Inclusion of additional studies yields different conclusions: Comment on Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea (2005), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Abstract

In a Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, Sedikides, Gaertner and Vevea (2005) presented two meta-analyses that included eight papers to investigate the question of whether people from Eastern cultures self-enhance more for traits that they view to be important compared to those that they view as unimportant. The results supported their hypothesis: Self-enhancement appears to be pancultural. However, this conclusion is severely compromised by six relevant papers that are not included in their meta-analyses. Importantly, all of these six studies contradicted their hypothesis. When complete meta-analyses are conducted which include all of the relevant papers, a very different pattern of results emerges. Eastern and Western cultures do not differ from each other in the pattern of their self-enhancement of independent and interdependent traits. Furthermore, whereas Westerners self-enhanced significantly more for traits that they viewed to be especially important, East Asians did not. Contrary to the Sedikides et al. (2005) suggestion, the existing evidence suggests substantial crosscultural variation in self-enhancement, with Westerners being far more self-enhancing than Easterners. Reasons for the conflicting pattern of findings across methods and meta-analyses are discussed.

Am I doing better than you? That depends on whether you ask me in English or Chinese: Self-enhancement effects of language as a cultural mindset prime

“…A large literature suggests that the most common response, at least among North Americans and Western Europeans, is to self-enhance, that is, to judge one's strengths as unique and to put distance between oneself and outperforming others when one's own failure cannot be denied (Leary, 2007). Indeed, some cultural psychologists view self-enhancement as so pronounced in the West as to constitute a distinct phenomenon central to individualistic societies Heine, Kitayama, & Hamamura, 2007a. Others counter that self-enhancement is a universal motive with cultures differing in their tactics to achieve it-some self-enhancing on individualistic attributes, others on collectivistic ones (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003;.…”

Academic Stress as A Health Measure and Its Relationship to Patterns of Emotion in Collectivist and Individualist Cultures: Similarities and Differences

“…And meta-analyses have been used to show that collectivists are no less likely to self-enhance than individualists from Western societies (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004;Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea, 2007). That stated, however, support for the claim that collectivists do not self -enhance has been found in other meta-analyses Heine, Kitayama, & Hamamura, 2007).…”

Reconsidering Culture and Self

“…North Americans may show self-enhancement in the domain of independence, but Japanese may do so in the domain of interdependence. Their debate is still on-going (Heine et al 2007;Sedikides et al 2005, Sedikides et al 2007). Nonetheless, there seems to be an agreement that even Japanese have a need for positive self-regard at an implicit level (Kitayama and Uchida 2003;Yamaguchi et al 2007).…”

“…If there is any issue pertaining to the individual aspect of self, it has to do with cultural variability in self-regard. Heine et al (1999Heine et al ( , 2007 argued that people in individualist cultures such as North America tend to have a strong need for positive self-regard, and therefore to self-enhance, whereas people in collectivist cultures such as Japan tend to have a weaker need to selfenhance, but a stronger tendency to self-improve. The apparent claim that there is cultural variability in the selfenhancement motive has triggered debate about its validity.…”