Abstract
The self is defined and judged differently by people from face and dignity cultures (in this case, Hong Kong and the United States, respectively). Across 3 experiments, people from a face culture absorbed the judgments of other people into their private self-definitions. Particularly important for people from a face culture are public representations-knowledge that is shared and known to be shared about someone. In contrast, people from a dignity culture try to preserve the sovereign self by not letting others define them. In the 3 experiments, dignity culture participants showed a studied indifference to the judgments of their peers, ignoring peers' assessments-whether those assessments were public or private, were positive or negative, or were made by qualified peers or unqualified peers. Ways that the self is " knotted" up with social judgments and cultural imperatives are discussed.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 904-916 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Journal of personality and social psychology |
Volume | 98 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2010 |
Keywords
- Culture
- Dignity
- Face
- Perspective-taking
- Self
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science