Does self-enhancement exist in differently construed selves? A test of the current debate between the process and the content view

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to compare the predictions of culture as a process (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999) and culture as a content view (Kurman, 2001) by examining the effects of the relational, individual, and collective self-construals, and the effects of abstract and context-specific self-definitions on self-enhancement. Four-hundred and thirty-five university students in İstanbul, Turkey, filled out inventories of above-average effect, consisting of trait adjectives that are differentially desirable for the three self-construals, both in abstract and context-specific forms. In line with the predictions of the culture as a content view, results revealed boosting effects of each self-construal on self-enhancement for corresponding abstract traits. However, in line with the predictions of the culture as a process view, individual self-construal was a more consistent predictor of self-enhancement across different traits. Self-enhancement on abstract and context-specific traits did not differ for those high on individual and those high on collective self-construal; both groups self-enhanced greater on context-specific traits than on abstract traits. Overall, results showed that self-enhancement is a basic tendency that exists in differently construed selves