and colleagues (2016) suggests that cultural models of self are represented in multiple dimensions, not simply a broad distinction between independence and interdependence (see also Hardin, 2006). Priming techniques have been developed to make models of self situationally accessible in experimental settings, but the underlying mechanisms (i.e., what have been primed) are still open to discussion (Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Oyserman & Lee, 2008). To reflect the development in the measurement of models of self, some of the research reviewed below examines the consequences of variation in these self-construals within a single cultural context rather than across contexts, through the use of measures of the constructs, priming, or other manipulations.
Cultural models provide content, structure, and processes for people’s beliefs and views about themselves. Cultural practices, values, ideals, and environments afford a smorgasbord of attributes, abilities, preferences, and beliefs that their members can use to describe themselves, from very individuating personal attributes (I am the best trumpet player in my school) to shared, group-oriented attributes (I am a member of my school orchestra). Some cultural models promote a structure that is stable and consistent across situations, whereas other models promote a structure that is flexible and changes across situations. Finally, some models direct attention to positive aspects of the self and minimize attention to negative aspects, whereas other models direct attention to both. In this section, we first address how cultural models shape individuals’ self-views and attitudes toward themselves, and then how these self-views in turn influence other cognitive processes.
“Who are you?” is the prompt that has been used most often to uncover variation in models of self. When the responses of Chinese and Japanese participants were compared to those of American participants, M. H. Bond and Cheung (1983) found that AH participants reported more social, collective, or group-oriented self-views than did EuH participants (for variations on this approach, see del Prado et al., 2007; Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001; Rhee, Uleman, Lee, & Roman, 1995). In addition, people from AH cultural backgrounds tend to be more sensitive to situations and to contexts in their spontaneous self-descriptions compared to those from EuH backgrounds. In EuH contexts, individuals are expected to be consistent across situations; the ideal self is stable across situations and directs behavior consistently. In contrast, in AH contexts, the ideal self is malleable and fluid; it adapts to situations and relationships. As Hamaguchi (1985) wrote about the self in Japanese contexts, “[Selfness] is not a constant like the ego but denotes a fluid concept which changes through time and situations according to interpersonal relationships” (p. 302).
This difference in malleability of the self has been demonstrated in a variety of ways: placing participants in different contexts (e.g., alone, with a peer, with a faculty member) and comparing their spontaneous responses to the “Who am I?” question (Kanagawa et al., 2001), asking participants to describe themselves in different roles and relationships (Boucher, 2011; Church et al., 2012; Church et al., 2008; Miyamoto, Knoepfler, Ishii, & Ji, 2013; E. M. Suh, 2002), using ratings by self and others (Katigbak et al., 2013), and through repeated measures of self-descriptions in a daily diary study (Church et al., 2013; see also Gage, Coker, & Jobson, 2015).
For AH people, their “true self” may reflect their context-specific selves rather than a global self-view, whereas EuH people see such varying self-conceptualization across contexts as inauthentic (Boucher, 2011; English & Chen, 2011; Kashima et al., 2004). Accordingly, AH people hold their distinctive context-specific selves (myself with my family; myself with my close friends) to be consistent over time, which may help maintain relationship functioning. Evidence from different longitudinal studies has suggested that AH people’s (Asian Americans) self-descriptions within contexts are relatively stable across time (e.g., English & Chen, 2007, 2011). In short, while AH people recognize and experience constantly changing self-concepts, their context-specific self-views are relatively stable and consistent. In comparison, EuH people define themselves in terms of internal attributes that are stable and consistent across contexts.
The context sensitivity that marks high levels of interdependent self-construal also extends beyond self-views to other cognitive processes. People from AH societies are more likely than those from EuH societies to pay attention to and remember the context of an event, which has been called holistic thinking (Nisbett et al., 2001). In contrast, people from EuH societies tend to focus on the central elements in an event or display and pay relatively less attention to background or contextual features, which has been called analytical thinking (Nisbett et al., 2001; see Ishii, 2013, for a review).
One of the most often used tests of this difference in cognition is a task in which participants watch a video of fish in an underwater scene and then are asked to recall what they saw (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Japanese and other AH participants are more likely than American and other EuH participants to recall background elements of the scene (fish are the target objects) and relations among parts of the scene (a frog and rocks on the bottom, fish swimming above the seaweed; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Attention research reveals that it is not just that AH participants pay more attention to the background than do EuH participants but also that the target object and the background are bound together in memory. This was demonstrated in a study in which participants were shown scenes of common animals against different backgrounds (e.g., in a desert, a jungle, or a snowy forest; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). Then later, the participants were shown the animals again, either with the original background or a novel background. The American participants’ recall of the animals they saw initially was influenced very little by the background; they seemed to have focused on the animal itself and disregarded the context. The Japanese participants, however, were strongly influenced by the background; they had good memory for the animals when they were presented with the original background, but poor memory when the background was different. The authors concluded that the animal and the context are encoded together for Japanese participants. Another study using a change blindness paradigm also supports differing attention to the focal object or the context for these two groups: Japanese were more likely to identify subtle changes in the background of two scenes than were Americans, whereas Americans were more like to identify subtle changes in the target object in two scenes than were Japanese (Masuda & Nisbett, 2006).
Other research shows that indicators of independent and interdependent self-construals account for cultural differences in analytical versus holistic processing (Grossmann & Varnum, 2011; Lewis, Goto, & Kong, 2008; but see Kitayama, Park, Sevincer, Karasawa, & Uskul, 2009 for conflicting findings). This cultural difference emerges by the time children are 9 years old, with Japanese children showing higher levels of holistic thinking than American children (Imada, Carlson, & Itakura, 2013).
This differing tendency to attend to contextual factors also influences attribution. In contrast to the EuH people’s tendency to ignore situational factors and to attribute others’ behavior primarily to their internal characteristics and dispositions, people from AH backgrounds tend to take the situation and the context into account when explaining others’ behavior (Miller, 1984; Morris & Peng, 1994). For example, participants in Morris and Peng’s (1994) research were asked to watch scenes of fish swimming; in some scenes, an individual fish swam away from or separated from the school of fish. When asked to explain the individual fish’s behavior, American participants were more likely than Chinese participants to attribute the individual fish’s behavior to its internal attributes or desires (e.g., “the individual wanted to leave the group”). In contrast, Chinese participants were more likely to refer to aspects of the group of fish when describing the individual fish’s behavior (e.g., “the group rejected the individual”). Similarly, research with EuH (American and German) participants using self-construal priming methods also finds lower levels of internal, dispositional attributions when interdependence is made accessible (through priming) compared to when independence is made accessible (Kühnen, Hannover, Pöhlmann, & Roeder, 2013; Oishi, Wyer, & Colcombe, 2000).
Models of self are linked to variation in other types of social cognitive processes. For example, interdependence-primed participants are more likely than independence-primed participants to take another person’s prior knowledge or position on a topic into account when providing information or preparing for a debate (Gardner & Le, 2000, as reported in Gardner & Seeley, 2001; Haberstroh, Oyserman, Schwarz, Kühnen, & Ji, 2002; S. Wu & Keysar, 2007). People with highly interdependent self-construal are also more likely than those with highly independent self-construal to take into account social norms or others’ views about their behavior (Torelli, 2006; Trafimow & Finlay, 1996). For instance, Y. Kim, Cohen, and Au (2010) found that Hong Kong Chinese tended to absorb the evaluations of others into their own self-views, especially when the evaluation was public or available to others. In contrast, European Americans tended to ignore or oppose others’ evaluations of themselves, rejecting that information even when it was positive. To paraphrase these authors’ conclusions, in the interdependent model of self, individuals see themselves through the eyes of others; in contrast, in the independent model, the self is sovereign, and individuals studiously avoid letting others define them.
Finally, the degree to which independent versus interdependent self-construals are made situationally accessible influences nonsocial cognitive processes. For example, when the independent self-construal of EuH (American and German) participants was primed (compared to when the interdependent self-construal was primed), participants were better able to identify a small figure embedded within a larger complex figure (Kühnen, Hannover, & Schubert, 2001) or to identify the small letters that make up a larger letter in a letter identification task (Kühnen & Oyserman, 2002). When the interdependent self-construal is activated, EuH participants were better able to remember the spatial location of objects in an array, compared to people whose independent self-construal was activated. This suggests that the participants encoded the location of the objects (the context) along with the objects themselves. A set of studies using both AH (Korean, Hong Kong Chinese, and East Asian Americans) and EuH (Americans of diverse ethnic backgrounds) participants showed that interdependence priming led to faster and more accurate performance on tasks that required assimilation or connection and independent priming led to faster and more accurate performance on tasks that required contrast and separation, regardless of the participants’ cultural backgrounds (Oyserman, Sorensen, Reber, & Chen, 2009).
In summary, cultural models of self influence cognition in a variety of ways. They shape both explicit self-descriptions and implicit or automatic cognitive processes, such as context-sensitive (or holistic) cognition, perspective taking, and attribution.
Happiness rests in misery
Misery hides in happiness
Who knows where they end. (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 58)
Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast. (Norman Vincent Peale, 1898–1993, Protestant preacher and author)
These two quotes reveal quite different cultural orientations toward the experience and expression of emotion. Cultural models of self provide an implicit architecture for emotions that are valued and encouraged and those that are disvalued and discouraged. Focal emotions are emotions that are highly cognized in a particular culture, experienced frequently, and expressed with great intensity (Mesquita & Leu, 2007). In cultures with dominant interdependent models of self, emotions that bind the individual to others and that enhance interpersonal ties are often focal; these include empathy, shame, embarrassment, and respect (termed interpersonally engaged emotions by Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000). Conversely, in cultures with dominant independent models of self, emotions that reflect the individual’s uniqueness, specialness, and separateness from others are often focal; these include pride, anger, and frustration (termed interpersonally disengaged emotions). Kitayama, Mesquita, and Karasawa (2006) found that for Japanese participants, feeling good in general was associated with feelings of positive interpersonally engaging emotions; they felt good when their emotions connected them with others. In contrast, for European American participants, feeling good in general was associated with interpersonally disengaged emotions; they felt good when their emotions distinguished them from others (see also Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida, & Barrett, 2013; Savani, Alvarez, Mesquita, & Markus, 2013). Similarly, pride, a socially disengaging emotion, was viewed more positively by members of EuH cultures (Australia and the United States) than by members of AH cultures (China and Taiwan; Eid & Diener, 2001). Pride at important others’ achievement, however, is consistent with an interdependent model of self and was found to be more commonly experienced by Chinese than by Germans (Neumann, Steinhäuser, & Roeder, 2009).
Likewise, some emotions are valued more in one cultural context than in another. Tsai, Knutson, and Fung (2006) have found that EuH people (European Americans) prefer high arousal positive emotions, while AH people (Asian Americans and Hong Kong Chinese) prefer low arousal positive emotions. They argue that high arousal positive emotions, such as excitement, are especially valued in cultures with an independent model of self. In specific, high arousal is associated with exerting influence in social interactions, and high arousal emotions that communicate confidence and self-assurance are more likely to be influential (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, & Yeung, 2007). In cultures that promote an interdependent model of self, low arousal positive emotions are emphasized, because they facilitate the cultural ideal of adjusting to others. When people have adjustment goals in interpersonal interactions, they must restrain their own opinions and reactions and attend to the needs and wishes of the others in the situation. High levels of arousal can impair this process, so people from contexts that value an interdependent model should strive for low-arousal states. Tsai and her colleagues have demonstrated these cultural differences in ideal emotion in a variety of contexts. For example, Taiwanese children’s books show children expressing low-arousal positive affect (such as smaller smiles) more than do American children’s books (Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida, 2007).
Happiness occupies a particularly important place in the independent model of self (as reflected in the quote by Norman Vincent Peale, above). At least in the United States, happiness is a central goal of life; it is enshrined in founding cultural documents such as the Declaration of Independence (1776), where the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness were proclaimed the chief goals of the new country. Individual happiness connotes that the person is accomplishing his or her goals, is acquiring positive attributes, and is fitting into the cultural model of the good person (Kan, Karasawa, & Kitayama, 2009). When asked to describe features of happiness, American undergraduates’ responses included large numbers of statements about positive hedonic characteristics (joy, excitement) and independence-related statements about individual achievements, possessions, and accomplishments (Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). A smaller proportion of interdependence-related statements referred to interpersonal relationships. In Japan, however, happiness is conceptualized somewhat differently. Along with the three categories of statements mentioned above (hedonic, independent, and interdependent), Japanese undergraduates also mentioned statements that expressed the fluid or transitory nature of happiness, or its negative consequences (such as “failure to pay due attention to others”). Building on these findings, Kan et al. (2009) argue that this reflects a “minimalist” understanding of happiness in Japan, which focuses on gratitude and peaceful disengagement with the world. This understanding of happiness facilitates fitting in and embeddedness in relationships and the social environment, and so reflects the interdependent model of self. Indeed, Kan and her colleagues suggested that previous findings of lower levels of happiness among East Asians might be due to biased measures that tap independent conceptions of what it means to be happy.
Culture influences the consequences of these models of self for well-being. Since the time of William James (1890/1981), who argued that the person who changes to fit the situation has a “sick self,” Western researchers have argued that a divided or inconsistent self is associated with poor adjustment and well-being. Indeed, research using several different operationalizations of self-inconsistency has found inconsistency is related to low levels of psychological adjustment and well-being (e.g., Baird & Lucas, 2011; Donahue, Robins, Roberts, & John, 1993). This association, however, seems to be contingent on an independent model of self; in contexts that value interdependence, the association between self-inconsistency (or context sensitivity) and poor well-being is much smaller, or even reversed. For example, E. M. Suh (2002) compared the association of participants’ identity consistency and other’s appraisals of the participants with participants’ life satisfaction in the United States and South Korea. In the United States, identity consistency across situations was more strongly related to life satisfaction than were others’ appraisals of the individual, but the opposite was the case in South Korea (see also Boucher, 2011). A recent meta-analysis found support for the moderating role of culture in this association; the correlation between self-concept differentiation and psychological maladjustment was much smaller in less individualistic countries (e.g., Ecuador, Bangladesh) than in more individualistic countries (e.g., the Netherlands, the United States; Bleidorn & Ködding, 2013).
Other aspects of emotion also predict well-being differently in cultures with different models of self. In EuH cultural contexts that value independence from others, high levels of positive emotions and low levels of negative emotions tend to be associated with well-being (S. Cohen & Pressman, 2006). In AH contexts that value interdependence, personal emotions play a smaller role and living up to normative expectations plays a larger role in well-being and life satisfaction. A large multicountry study demonstrated this pattern: emotional experience but not norms were strongly positively related to life satisfaction in individualist cultural contexts, but emotions and normative beliefs equally predicted individuals’ life satisfaction in collectivist contexts (E. Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). In a different vein, research comparing the relations of negative affect to (poor) health and well-being reveals that this association is much stronger in the United States (where the independent model of self encourages avoidance of negative emotions) than in Japan (where there is more acceptance of negative emotions; Curhan et al., 2014).
Likewise, suppression of emotion is associated with lower levels of well-being in independent contexts (Gross & John, 2003) and expression of negative emotions, in turn, enhances well-being (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999). This is consistent with the notion that the independent self should be expressed authentically; suppression of emotion suggests that the person cannot be his or her “real” self. Indeed, EuH cultural metaphors and expressions represent “bottled-up” emotions as potentially explosive or dangerous; people need to “blow off steam” or “release” their negative emotions so that they do not cause harm or damage to the individual. In contexts where being interdependent with others and fitting into one’s social niches is valued, however, control of one’s emotions and suppression where necessary may allow the person to adjust and promote harmony in relationships (Matsumoto, 1993; Russell & Yik, 1996). A growing research literature shows that affect suppression does not have the negative consequences in AH cultural groups (Asian Americans and Chinese Singaporeans) that are often found in EuH cultural groups (e.g., European Americans; Butler, Lee, & Gross, 2007; Su, Lee, & Oishi, 2013).
In short, winning an award may prompt effusive happiness or a calm satisfaction tinged with a fear of others’ jealousy, depending on one’s model of self and cultural context (Zhang & Cross, 2011). As researchers understand the cultural models that afford these differing reactions, their theories and research methods will begin to move away from EuH-centric assumptions and will move toward more globally relevant constructs, processes, and methods.
Commencement speeches are one of the ways that communities communicate to young people the goals and purposes of life, and what kinds of selves can best accomplish those goals. In an address to graduates of Stanford University, Steve Jobs, the brain behind Apple computers and iPhones for many years, included these comments:
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. (Steve Jobs’s commencement address, Stanford University, June 14, 2005)
Jobs’s speech models an independent way of being a person: live life the way you want to, do not let others’ voices lead you astray, and follow your own heart and desires. In contrast, a commencement speech at Chinese University of Hong Kong made these recommendations to students who would be future leaders in their society:
What can we learn from a great leader? First, be humble. … Humility means that you see yourself being equal and not above the crowd that you are leading. Humility means that you are willing to listen and accept opinions that are different from yours, not seeing yourself as the wisest. … If you are humble as a servant, if you are knowledgeable and visionary, and if you engage your stakeholders and leave no one behind, you will lead your team, your organization, your country to the next level of prosperity and harmony. (Mok Hing Yiu, President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, November 20, 2014)
President Mok’s words to graduates in his university emphasize a different goal of life—serving others in humility and seeking to promote the well-being of others. The commencement speech in this case serves as an opportunity to remind the graduates of the importance of working for and in the group for the betterment of all. In these and myriad other ways, cultures afford opportunities to accomplish one’s unique, independent, and separate goals (in cultures that emphasize independence) or to accomplish goals of being good group members, harmonizing with others, and working through others. In the following sections, we review research that shows how these cultural models configure a variety of components of motivation.
For individuals from EuH cultural contexts, a central goal is to promote one’s own interests, desires, and choices. For individuals from AH cultural contexts, a central goal is to be a good group member, to fit into the immediate social context, and to play one’s proper role in a situation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). This distinction was elaborated by Morling, Kitayama, and Miyamoto (2002), who contend that members of EuH cultural groups strive to influence others and to change the situation to fit the self (termed “influence” in their work), whereas members of AH cultural groups seek to adjust themselves to fit with others and the situation (termed “adjustment”). Morling et al. (2002) examined reports generated by Japanese and American participants who were asked to describe situations in which they had attempted to influence people or events and situations in which they had adjusted to other people or events. As expected, participants from the United States remembered more influence situations than adjustment situations, whereas the reverse was true for the Japanese participants. A second group of Japanese and American participants rated a randomly selected sample of influence and adjustment situations (half from each cultural group) on two dimensions: the extent to which being in the situation would make them feel (a) competent or powerful versus incompetent or powerless (labeled efficacy) and (b) interdependent or merged with others versus independent and separated from others (termed relatedness). Both Americans and Japanese rated the American-generated influence situations as evoking more efficacy than the Japanese-generated situations. Likewise, the Japanese adjustment situations evoked more relatedness than did the American-generated adjustment situations. In another study, when asked to report their use of influence and adjustment several times a week, Asian American students reported more adjustment than did European Americans (but there were no differences in influence strategies; Boiger, Mesquita, Tsai, & Markus, 2012).
Others scholars have framed cultural variation in motivation in terms of agency, or “culturally situated, intentionally based behavior” (Markus & Kitayama, 2004, p. 4). Markus and Kitayama (2004) articulate two prototypical models of action that derive from cultural models of self. The form of agency most common in societies that promote the independent self, termed disjoint agency, results from the goals to express and affirm the “true” or authentic individual self and the belief that each person’s actions express his or her own preferences and choices. In contrast, the form of agency most common in societies that promote the interdependent self, termed conjoint agency, is relationship-focused; it reflects the dynamics of the person’s current relationships and roles and is responsive to the obligations and expectations of others (see also Voyer & Franks, 2014).
Research outside East Asian contexts suggests that conjoint agency may have different forms in different cultural contexts. Although both Japan and Turkey have been described as collectivist cultures with conjoint forms of agency, Japanese forms emphasize conformity to social norms and expectations in relationships, expressed in the saying, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” In contrast, Turkish forms of conjoint agency emphasize relatedness and closeness to others, as expressed in the saying, “The sheep that separates from the flock is devoured by the wolf” (Güngör et al., 2014). Güngör and her colleagues found that, indeed, Japanese participants tended to value conformity more than Turkish participants, and Turkish participants valued relatedness more than did Japanese. Moreover, these forms of agency (conformity vs. relatedness) predicted relational well-being differently in the two groups: conformity was a strong positive predictor of relational well-being among Japanese but not Turks, whereas relatedness was a stronger predictor of relational well-being among Turks than among Japanese. These differences in forms of agency map onto the distinction between “face” (i.e., Japan) and “honor” (Turkey) cultures described by Leung and Cohen (2011), which suggests that further research into culturally appropriate forms of agency may uncover an even greater variety of strategies people use to act in their worlds.
These differing models of agency help explain the ways that members of AH and EuH cultural groups understand and express choice. EuH psychologists have long promoted the notion of personal choice as the grounds for persistence and on-going motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). In the conjoint model of agency, however, personal choice is subordinated to the expectations and desires of important relationship partners and ingroups. In one of the first demonstrations of this difference, Iyengar and Lepper (1999) examined the effects of making a personal choice versus having one’s choices decided by one’s mother for the persistence and motivation of European American and Asian American children working on an anagram task. The European American children performed best on the anagrams when they had chosen what to work on themselves, whereas the Asian American children performed best when their mothers had chosen for them. As adults, AH people are also more likely than those of EuH to look to their families for guidance in their significant choices, such as those of careers and spouses (Miller, Das, & Chakravarthy, 2011).
Even relatively minor decisions are viewed differently in these cultural contexts. Americans are more likely to view small, inconsequential decisions as “choices” than are South Asian Indians, as shown in a study by Savani, Markus, Naidu, Kumar, and Berlia (2010). In this study, American and Indian participants were given a variety of small decisions to make in the course of a laboratory study: the choice of two chairs to sit in, two pens to use, two consent forms to sign, and so forth. Afterward, the experimenters asked participants to estimate how many choices they had made. Americans recalled many more of their actions as “choices” than did the Indians. Furthermore, the importance of the behavior was positively related to the likelihood that it was construed as a “choice” by the Americans, but it was negatively related to construal as a choice for Indians. Savani and his colleagues conclude that for Americans, choices are strongly linked to personal preferences, and they express the person’s independent, individual self. In contrast, for Indians, the link between choices and preferences is weaker; many choices are made with significant others’ or important ingroups’ preferences and wishes in mind (Savani, Markus, & Conner, 2008).
This difference in the role of choice in motivation is perhaps most apparent in studies that attempted to replicate a classic cognitive dissonance paradigm: the “free choice” paradigm. This paradigm simulates how individuals tend to behave once they have decided between two very similar choices. Should you rent the apartment next to the park or the one near the bus stop? Both options have pros and cons, and when a person makes the decision to pick one option over the other (such as the apartment by the park), the cons of that option and the pros of the other option create dissonance. To resolve the dissonance, research in largely EuH contexts shows that people tend to rationalize their decision by emphasizing the advantages of the chosen option (I will be more likely to get good exercise) and minimizing its disadvantages (Having to walk further to the bus will be good for me). Likewise, people tend to minimize the advantages of the rejected option. Consequently, people tend to see more distinctions between the options after they have made the choice than beforehand.
For many years, attempts to replicate these findings in Japan failed. In a review, Heine and Lehman (1997) suggest that when the self is interdependent with others and one’s roles and relationships are primary grounds for self-definition, then individual choices may not create substantial amounts of dissonance. More recently, research has shown that making choices that involve others can create dissonance for individuals with interdependent selves. For example, when Japanese participants simulated ordering food from a restaurant for others to eat, they were more likely to show dissonance than when ordering only for themselves (but European Canadians did not; Hoshino-Browne et al., 2005). Japanese participants also demonstrated dissonance reduction when completing a choice task in a small room with a poster of stylized eyes that appeared to be watching the participants (whereas Americans showed little dissonance reduction in this condition; Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki, 2004; see also Imada & Kitayama, 2010). These dissonance studies support the conjoint model of agency, in that choices made for others or with observers in mind are much more likely to create dissonance than are choices made for the self among people with an interdependent model of self.
Finally, the independent model of self promotes self-expression and self-enhancement; cognitive processes that focus on the individual’s positive attributes or behaviors and minimize negative characteristics or behaviors tend to predict well-being and adjustment (Taylor & Brown, 1988). In contrast, the interdependent model of self promotes the importance of harmony with others and the necessity of changing the self to fit into the situation (Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997); consequently, individuals tend to be more self-critical and less self-enhancing than in Western contexts (Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). For example, Kanagawa and her colleagues (2001) asked Japanese and American women to describe themselves using the Twenty Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). They found that Japanese women were much more likely to spontaneously mention negative attributes about themselves than were American women. Some researchers, however, have argued that self-enhancement is a basic or core motive and that cultural differences are reduced when self-enhancement on culturally valued dimensions is compared (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003). This work has been criticized, however, on a variety of grounds. For example, the method frequently used by Sedikides and his colleagues, where participants compare themselves to the average person on a dimension, has been criticized for being biased; individuals tend to rate most targets, including themselves, as better than the average object in the category (see Klar & Giladi, 1997, for a review). The majority of research using other methods shows that EuH participants engage in self-enhancement more than do AH participants (Heine & Hamamura, 2007).
In summary, cultural models of self have the important function of directing our intention and motivation, such that the independent model emphasizes individual preferences and choices and influence over situations, whereas the interdependent model highlights the importance of adjusting to others and the environment. In the next section, we briefly review how this motivational function of cultural models of self plays out in social and interpersonal behavior.
Dear Abby is a widely read advice columnist in the United States. In one of her columns, she responded to a wife’s concern that her husband wants to spend every holiday and vacation with his parents. Dear Abby’s response is very familiar to most Americans’ ears: your husband should let go of his parents and the two of you should spend some vacation time alone. She encouraged the couple to assert their independence and develop their own family traditions, separate from her husband’s parents.
Indeed, establishing independence from one’s spouse’s parents may be wise from a EuH perspective. After all, the couple in a European American family is the most central and sacred unit (Shweder, Balle-Jensen, & Goldstein, 2003). Moreover, EuH married individuals are expected to develop firm boundaries from their families of origin, such that the couple forms a strong and autonomous unit (Bryant, Conger, & Meehan, 2001). Indeed, establishing relationships with in-laws is often viewed as voluntary and based on one’s personal choice. In contrast, for people from AH cultures, avoiding in-laws is less likely an option; a wife is taught to serve her in-laws as if they were her parents. Marriages in AH cultures are sometimes described as bridges between two extended families, and hence marriages are an important component in the extended family system—rather than a unique and separate bonding.
Cultural models of self have been used to predict and understand differences in the concept of love and mate preferences across cultures. Scholars have argued that in EuH societies that emphasize personal choice and autonomous pursuit of personal goals, romantic love and fulfillment of personal needs are considered more important than family concerns for dating and marital relationships (Dion & Dion, 1993). In contrast, in AH societies, where maintaining relationships with ingroup members and striving for group harmony and solidarity are highly valued, personal concerns in marriage decisions are often balanced by family-related concerns (Hsu, 1981).
In terms of mate preferences, Chinese are more likely to select partners who are high in social status and filial piety (e.g., take care of parents when old) than are Americans (Kline & Zhang, 2009). These differences can be explained by interdependent self-construal (Lam et al., 2016). That is, Chinese are more likely than Americans to value attributes tapping social status and filial piety of their future spouse because they tend to define themselves in an interdependent way. Furthermore, the value of filial piety is also reflected in Chinese people’s prioritization of the marital or parental relationship. When Chinese and European Americans were posed with a dilemma in which their mother and their spouse were trapped together in a burning house and they could save only one of them (i.e., a life-or-death situation), more than twice as many Chinese chose to save their mother (66%) than did European Americans (33%; T. Wu, Cross, Wu, Cho, & Tey, 2016). In an everyday situation (fetching something from a store for one’s mother or spouse), a similar pattern was observed: Cultural differences in the tendency to help one’s mother rather than one’s spouse were mediated by Chinese people’s closeness and feelings of obligation toward their mothers compared to European Americans.
In short, EuH relationship research often investigates love and marriage through the lens of an autonomous, independent individual. Cultural models of self provide an alternative view of love and marriage from an AH perspective. Importantly, cross-cultural research has found important constructs in AH relationships (e.g., extended family and filial piety) that are often overlooked in the EuH relationship contexts.
Models of self are linked to how an individual orients himself or herself in the social world. For instance, people who are high in interdependent self-construal tend to sit closer to another person in a lab situation than do those who are high in independent self-construal (Holland, Roeder, van Baaren, Brandt, & Hannover, 2004). Priming interdependent self, compared to independent self, increases imitation of the behavior of another person, which facilitates interpersonal interaction (van Baaren, Maddux, Chartrand, de Bouter, & van Knippenberg, 2003).
Independent and interdependent models of self are related to people’s communication styles (Gudykunst et al., 1996; M.-S. Kim, Sharkey, & Singelis, 1994) and conflict resolution styles (e.g., Holt & DeVore, 2005; Ting-Toomey, Oetzel, & Yee-Jung, 2001). In general, independent self is related to direct, open, and expressive communication as well as the use of assertive and dominating conflict resolution strategies, whereas interdependent self is related to indirect communication and the use of avoidance strategies to maintain harmonious relationships. For example, Sinclair and Fehr (2005) found that independent self is associated with the use of an active, constructive strategy (voice or direct expression) to deal with relationship conflict, whereas interdependent self is associated with the use of a passive, constructive strategy (loyalty or waiting for conditions to improve). Self-construals also influence self-presentation styles; independent self-construal increases self-enhancing presentations, whereas interdependent self-construal increases socially appropriate presentations (Lalwani & Shavitt, 2009).
Individuals’ behavior in groups varies as a function of cultural models of self. People with independent models primarily attend to self-interest and personal goals, whereas people with interdependent models tend to serve the group and conform to group norms. For instance, participants primed with independent self-construal were more likely to serve their individual goals (put less money in an investment game) rather than their group’s goals, especially when the task stressed individual outcomes rather than collective outcomes (Liu & Li, 2009). Moreover, newcomers to a group who have low independent and high interdependent self-construals are more likely to think that group goals benefit individual goals, compared to those who are high in independence and low in interdependence (Täuber & Sassenberg, 2012).
Further, people from AH cultures show more conformity than people from EuH cultures (R. Bond & Smith, 1996; H. Kim & Markus, 1999). In a study of conformity to different forms of norms, American participants primed with interdependent self-construal were more likely to conform to a group approved norm (e.g., others think that one should stay for the full hour to complete extra surveys) than those who were primed with independent self-construal (Jacobson, 2010). However, self-construal priming had no effect on a norm that involved perception of the typicality of others’ behavior (e.g., many others stay for the full hour to complete extra surveys).
Taken together, conceptualizing oneself to be independent of others or interdependent with others has consequences for how the individual behaves in groups. Moreover, using self-construals to understand group dynamics in organizational and work settings has proven to be fruitful (e.g., Johnson, Selenta, & Lord, 2006; van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004).
Researchers around the world have begun to take the initial conceptualization of independent and interdependent self-construals in new directions and to investigate new cultural models of self. In the sections below, we briefly review a few of these directions, focusing on research in neuroscience, variations on self-construal, and research on social class.
In recent decades, the interdisciplinary area of cultural neuroscience, which integrates theories in cultural psychology and techniques of neuroscience, has gained increasing attention. Using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) that record brain activities, researchers are able to observe culturally shaped self-processes by “scanning” people’s brain when they are engaged in self-relevant tasks. We summarize some of these major findings below; interested readers can refer to several comprehensive reviews on this topic (e.g., Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, & Blizinsky, 2013; Kitayama & Uskul, 2011; see also Rule, Mar, & Bjornsdottir, Volume 3, Chapter 3 in this book set).
Do neural representations of the self and others differ between EuH and AH cultures? In one prominent study, Zhu, Zhang, Fan, and Han (2007) asked Chinese and EuH participants to make judgments about themselves, their mothers, and a public person (a general other) while the participants’ brain activities were recorded by fMRI. They found that the ventral portion of medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) showed stronger activity when both EuH participants and Chinese made judgments about themselves compared to a public person. This is consistent with previous findings that MPFC is involved in people’s self-reflection and self-knowledge (e.g., Kelley et al., 2002; Lieberman, Jarcho, & Satpute, 2004). More important, they observed an increase in activity in MPFC when Chinese participants made judgments about their mothers, whereas EuH participants showed reduced MPFC activity doing the same task. These differences in neural activity are in line with the cultural models of self, such that EuH people’s MPFC activity reflects the distinction between oneself and others (independent model), whereas Chinese people’s MPFC activity indicates a shared neural representation of the self and mother (interdependent model). Subsequent studies have extended Zhu and colleagues’ (2007) findings to investigate cultural priming effects on brain activity. For instance, in a study of Hong Kong Chinese, after priming Chinese versus EuH cultures, participants were asked to make trait judgments of themselves, their mothers, and a significant but not intimate person (Ng, Han, Mao, & Lai, 2010). They found that in the Chinese prime condition, MPFC showed similar levels of activity for the judgments of the self, mother, and the significant person, whereas in the EuH prime condition, MPFC showed differential activity for self-judgments relative to judgments of others.
Neuroimaging research has examined how AH people’s contextualized views of themselves are reflected in their neural activity. Chiao and colleagues (2009b) found that individuals who are independent showed greater neural activity in the anterior rostral region of MPFC when they made general (e.g., “I am humble”) compared to contextual (e.g., “When talking to my mother, I am humble”) self-judgments. In contrast, people who are interdependent showed greater activation in MPFC for contextual relative to general self-judgments. Because MPFC plays a unique role in self-knowledge, its heightened activity when interdependent individuals describe themselves contextually reveals the importance of a contextualized self-view for these individuals (Chiao et al., 2009b). In line with this result, priming independence increases neural activity in MPFC when Asian Americans make context-free relative to contextual self-judgments, whereas priming interdependence showed the opposite pattern of neural activity in MPFC (Chiao et al., 2009a).
An increase in right frontal activity is observed in fMRI when individuals recognize their own faces (e.g., Platek et al., 2006). In a study of Chinese people’s self-face recognition, Sui and Han (2007) observed that an independence prime strengthened right frontal activity when people judged their own faces relative to familiar faces, whereas an interdependence prime did not show differential right frontal activity. The authors suggest that this is perhaps because the self is emphasized and salient under an independence compared to an interdependence prime.
Results from these neuroimaging studies are encouraging as they map cultural differences in various self-processes in our brain and provide empirical support for how short-term manipulation of cultural self shapes neural function, especially in the region of MPFC. These studies illustrate the interplay between cultural and neural processes in the understanding of the self. Future studies will continue to benefit from integrating various methods such as fMRI, EEG, self-report, behavioral data, and cultural priming, in the study of the self across cultural contexts.
More recently, researchers have distinguished a relationship-focused interdependent model of self from the group-oriented interdependent model (Brewer & Gardner, 1996; for a review, see Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-Swing, 2011). Cross and colleagues (2000) developed the Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal (RISC) Scale to measure the degree to which North American individuals define themselves in terms of important intimate relationships. Across studies, Cross et al. (2000) observed that highly relational individuals, compared to those who were low on this dimension, reported more relationships that were important to them and listed more relational factors that influenced their decision making. In addition, partners of highly relational people perceived them as more likely to disclose personal information and as more sensitive and responsive to others than lows (Gore, Cross, & Morris, 2006). People high in relational self experience better relational quality than those who are low, perhaps because they perform more relationship maintenance behaviors (mutual trust, self-disclosure, and being a good listener), and think that their friends fulfill more of their relationship goals (Morry, Hall, Mann, & Kito, 2014). When dealing with potential conflict situations, people high in relational self, compared to those who are low, tend not to view such conflict situations in a zero-sum manner: these individuals see a decision that benefits close others as also benefiting themselves, and their interests are integrated with close others’ interests (Gore & Cross, 2011).
Relatively little research has examined cultural variation in the prevalence or consequences of relational self-construal (but see Gore, Cross, & Kanagawa, 2009). Because most EuH relationship theories assume an independent, autonomous self, research on relational self that borrows the lens of cultural variations in self-construal helps identify additional factors that are crucial in relationships. This highlights the significance of developing global theories of human relationships based on experiences of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Dialectical thinking is the cognitive tendency to accept contradiction, and it is more prominent in AH cultures than in EuH cultures (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). For instance, when Chinese and European Americans were asked to judge the plausibility of two contradictory statements (e.g., people who live a long life eat some meat vs. it is much more healthy to be a strict vegetarian), Chinese were more likely than European Americans to compromise by finding an intermediate solution and believed that both statements contain some truth. Chinese people’s belief in contradictions is related to their belief in change and transformation. They believe that all things continuously change into their opposites in a never-ending cycle and stay in balance (e.g., good becomes bad and bad becomes good). For instance, Chinese are more likely than Americans to predict change in events and expect an ongoing trend to reverse or to move in a nonlinear pattern (Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001).
This lay theory of dialectical thinking has led to a dialectical view of the self among people from AH cultures as compared to people from nondialectical, EuH cultures (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2010). In general, AH people tend to conceptualize the self as incorporating seemingly contradicting elements that change across contexts. In contrast, EuH people tend to see the self as consistent and stable. Hence, when asked to rate their personality characteristics and values on semantic opposites, AH (Korean and Chinese) participants tend to exhibit less internally consistent responses than do EuH (American) participants (e.g., Choi & Choi, 2002; Y. Kim, Peng, & Chiu, 2008). In a related vein, Chinese are more likely to evaluate themselves in both good and bad ways compared to European Americans (Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004). AH participants’ contradictory views of the self are not limited to explicit self-perceptions but are also observed in their implicit, automatic self-perceptions (e.g., Boucher, Peng, Shi, & Wang, 2009). In short, compared to EuH people, self-views of AH people incorporate more contradictory self-knowledge; these contradictory self-views are also highly accessible and automatic. To AH people, maintaining balance rather than consistency between contradictory aspects of the self is the major theme of their self-concept.
Although dialectical selves are more commonly found in AH contexts than in EuH contexts, it is not yet clear how dialecticism relates to interdependence. At the cultural level, there are many cultures that are interdependent but not dialectical (e.g., Mexicans). At the individual level, dialecticism as measured by the Dialectical Self Scale is only weakly related to measures of interdependent self-construal (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2010). Prior studies have successfully used the dialectical self measure to unpack cultural differences in contradictory and contextualized self-views (e.g., Boucher, 2011; Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004). For instance, Church and colleagues (2012) found that the difference in cross-role consistency between Americans and Japanese was explained by dialecticism but not interdependent self-construal. In sum, dialecticism appears to be a distinctive and important cultural dimension that characterizes models of self of people from AH cultural contexts, but more research in collectivist but not AH contexts is needed to more fully understand how cultural beliefs, values, and thinking styles shape models of self.
The broad conceptions of independent and interdependent models of self also help explain how members of different social classes think and behave. Stephens and colleagues (2014) argue that a cultural model of expressive independence is prevalent in U.S. middle-class contexts, where individuals have myriad opportunities to define themselves as separate from others, to express their own preferences, and to exert influence over their environments. In contrast, lower class social contexts in the United States afford fewer opportunities to exert choice or influence. These contexts afford and promote a model of self as interdependent with others, because individuals must rely on others for material help and support and must be aware of their position in a social hierarchy. These authors argue that “in working-class contexts, adjusting, responding, and overcoming challenges is often coupled with a sense of toughness, strength and resilience” (p. 615); consequently, they label this form of interdependence as “hard interdependence” (in contrast to the interdependence found in AH cultures).
These differing cultural models of self explain a variety of behavioral differences between members of the middle class in the United States and those in the lower class. Research participants from middle-class contexts make choices that reinforce their sense of being different and unique, whereas participants from lower classes make choices that emphasize similarity with others (Stephens, Markus, & Townsend, 2007). The behavior of working class Americans also mirrors that of people from AH contexts in other ways: they are more likely to make situational attributions (Kraus, Piff, & Keltner, 2009), and they engage in more prosocial behavior than middle-class Americans (Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010). In summary, social class constitutes another form of culture, with differing experiences, opportunities, and values that afford distinct models of self and behavior.
The initial theory of independent and interdependent selves has been extremely generative; it has spawned a variety of new theoretical, methodological, and conceptual innovations in psychological science. Yet the scope of this work is still fairly geographically limited, as it focuses primarily on distinctions between European Heritage and Asian Heritage cultures. Space constraints precluded attention to newer developments that hold great promise for new understandings of cultural models of self. For example, Cohen argues persuasively that religious communities are an important cultural group and that religions afford different ways of being a good self (A. B. Cohen, 2009, 2015). Similarly, research on honor cultures suggests that the prevailing model of self strongly emphasizes the public self (e.g., Cross et al., 2014). Adams (2005) has also begun to articulate models of self and personal relationships from an African perspective. These newish developments point toward the need for expansion of the investigation of cultural models of self into new conceptions of culture and into geographic regions that have been overlooked. By doing so, psychology will become a more globally relevant science of the human mind and behavior.
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