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Tactical self-enhancement in China: is modesty at the service of self-enhancement in East-Asian culture?

Tactical self-enhancement in China: is modesty at the service of self-enhancement in East-Asian culture?
Tactical self-enhancement in China: is modesty at the service of self-enhancement in East-Asian culture?
Is self-enhancement culturally universal or relativistic? This article highlights a nuanced dynamic in East Asian culture. Modesty is a prevailing norm in China. The authors hypothesized that because of socialization practices and prohibitive cultural pressures, modesty would be associated with and lead to low explicit self-enhancement but high implicit self-enhancement, that Chinese participants would deemphasize explicitly the positivity of the self when high on modesty or situationally prompted to behave modestly but would capitalize on their modest disposition or situationally induced behavior to emphasize implicitly the positivity of the self. In support of the hypotheses, dispositionally or situationally modest Chinese participants manifested low explicit self-esteem while manifesting high implicit self-esteem. Modesty among American participants constrained explicit self-esteem but yielded no associations with implicit self-esteem. The results showcase the tactical nature of self-enhancement in Chinese culture and call for research on when and how self-enhancement is pursued tactically in different cultures
1948-5506
59-64
Cai, Huajian
93a231d6-8e65-4781-883b-b85543a5ddfc
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Gaertner, Lowell
94e37daf-7d1b-431e-9df3-efad4f0bc91c
Wang, Chenjun
1a65bf7e-222c-4613-9778-483114f0e566
Carvallo, Mauricio
a343a08c-5107-427e-9fe4-e1a53b94c0e9
Xu, Yiyuan
b9506e22-d155-4468-bf5e-d8eaf212ae57
O’Mara, Erin M.
022d5d81-8faa-42c5-a31e-aacc51e18e14
Jackson, Lydia Eckstein
e7a5ca4c-5309-4df0-9e36-c73a073e1a25
Cai, Huajian
93a231d6-8e65-4781-883b-b85543a5ddfc
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Gaertner, Lowell
94e37daf-7d1b-431e-9df3-efad4f0bc91c
Wang, Chenjun
1a65bf7e-222c-4613-9778-483114f0e566
Carvallo, Mauricio
a343a08c-5107-427e-9fe4-e1a53b94c0e9
Xu, Yiyuan
b9506e22-d155-4468-bf5e-d8eaf212ae57
O’Mara, Erin M.
022d5d81-8faa-42c5-a31e-aacc51e18e14
Jackson, Lydia Eckstein
e7a5ca4c-5309-4df0-9e36-c73a073e1a25

Cai, Huajian, Sedikides, Constantine, Gaertner, Lowell, Wang, Chenjun, Carvallo, Mauricio, Xu, Yiyuan, O’Mara, Erin M. and Jackson, Lydia Eckstein (2010) Tactical self-enhancement in China: is modesty at the service of self-enhancement in East-Asian culture? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2 (1), 59-64. (doi:10.1177/1948550610376599).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Is self-enhancement culturally universal or relativistic? This article highlights a nuanced dynamic in East Asian culture. Modesty is a prevailing norm in China. The authors hypothesized that because of socialization practices and prohibitive cultural pressures, modesty would be associated with and lead to low explicit self-enhancement but high implicit self-enhancement, that Chinese participants would deemphasize explicitly the positivity of the self when high on modesty or situationally prompted to behave modestly but would capitalize on their modest disposition or situationally induced behavior to emphasize implicitly the positivity of the self. In support of the hypotheses, dispositionally or situationally modest Chinese participants manifested low explicit self-esteem while manifesting high implicit self-esteem. Modesty among American participants constrained explicit self-esteem but yielded no associations with implicit self-esteem. The results showcase the tactical nature of self-enhancement in Chinese culture and call for research on when and how self-enhancement is pursued tactically in different cultures

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Published date: 12 August 2010

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 170335
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/170335
ISSN: 1948-5506
PURE UUID: c8b4e651-f944-41ed-a760-85a39dd9f268
ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

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Date deposited: 06 Jan 2011 10:27
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:43

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Contributors

Author: Huajian Cai
Author: Lowell Gaertner
Author: Chenjun Wang
Author: Mauricio Carvallo
Author: Yiyuan Xu
Author: Erin M. O’Mara
Author: Lydia Eckstein Jackson

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