Aligning inside and outside perspectives of the self: A cross-cultural difference in self-perception
Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
3-2014
Abstract
Past research shows that European Americans tend to take a first-person perspective to understand the self and are unlikely to align the inside look with the outside gaze, whereas Asians tend to take a third-person perspective and are likely to shift their inside look in the direction of the outsize gaze. In three experiments, we compared Asians and European Americans' self-perceptions when the presence of their parents in the background of self-perception was primed or otherwise. Without the priming, both European Americans and Asians viewed themselves more positively from their own perspective than from their parents' perspective. With the priming, only Asians lowered the positivity of their self-perceptions to match the perceived positivity of the self in the parents' perspective. These results suggest that Asians do not have a static, passive tendency to assimilate their self-views into the perceived external assessments of the self. Rather, their self-views are fluid and flexible.
Keywords
Asian Americans, cross-cultural differences, parents, positive self-regard, priming, self-perceptions
Discipline
Cognition and Perception | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Asian Journal of Social Psychology
Volume
17
Issue
1
First Page
44
Last Page
51
ISSN
1367-2223
Identifier
10.1111/ajsp.12042
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
KIM, Young-Hoon, CHIU, Chi-Yue, CHO, Sinhae, AU, Evelyn W. M., & KWAK, Sunyoung Nicole.(2014). Aligning inside and outside perspectives of the self: A cross-cultural difference in self-perception. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 17(1), 44-51.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1528
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12042