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To appear in the Proceedings of the 27

th

International Congress of Psychology

Cultural Psychology of the Self:

A Renewed Look at Independence and Interdependence

Shinobu Kitayama

Kyoto University

This paper is based on a keynote address given at the XXVII International Congress of Psychology,
Stockholm, Sweden, July 23-28, 2000. Address correspondence to Shinobu Kitayama, Faculty of
Integrated Human Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan (e-mail: [e-mail]-
u.ac.jp).

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Cultural Psychology of the Self:

A Renewed Look at Independence and Interdependence

Cultural variation of the self has become one major topic of research in the recent years

(e.g., Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989). This

literature has focused on European-Americans and East Asians, and presented a case that European-

Americans are independent and East Asians are interdependent. Thus, it has been suggested that

European Americans tend to believe that they are unique, bounded, and separate from context.

Further, these individuals are motivated to influence the surrounding and to be a source of action. In

contrast, East Asians tend to believe that they are contextual, relational, and embedded in context.

Further, these individuals are motivated to fit-in and adjust to the surrounding.

The two construals of the self are often tacit in that they are both embodied in and

encouraged by cultural practices and public meanings (Kitayama & Markus, 1999) and, as a

consequence, rarely can they be adequately captured by introspective reports (Heine, Lehman, Peng,

& Greenholtz, 2000; Peng, Nisbett, & Wong, 1997). Furthermore, this distinction is broad and thus

necessarily simplifying the complexity associated with any cultures. Nevertheless, it has received

considerable support when the two cultural regions and groups are compared from a wide-angle

perspective.

In particular, evidence is quite strong that North Americans are much more efficacious than

East Asians. For example, it is well-established that North Americans over-estimate their positive

uniqueness (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). However, this effect is hardly as strong

or reliable in East Asia. It is reasonable to assume that perceived efficacy of the self is central in

maintaining the sense of the self as an independent source of influence and action.

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Evidence also indicates that East Asians are more relational than North Americans. For

example, social anxiety is consistently higher for Asians than for Caucasians (Okazaki, 1997, 2000).

Likewise, Asian self-definitions are more context-specific than Caucasian self-definitions (Cousins,

1987; Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, in press). It may be suggested that perceived relatedness of the

self is central in maintaining the sense of the self as interdependent.

Although the concepts of independence and interdependence have thus been shown to be

critically important in understanding cultural variations of the self, there exists a pervasive

misunderstanding about them. The misunderstanding concerns the nature of the characterizations of

different peoples in the world in these terms. Are these characterizations descriptions of different

persons and personalities or their personally endorsed values? Do European-Americans have

independent and efficacious personalities? Or do they always endorse independence-related values?

Conversely, do East Asians have relational and interdependent personalities? Or do they always

endorse interdependence-related values?

In this paper, I would like to address these questions, and suggest that independence and

interdependence pertain to culture-bound designs of life—the designs by which we live, think, feel,

act, and interact. Thus, these terms are not about personalities of the people in the respective regions

of the world or their personally endorsed values. Instead, they should be seen as descriptions of

persons-in-actual-cultural-contexts. That is, independence and efficacy of European Americans are

the result of synergy of personal and contextual factors. Likewise, interdependence and relatedness

of East Asians are also the results of synergy between personal factors and contextual factors. This

would mean that when we study cultural differences of the self, we have to take cultural context

into full consideration. Moreover, as I shall show, the nature of cultural context is much more subtle

in structure and nuanced in meaning than ever before imagined in the literature. It may then take

both better theories and methods to study it. The argument and evidence reported below in this

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paper is an initial effort in this direction.

Culture, Social Situations, and Subjective Experience

Examples

In order to make a case for the significance of cultural context in understanding the nature

of the self, consider the following examples:

1) “This book is really good. You should read it!”

2) “Do you know the chocolate chip cookie here? You will like it!”

3) I persuaded my younger sister out of dating a guy who I knew was a

jerk.

These are some different ways in which people define social acts and situations. Notice that all

situations listed above involve some form of influence—namely, an attempt to cause changes in the

surrounding. Two observations can be made. These observations are central in the argument I

would like to advance in this paper.

First, the type of situations listed above highlight the role of the self as a source of action.

Thus, these situations are more congruous with independent models of the self than with

interdependent models and, as a consequence, they may be more common in cultures that are

organized in terms of the independent models (i.e., North America) than in cultures that are

organized in terms of the interdependent models (i.e., in East Asia; see Weisz, Rothbaum, &

Blackburn, 1983, for an earlier proposal along the same line).

Second, these situations bring to the fore of conscious awareness the power of the self to

control the surrounding. Hence, once a person is placed in these situations, the person is likely to

experience an elevated sense of self-efficacy. Notice that the subjective experience is felt by the

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person him or herself; yet, the main reason why he or she feels it is because the experience is

fostered by the particular way in which his or her action is defined and related to the surrounding.

From these two observations it would follow that the strong sense of efficacy experienced

by North Americans may result in part from the potential of North American social situations to

encourage and foster this particular subjective experience and the attendant psychological

tendencies.

Next, compare the above examples with the following two examples:

1) When I am out shopping with my friend, and she says something is

cute, even when I don’t think it is, I agree with her.

2) Now I'm forced to do this experiment. Frankly, I can't think of what

to write but the others are moving their pens. I don't want to be the only

one who has stopped writing, so now I'm writing this.

Both situations are very different from the earlier examples. The current examples involve some

form of adjustment—namely, an attempt to fit-in to the surrounding. It may be suggested that this

type of situations highlight the relational sensitivity of the self. Thus, these situations are more

congruous with interdependent models of the self than with independent models of the self and, as a

consequence, they may be more common in cultures that are organized in terms of the

interdependent models (i.e., East Asia) than in cultures that are organized in terms of the

independent models (i.e., North America). Furthermore, these situations bring to the fore of

conscious awareness the self’s relational orientation. Hence, once a person is placed in these

situations, the person may experience an elevated sense of social relatedness. It would then follow

that East Asians are highly relational in part because this psychological predisposition is encouraged

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and fostered by mundane social situations of their culture.

Collective Construction Theory

The foregoing examples illustrate one important way in which culturally shared models of

the self as independent or interdependent can have influence on subjective experience and the

attendant psychological tendencies. In particular, this influence may be mediated by the

composition of social situations available in a given cultural context. This basic idea has been

summarized as the collective construction theory of the self (Kitayama & Markus, 1999; Kitayama,

Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1997; see Figure 1-A). The theory highlights the role of

mundane social situations in forming subjective experience.

One key element of all social situations involves how a given social setting is defined.

Situational definitions are not an overlay of whatever the “real” social situations are. To the

contrary, the situational definitions are constitutive of the situations themselves. Thus, for example,

how one defines a given situation leads to very different sorts of behaviors, which in turn transform

the situation itself.

Definitions of social situations are produced, updated, and interpersonally negotiated in an

ever-changing fashion. Thus, it is often hard to predict exactly how any given social situation

unfolds. A variety of creative forces—and noises—are in operation to make the daily social life rich

in nuance and variable in meaning. Hence, all social situations are bound to be quite idiosyncratic

both across individuals and over time.

At the same time, however, in defining and constructing all social situations, one has to

necessarily draw on a large, yet finite pool of cultural resources. Cultural resources include images,

icons, concepts, all aspects of language, practices, both verbal and behavioral, and tacit knowledge.

These resources have been accumulated over generations throughout the history of each cultural

group. We have suggested that different cultures have very different sets of resources that can be

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brought to bear on the construction of daily social situations. In particular, we have proposed that

one important factor that contributes to the cross-culturally variable sets of resources for situational

definitions is the model of the self that has been endorsed and elaborated in the respective cultures.

The type of social situations that is most congruous with a culturally sanctioned model of

the self and, therefore, that is quite common in the culture may be said to be primary. I suggested

above that the primary type of social situations in North America define the self as an influencing

agent, whereas the primary type of social situations in East Asia define the self as an adjusting agent.

Needless to say, influencing situations also exist in East Asia and, likewise, adjusting situations also

exist in North America; but these situations are secondary in the respective cultural contexts in that

they are not in line with the culturally dominant model of the self and, thus, presumably neither

common nor valued.

The social situations are not psychologically neutral. To the contrary, they invite and foster

certain subjective experience and associated psychological tendencies. The potential of social

situations to encourage and foster the psychological experience and processes may be called the

cultural affordances (Gibson, 1966). This analysis suggests that in North America individuals tend

to experience an elevated sense of self-efficacy in part because they are often placed in social

situations in which the self is defined as an influencing agent (see Figure 1-B). In contrast, in East

Asia individuals tend to experience an elevated sense of interpersonal connectedness in part because

they tend to be placed in social situations in which the self is defined as an adjusting agent (see

Figure 1-C). In short, both a strong sense of self-efficacy for North Americans and a strong sense of

connectedness for East Asians are likely to be constituted by the culture-specific affordances

associated with recurrent social situations in the respective cultural groups and regions.

The upshot of the collective construction theory is that social situations available in a given

cultural context carry the potential of inviting, fostering, or enabling certain subjective experience

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and associated psychological tendencies or processes. One important direction of cultural

psychological research on the self, then, is to empirically determine the type of cultural affordances

which different cultural contexts carry for the construction of individual selves.

Empirical Evidence

In order to test the foregoing analysis, we have examined whether the nature of social

situations would vary across cultures and, furthermore, if so, whether the cross-culturally variable

social situations would foster correspondingly different psychological tendencies (Kitayama et al.,

1997; Morling, Kitayama & Miyamoto, 2000).

Most pertinent to the argument so far is a recent study which focused on cultural

affordances for both self-efficacy and interpersonal relatedness. In this study, Beth Morling, Yuri

Miyamoto and I asked both American and Japanese undergraduates to remember as many situations

as possible that involved an act of either influence or adjustment (Morling et al., 2000). In the

influence condition, subjects were asked to remember situations in which they had actually

influenced or changed people, events, or objects in the surrounding according to their own wishes.

In the adjustment condition, they were asked to remember situations in which they had adjusted

themselves to the surrounding people, events, or objects. In both conditions, they were asked to

report only those situations that actually happened to them.

Primacy of the Two Types of Situations in the US and Japan

In order to test the prediction that the pervasiveness of the two types of situations varies

across cultures, we asked the subjects to report how recently (i.e., how many days/months/years

ago) they experienced each of the situations they reported. If situations of a given type are quite

common and frequent, the situations that are remembered should be more recent. Thus, the recency

measure can be taken as a measure of the relative pervasiveness of the influencing vs. adjusting

situations in the two cultural contexts. For this purpose we first identified for each subject the

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situation that is most recent. There was considerable cross-cultural variability in the recency of

these situations. Thus, the median recency of influencing situations was four days ago in the US,

but it was 14 days ago in Japan, indicating that influencing situations are considerably more

frequent and common in the US than in Japan. In contrast, the median recency of adjusting situation

was one day ago in Japan, but it was seven days ago in the US, suggesting that these situations are

much more common and frequent in Japan than in the US. The interaction between country of

subjects and type of situations was statistically significant.

Cultural Affordances and Situation-Specificity of Psychological Tendencies

Our analysis suggests that Americans are quite efficacious in part because the

psychological tendency toward self-efficacy is encouraged and sustained (i.e., “afforded”) by the

nature of social situations common in the US (i.e., influencing situations; see Figure 1-B). The

strongest implication of this analysis, then, is that Americans should be more efficacious than

Japanese primarily when they are placed in social situations that involve acts of influence. When

placed in adjusting situations, however, Americans may not be any more efficacious than Japanese.

Likewise, we have argued that Japanese are relationally oriented in part because the psychological

tendency toward interpersonal connectedness is encouraged and sustained (“afforded”) by the

nature of social situations common in Japan (i.e., adjusting situations; see Figure 1-C). The

strongest implication of this analysis is that Japanese should be more relationally oriented than

Americans primarily when they are placed in social situations that involve acts of adjustment. When

placed in adjusting situations, Japanese may not be any more relational than Americans.

In order to test these predictions, we used a method called situation sampling (Kitayama et

al., 1997). First, out of the total of 1328 situations collected in the first stage of research, we

randomly sampled 40 situations in each of the eight cells defined by the country (2) and the gender

of the subjects who originally generated the situations (2) and the type of situations (2). We thus

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obtained the total of 320 situations. These situations were then prepared in both English and

Japanese. We removed information from situations that was culture-specific (e.g., replacing

“fraternity” with “social club;” “Tokyo” with “the city”) and a bilingual Japanese translator who

had lived in the U.S. translated the situations. Two other bilinguals then back-translated the

situations and ensured that each situation sounded natural in the new language. In almost all cases,

the situations described concrete behaviors that were easily translated. Some examples of the

situations are given in Table 1.

In the next stage of research, we recruited new groups of 102 American and 96 Japanese

undergraduates, both males and females. These subjects were presented with each of the sampled

situations and asked to imagine that they were in the situation. They then reported how they would

feel in the situation. We focused on two dimensions of subjective experience that are most germane

to our analysis: self-efficacy and relatedness. Thus, the subjects were first asked whether and to

what extent they would feel competent and powerful or incompetent and powerless in the situation

(referred to as the perceived efficacy of the self). Second, they were asked to think about other

people who were actually present in the situation or those whom they were imagining in the

situation. They were then asked whether and to what extent they would feel merged and connected

with them or independent and separate from them (referred to as the perceived relatedness of the

self). In both questions, the answers were converted into 9-point ratings, ranging from –4 (=

“incompetent” or “separate”) to +4 (= “competent” or “connected”).

Perceived efficacy. The mean efficacy ratings are summarized in Figure 2. The result

provided strong support for our prediction that Americans would be higher in efficacy than Japanese

primarily when they were placed in influencing situations. Thus, when responding to the

influencing situations, American subjects reported a much stronger feeling of efficacy than Japanese

did (p < .0001). This effect disappeared when the subjects responded to adjusting situations. If

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anything, in the latter condition the reported efficacy was significantly lower for Americans than for

Japanese (p < .05).

A few other findings should be noted. First, consistent with the notion that acts of

influencing encourage the perceived competence and efficacy of the self, both Americans and

Japanese reported a much higher level of efficacy in the influencing situations than in the adjusting

situations. Second, both American and Japanese subjects reported a higher level of efficacy when

they were responding to American-made situations than when they were responding to Japanese-

made situations. Consistent with our earlier finding (Kitayama et al., 1997), this result indicates that

American social situations tend to foster a stronger sense of efficacy and self-esteem. That is, there

is a greater affordance for efficacy in American culture than in Japanese culture. Because Americans

are especially efficacious in influencing situations, they show the strongest sense of efficacy when

responding to the American-made influencing situations. Finally, we did not find any systematic

effects due either to the gender of subjects or the gender of those who originally generated the

situations.

Perceived relatedness. Next, the mean relatedness ratings are summarized in Figure 3.

Again we found strong support for our prediction that Japanese would experience greater

relatedness than Americans would primarily when they were placed in adjusting situations. Thus,

when responding to the adjusting situations, Japanese subjects reported a higher level of relatedness

than did American subjects (p < .0001). The effect, however, was vanished when the subjects

responded to the influencing situations (n.s.).

Three additional aspects of the data deserve a mention. First, we found that the American

influencing situations induced a quite high level of relatedness in both American and Japanese

subjects. It would seem that one important, although somewhat subsidiary, function of influencing

in the US may be to form social relations. That is to say, once one influences other people, there is a

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chance of forming a social relation with them. Interestingly, this social function of influencing was

evident only in the US. Indeed, a content analysis indicated that a vast majority of American

influencing situations involved some form of persuasion—namely, an attempt to change a view of

another person in a direction that one thinks is desirable or correct. In contrast, many Japanese

influencing situations involved an influence on a certain non-social object (see Table 1 for some

typical situations). Although this finding must be carefully followed up in future work, it suggests

that independent models of the self are appropriated in North America as a general blue-print for

constructing not only individual selves, but also social relations among them.

Second, both Americans and Japanese reported a higher level of relatedness when

responding to Japanese-made adjusting situations than when responding to American-made

adjusting situations. This indicates that adjusting situations had a greater affordance for social

relatedness in Japan than in the US. Finally, as in the measure of perceived efficacy we found no

systematic effects involving the gender of either subjects or those who originally generated the

situations.

Responses to Culturally “Primary” Versus “Secondary” Situations

In this study, by employing the method of situation sampling it was possible to disentangle

two facets of social life—namely, 1) ways in which social situations are defined and constructed

and 2) ways in which individuals respond to the situations. In this way, we could illuminate the

extent to which the two aspects of subjective experience (i.e., efficacy and relatedness of the self)

are afforded by the culturally available social situations.

However, it is important to keep in mind that people typically respond to social situations

that are commonly available in their own home cultures. Furthermore, evidence indicates that

influencing situations are more common, routinized and hence primary in the US, but adjusting

situations are more common, routinized and hence primary in Japan. It would be of interest, then, to

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determine both (1) how subjects responded when they were exposed to the primary type of

situations of their own cultures and (2) how they responded when they were exposed to the

secondary type of situations of their own cultures.

First, responses to culturally primary types of situations (i.e., American-made influencing

situations for Americans and Japanese-made adjusting situations for Japanese) are shown in the

front panel of Figure 4. This is the pattern of responses one would expect when Americans and

Japanese were observed in the culturally primary and, thus, quite “natural” or “ordinary” type of

situations. It can be seen that Americans are experiencing a very strong sense of efficacy. In contrast,

the feeling of connectedness is discernible, but quite weak. In contrast, Japanese exhibit a quite

strong sense of relatedness, but virtually no trace of any self-efficacy. Together, the culturally

dominant types of responses (i.e., strong perceived self-efficacy for Americans and strong perceived

connectedness for Japanese) can be identified when we examine those cases where subjects are

exposed to their own, culturally primary social situations.

Second, responses of both Americans and Japanese to their culturally secondary situations

(American-made adjusting situations for Americans and Japanese-made influencing situations for

Japanese) were very different. The pattern of the results here is what one would expect when

Americans and Japanese were compared in culturally secondary and, thus, somewhat “unusual” and

“awkward” situations. As can be seen in the back panel of Figure 4, in these situations, the subjects’

reactions were quite weak in general. If anything, it is Japanese who reported a somewhat stronger

sense of efficacy. It is of note that Japanese responses were quite inconsistent between the primary

versus the secondary situations, providing additional evidence for the strong context-dependency of

Japanese selves (Kitayama & Markus, 1999).

Summary

Together, this research provides strong evidence that culturally typical psychological

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effects result from a synergy of both the appropriate psychological tendencies and the cultural

contexts to which these tendencies are attuned. A couple of points should be emphasized. Most

relevant to the thesis of the present paper is the finding that the culturally typical psychological

tendencies toward either self-efficacy in North America or interpersonal relatedness in East Asia are

observed only when people are allowed to respond to the culturally primary type of social situations,

namely, influencing situations in North America and adjusting situations in Japan. This finding is

important because it demonstrates that these psychological tendencies are not purely psychological,

but they are grounded in and constantly afforded by the attendant social situations.

Furthermore, the subjective experience thus constructed in turn may well play a pivotal

role in creating new sets of social situations that are likely to afford similar subjective experience.

Specifically, in North America, routinely participating in the culturally primary type of situations

(i.e., those involving influence) is likely to breed the corresponding psychological tendency toward

efficacy, which in turn should make it more likely for the people socialized in this cultural context

to define and construct social situations as involving a form of influence. In contrast, in East Asia,

participating in the culturally primary type of situations (i.e., those involving adjustment) is likely to

encourage the feelings of interpersonal connectedness and the corresponding psychological

tendency, which in turn should make it more likely for the people socialized in this cultural context

to define and construct social situations as involving an orientation toward relatedness. Thus, there

arises a cyclic process of bi-directional reproduction of both cultural context and human subjective

experience. Notice that subjective experience is constitutive of cultural context as much as the

cultural context is instrumental in shaping the subjective experience.

Person-in-Context: The Unit of Cultural Psychological Research

Drawing on the evidence examined in some detail in the previous section, I would like to

suggest that psychological tendencies are most properly analyzed in the socio-cultural contexts in

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which they are shaped and fostered. There are two important reasons: First, social situations have

the evocative power—the power to afford subjective experience and, second, subjective experience

is a pivotal element in defining, generating, and holding in place an array of mundane social

situations. Thus, any psychological tendencies—and therefore, by extension all persons, selves, and

human agents comprised by these tendencies are best conceptualized as a part or participating

element of encompassing socio-cultural contexts.

According to this analysis, if one is to understand any given psychological effect, one will

have to examine in detail the nature of the local cultural world because this world is likely to be

both affording and afforded by the very psychological effect at issue. Thus, much effort has to be

devoted to understanding the nature of socio-cultural system of which the psychological effect is a

participating part. It is also important that once this system has been identified, it has to be traced

historically to raise a question of where the system has come from and how it has been formed and

shaped over generations of people in the cultural context. Our own effort toward understanding this

cultural selection process is illustrated in Figure 5.

Many factors—ecological, political, economic—are likely to be involved in determining

the cultural selection process. Along with Max Weber (1992) and other social historians, however,

we have argued that ideological factors are especially crucial in the shaping of a variety of socio-

cultural systems that organize daily life and subjective experience (see the selection arrow of Figure

5). Specifically, we have argued that the emphasis on influencing in North America can be best

understood in view of the fact that this cultural region has historically nurtured a model of the self

as independent (e.g., Taylor, 1989). That is to say, social situations that are congruous with this

culturally dominant model (e.g., those involving influence) have had a higher likelihood of being

transmitted to next generations than those that are incongruous (e.g., those involving adjustment).

Once these social situations and the attendant local cultural world have been held in place (the

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middle box of Figure 5), they play a critical function in maintaining the culture. They do so, first, by

fostering the psychological tendencies of people who in turn reproduce the local cultural worlds (the

affordance and reproduction arrows) and, second, by providing prima-face justifications for the

model of the self that has created the world (the justification arrow).

Likewise, the emphasis on adjusting in East Asia has to be understood in view of the fact

that this cultural region has historically entertained a contrasting model of the self as interdependent.

In East Asia, this model is used to select social situations that form local cultural world. The local

cultural world, in turn, nurtures the psychological systems of the people in the culture and,

furthermore, it provides justifications for the very model of the self that has had formative

influences on the culture itself.

This conceptualization of the mutual constitution among ideological factors, local cultural

worlds, and psychological systems is quite broad in perspective. The processes described toward the

left-hand side of Figure 5 are more collective and societal, whereas those depicted toward its right-

hand side are more individual and psychological. No single piece of research can address all these

aspects, of course. The point of the figure, however, is that any psychological process is embedded

in a larger historical and cultural framework. Therefore, any psychological process must be

analyzed in two ways. First, it has to be analyzed in terms of internal machineries that make up the

process. This is the most traditional form of psychological analysis. Second, however, the

psychological process at issue has to be brought back into a larger socio-historical framework like

the one shown here, and analyzed in terms of its functions or roles as part of the socio-cultural and

collective process at hand.

In short, person-in-context, rather than the person him or herself outside of the context,

should be seen as the most proper unit of a cultural psychological analysis since all psychological

processes at work in daily cultural and social contexts are enabled by resources that the human

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species has accumulated over its history. This point of view is perhaps best captured by the

following observation by Clifford Geertz:

…the accepted view that mental functioning is essentially an intra-cerebral

process, which can only be secondarily assisted or amplified by the various

artificial devices…appears to be quite wrong. On the contrary, …the human

brain is thoroughly dependent upon cultural resources for its very operation;

and those resources are, consequently, not adjuncts to, but constituents of,

mental activity (Geertz, 1973, p.76).

Likewise, more recently, Michael Tomasello (1999) commented on the same issue and said,

referring back to Isaac Newton, that unlike primates and all other species of animals, humans are

looking over the world on the shoulders of previous generations of people who have left myriad

artifacts and resources that in effect constitute their psychological functions.

This brings me back to the title of this paper: Cultural psychology of the self. I believe that

the focus on person-in-context (rather than person-outside-of-context) is one feature that is both

common and central to a number of recent approaches and analyses that can be grouped together

under the rubric of cultural psychology (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Cole, 1996; Fiske et al., 1997; Shweder,

1991; Tomasello, 1999). It is hoped that the argument and the supportive data described in this

paper can contribute to this emerging discipline of social and behavioral sciences by providing a

useful theoretical framework for understanding the nature of mutual constitution between cultural

context and the self.

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Conclusion

I began this paper by drawing the reader’s attention to one misunderstanding, namely, the

tendency to regard interdependence and independence as personality descriptions or personally

endorsed values. I have argued that they are better to be seen as features associated with person-in-

actual-cultural context. In other words, independence and interdependence are two different designs

of life where each individual agentically relates to the social and non-social surrounding. Once

individuals are culturally trained and psychologically organized to take one or the other design for

granted rarely can they be made aware of either the design of life itself or its constitutive role of

their own psychological functions. Culture, in short, is tacit, often unconscious, and, therefore,

inaccessible for verbal report.

The same point was emphasized by a founder of the modern sociology, Emile Durkheim

(1956, original work published in 1938), who aptly pointed out that air is no less heavy because we

don’t detect its weight. Air is part of the natural (if not holy) design of the ecological environment

of this globe and all of us are physiologically and metabolically equipped to take that for granted.

We notice the air only when its supply becomes short for one reason or another. Durkheim implies,

of course, that culture or society is like air. Only because we are psychologically so equipped and

attuned to the culture that surrounds us do we feel nothing of note about it. But culture does have its

weight. In fact, I have argued that it constantly sustains and reinforces the psychological tendencies

that make up each and every self who resides and functions in the culture. This consideration entails

both methodological and substantive implications.

Methodologically, self-report measures of cultural values including independence and

interdependence may not be valid in cross-cultural comparisons. If the most fundamental values that

have made a society are already embodied in the structure of the society itself, it is to be expected

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that questionnaire measures of cultural values often fail to capture the significance of such values

(see Heine et al., 1999; Peng et al., 1997, for additional reasons for this expectation and supportive

data). All analyses that fail to appreciate what Durkheim tried to explain (e.g., Matsumoto, 1999;

Takano & Osaka, 1999) are doomed to make a serious mistake.

More substantively, the foregoing consideration on the tacit character of culture implies

that it will take careful and often creative cross-cultural comparisons of on-line processes of

cognition, emotion, and motivation to reveal hidden structures that underlie different cultural groups

and regions. Furthermore, because these on-line processes are a socio-cultural and historical product,

one will have to combine and integrate the psychological evidence with evidence from other social

and behavioral science disciplines including anthropology, sociology, history, and economics.

Although difficult and requiring a wide array of knowledge and expertise, learning about

tacit cultural structures is very useful and, in fact, indispensable for researchers and laypeople alike.

For research psychologists, learning about one design is likely to shed much light on another design,

which in turn provides an important insight into much broader questions about both 1) the socio-

cultural constitution of the human psychological systems and 2) pan-cultural mechanisms for socio-

cultural adaptation. For non-psychologists, learning about a design that is foreign to themselves

may be useful for enhancing intercultural understanding. In either case, it should be clear that

psychology would have to be broadened, internationalized, and, more properly, inter-culturalized in

scope to be inclusive of many peoples of the world. This, in fact, seems to be one very important

agenda of psychology for the new century to come.

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References

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Table 1. Examples of situations collected and used in the Morling et al. (2000) study

Japanese-made:

Influence Situations

I have a lot of hair and it is difficult to wash. So I cut it short so it is easy to wash now.

My makeup didn't match my skin and made my skin break out, so I changed brands from
Optune to Clinique.

I had a tutoring job this one day but I asked to have it off because of my school schedule.

Adjusting Situations

When I am out shopping with my friend, and she says something is cute, even when I don’t
think it is, I agree with her.

Now I'm forced to do this experiment. Frankly, I can't think of what to write but the others
are moving their pens. I don't want to be the only one who has stopped writing, so now I'm
writing this.

When going out for dinner with some people, I wanted to go to somewhere else because I
was getting tired of the restaurant that we usually go to. But because of everyone’s mood,
I did not suggest somewhere else and we went to the same restaurant.

American-made

Influence Situations

I talked my sister out of dating a guy who I knew was a jerk.

I convinced my mom to go shopping with me (which she hates) by making it more like a
bonding experience with her.

I got pulled over by a policeman yesterday for speeding. I explained my situation to him (I
was late to an NBA game and I had a perfect driving record) and he let me off with a
warning.

Adjusting situations

I had to adjust last school year when one of my roommates ' boyfriends moved into our
house.

I sing in a 4-part harmony professional singing group. When we first started I had to adjust
myself to each of them.

When I was in high school, I really wanted to go to this one university. However, most of
my friends were going to IU, so I decided to go here, too.

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Figure Captions

Figure 1. Cultural affordances and the mediating role of social situations in constructing the self in

cultural context: Culturally primary types of social situations (influence in North America and

adjustment in East Asia) foster corresponding psychological tendencies (self-efficacy in North

America and relatedness in East Asia).

Figure 2. Self-efficacy reported by American and Japanese subjects when responding to American-

and Japanese-made influencing and adjusting situations (redrawn from the data reported by Morling

et al., 2000).

Figure 3. Interpersonal relatedness reported by American and Japanese subjects when responding to

American- and Japanese-made influencing and adjusting situations (redrawn from the data reported

by Morling et al., 2000).

Figure 4. Self-efficacy and interpersonal relatedness reported by American and Japanese subjects

when responding to their primary and secondary situations (redrawn from the data reported by

Morling et al., 2000).

Figure 5. Person-in-context: Psychological tendencies that comprise a person are both afforded by

and instrumental in generating mundane social situations, which in turn are historically selected in

respect to the dominant cultural models of the self. More collective and societal processes are

shown toward the left-hand side, whereas more individual and psychological processes are shown

toward the right-hand side.

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Figure 1

C. Construction of selves with relational tendencies

in East Asia

B. Construction of selves with efficacious tendencies

in North America

Cultural models

of the self

Primary types of

social situations

Psychological

tendencies

A. Collective construction theory

Self as

independent

Self as an

influencing agent

Self-

efficaciousness

Self as

interdependent

Self as an

adjusting agent

Relational

orientation

26

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Perceived efficacy

US-made

JPN-made

US-made

JPN-made

Figure 2

American
Japanese

influencing situations adjusting situations

Subjects

27

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Perceived relatedness

US-made

JPN-made

US-made

JPN-made

Figure 3

American
Japanese

influencing situations adjusting situations

Subjects

28

US/Efficacy

US/Relatedness

JPN/Efficacy

JPN/Relatedness

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Perceived efficacy/relatedness

Culture/Measure

Figure 4

Primary
Secondary

Situations

29

Figure 5

Production

Cultural models

of the self

Local cultural

worlds

Person

Affordance

Justification

Selection