CULTURE AND WELL-BEING:
EAST AND WEST
Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama (1999)
claim that there is no universal need for
positive self-regard, based on their analysis of
Japanese and American selves.
“Self-esteem is made possible by the
development of cultural worldviews, which
provide a stable and meaningful conception of
the universe, social roles, and specific
prescriptions for behaviors that are deemed
valuable, and the promise of safety and
immortality for those who satisfy those
prescriptions. Self-esteem is therefore a
cultural contrivance consisting of two
compotents: a meaningful conception of a
universe combined with the perception that
one is meeting the standards for virtue within
that culturally contrived reality (Solomon et
al., 1991).
There may be many ways of fulfilling your
role as a good member of your society.
Selfways are defined as communities’ ideas
about being a person and the social practices,
situations, and institutions of everyday life that
represent and foster these ideas. Selfways
include core cultural ideas and values,
including understandings of what a person is
and a sense of how to be a “good” or “moral”
or “appropriate” person (Markus, Mullaly, &
Kitayama, 1997).
The construction of a Japanese self usually
involves the validation of a person’s social
relationships by seeking to identify and
confirm shared expectations and norms,
whereas the goal in American life is to turn the
dependent child into an independent person
with distinct preferences and unique attributes.
Self-criticism is a defining characteristic of
Japanese. Children are encouraged to search
for their own weaknesses and inadequacies, to
refine themselves to become “rashii”,
prototypical of the ideal qualities of the group.
Self-discipline and self-effacement are
important tools in this process.
Caudill & Weinstein (1969) found a strong
positive correlation between the frequency of
American mothers chatting with their babies
and their infants’ “happy vocals” and no
correlation with the babies’ “unhappy vocals”.
The American mother appears to elicit and
reinforce her baby’s “happy vocalizations”.
By contrast, they found Japanese mothers
chatting to soothe their babies, rather than
reinforce happy vocals.
Japanese ideals are more about being
emotionally balanced than unambiguously
happy. Distance between self-ideal was larger
in Japan than Canada BUT these differences
were less related to depression.
Heine (1996) found that Canadians rated
happiness 1st or 2nd in terms of the desirability
of 20 traits in life, whereas Japanese ranked it
18th. 80% of Americans claim to be happy,
whereas this percentage is far lower in Japan
and Taiwan.
So how important is happiness? How central
is self esteem?
It is difficult to replicate studies of dissonance
reduction in Asia. In recent formulations of
dissonance theory, dissonance in created by
behaviour inconsistent with the self view. For
example, Americans showed post-decision
dissonance after choosing from two close
alternatives, whereas Japanese did not (Heine
& Lehman, 1997). Rationalization of the
decision was especially pronounced when
negative personality feedback was given to
Americans (thereby jeopardizing selfaffirmation), but no effect was found for
Japanese.
Americans compensated for negative selfrelevant feedback by inflating their
assessments in another domain (Baumeister &
Jones, 1978). Canadians exhibited no
differences in their evaluations of unrelated
traits following negative feedback on their
creativity, while Japanese decreased their selfevaluations (Heine, Kitayama, & Lehman,
1999). Whereas Canadians discounted
negative feedback more, Japanese tended to
discount positive feedback more.
Japanese reported failure situations as more
relevant to their self-esteem than success
situations, whereas Americans reported the
opposite pattern. Japanese persist longer at a
task when given false failure feedback
whereas Canadians persist longer when given
false positive feedback.
Japanese are far more sensitive to information
that they are doing worse than others than
information they are doing better than others.
Self-enhancement is a typical pattern of social
interaction in the USA, and self-criticism is
typical for Japan.
Self-critical tendencies are adaptive for
Japanese because they are embedded in a
culturally shared and sustained practice of
self-improvement. These tendencies are
premised on the individual’s acceptance of
group standards.
Self is not constant, it is embedded in a
network of social relations. Self is seen
through the eyes of others, face is maintained.
An interpersonal sympathy script is highly
developed among Japanese, so one may
experience warm feelings from others when
the self is found to be wanting. Sympathy is
correlated with both receiving and giving help
in Japan, but only with receiving help in the
US. General good feelings are highly
correlated with self-esteem in the US
(disengagement), but better predicted by
frequency of receiving help in Japan
(interpersonal engagement).
Good feelings in Japan are not owned by the
self but shared in a relationship. Well-being is
a collaborative project, and to be happy is to
be attuned to others.
Americans self-report a far greater proportion
of positive compared to negative feelings,
whereas for Japanese it is about equal. Diener
& Diener (1995) suggest that “life satisfaction
may be based more on positive feelings in
individualistic nations, for example, feelings
about the self. Conversely, in collectivist
nations life satisfaction might be influenced by
a more prevalent negative focus.” Suh,
Diener, Oishi, & Triandis (1998) found the
relation between life satisfaction and positive
feelings to be correlated with individualism
across nations, whereas collectivism is
correlated with the relation between life
satisfaction and adherence to norms.
Kitayama & Markus (2000), summarizing data
showing an antagonistic relationship between
positive and negative emotions in the US (e.g.,
a single dimension of valence), compared to
positive correlations in Japan, and the
overwhelming experience of positive emotions
in the US compared to Japan, state that “East
Asian subjective well-being may be moderate
by its very nature.”
A PANCULTURAL VIEW
Kitayama & Markus are fond of saying North
Americans are like this and Japanese (or East
Asians) are like that, but could it be a mixture
of both?
According to Kwan, Bond, & Singelis (1997),
relationship harmony and self-esteem are two
separable and independent variables that have
an additive effect in predicting life
satisfaction. They found that self-esteem was
more important than relationship harmony in
the US, but the two were equally good
predictors of life satisfaction in Hong Kong.
“Harmony is a concept that refers to the
balance achieved in relationships. The major
focus of this concept is on the relationship,
rather than the satisfaction of the constituent
individuals or the support derived from the
individual from that relationship.”
The effect of an independent self-construal (on
life satisfaction) is mediated through selfesteem, whereas the effect of an
interdependent self-construal is mediated
through relationship harmony. They also were
able to mediate most of the effects of the FFM
personality indictors on life satisfaction
(except for direct paths from neuroticism and
extraversion—indicators of positive and
negative affect). The two variables exerted
the same mediational effects in both Hong
Kong and the USA.
How about in New Zealand? How would we
characterize Maori, NZ Europeans, and
Asians?
insert graphs on the models
insert data from NZL
insert graph on SE and acculturation
figures from K&M 2000 – enhancement +
models