A cross-cultural exploration of personal identity: Eastern and Western differences in identity content, change, valence, and uniqueness

Personal identity refers to knowledge of one's most important positive and negative attributes (i.e., strengths and weaknesses). The present study examined Eastern and Western cultural differences in four aspects of identity: the content of its attributes, its perceived changeability over time, the value or emphasis placed on positive and negative attributes, and the estimated uniqueness of those qualities. Hypotheses were generated from the cultural psychology literature on individualism-collectivism and where possible, from Self-Determination Theory, and were tested on cross-cultural samples of Chinese, Japanese, American, and Canadian undergraduate students. The identity content findings indicated that East Asians tended to report attributes associated with a lack of autonomy as their weaknesses, whereas North Americans tended to report attributes associated with a lack of relatedness as their weaknesses. North Americans were also more likely to report relatedness attributes as their strengths, compared to East Asians. This pattern supported a Self-Determination Theory perspective which argues that there are basic psychological needs for relatedness and autonomy; and because collectivistic cultures and individualistic cultures tend to prioritize one need at the expense of the other, identities are formed such that they incorporate an awareness of unmet psychological needs. Concerning identity change, East Asians reported that their positive attributes were more changeable than North Americans, consistent with an Eastern emphasis on the experience of change. However, contrary to prediction, East Asians were not more likely than North Americans to put effort into cultivating and improving their attributes. Concerning valence, East Asians valued their positive qualities less and their negative qualities more, compared to North Americans. This pattern was consistent with an Eastern emphasis on self-criticism rather than self-enhancement. Lastly, concerning uniqueness, East Asians tended to estimate their attributes as being less prevalent among their peers, relative to North Americans. This pattern was inconsistent with the hypothesis that Westerners value uniqueness more than Easterners.

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