cultural differences in self-enhancing tendencies …...cultural differences of self-enhancement...
TRANSCRIPT
Cross-cultural communication researchers have traditionally employed cultural-level
explanations (e.g., individualism-collectivism) for observed similarities and differences in
communication-related behavior. Although these cultural-level explanations have helped
clarify meaningful dimensions of individual-level variability in cross-cultural work so
that differences can be interpreted in terms of functional psychological characteristics,
this approach has recently been criticized because cultural-level constructs such as
individualism vs. collectivism (Hofstede, 1980, 1991 ; Triandis, 1995) and high-context vs.
low-context (Hall, 1976) are too readily utilized as a catchall construct to explicate
numerous cross-cultural differences of behavior. Culture is a fuzzy concept and difficult
to define and operationalize (Kim, 2002). Therefore, it is an ineffective independent
variable unless its associations with behavior are specified via intervening variables. It is
often uncertain what in culture induces behavior without unambiguous mediating
variables (Kagitcibasi, 1994).
In this connection, recent cross-cultural research efforts have been exerted on cultural
differences of self-enhancing biases, showing that, whereas self-enhancing biases are
frequently observed in Western cultures, they are less common in Eastern cultures
(Heine, Kitayama, & Lehman, 2001 ; Heine, Kitayama, Lehman et al., 2001 ; Heine,
Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999 ; Kitayama, Takagi, & Matsumoto, 1995 ;
Kobayashi & Brown, 2003). This challenges the commonly-held belief that self-
enhancement needs are universal (Brown & Kobayashi, 2003).
Although self-enhancing biases may be considered a strong candidate for such
研究ノート
Cultural Differences in Self-EnhancingTendencies and Their Implications
for Interpersonal Accounts
〔要 旨〕 Taylor&Brown(1988)は,自己高揚傾向(自尊感情を高く維持する傾
向)を(1)非現実的なまでに自己を肯定的に捉えること,(2)統制に関する幻想,
(3)非現実的な楽観主義に分類し,これらが精神的健康の維持に必要だと論じたが,
西洋では当然視されているこの自己高揚傾向が東洋では見られないという報告は少なく
ない。本稿では,自尊感情の文化相対論を支持する文献をレビューし,自己高揚傾向の
文化差が弁明行動に影響を及ぼす可能性があることを検証可能な仮説として整理し,今
後の実証研究の橋渡しとすることにした。
〔キーワード〕 self-enhancement, self-serving attributional bias, illusion of control,
unrealistic optimism, interpersonal accounts
島 田 拓 司
87
mediating variables, hardly any empirical studies have focused direct attention on the
cultural differences of self-enhancement motives and their implications of communication.
Little is known about how self-enhancing biases affect communication behavior across
cultures. Therefore, this paper attempts to shed light on this theoretical link by
reviewing mounting empirical evidence of cultural differences of self-enhancing biases
and their influences on one type of verbal communication, namely, interpersonal
accounts.
Accounts are verbal explanations offered to explicate the inappropriate or awkward
behavior. The actor offers accounts to regain his or her social identity, steers clear of
conflicts or maintains the social order by verbally filling the gap between action and
expectation. For example, a student may excuses to his or her professor for a late term
paper, a husband may apologize to his wife for forgetting her birthday, a frustrated
driver may attempt to justify speeding in order to take his sick boy to the hospital, or a
schoolboy may deny his friend’s accusation of lying. Accounts are usually not requested
as long as the actor engages in everyday, taken-for-granted behavior (Scott & Lyman,
1968). When it deviates from the range of normality, however, the actor may be obliged
to account for his or her behavior.
Given that interpersonal accounts may be viewed as the process of “reality
negotiation” (Snyder & Higgins, 1988), cultural differences in self-enhancing biases
should present dissimilar realities across cultures that are distorted by self-enhancing
biases. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to present testable propositions regarding
cultural differences of self-enhancement and their impact on interpersonal accounts.
Culture and Self-Enhancing Biases
Self-enhancing biases can be defined as people’s tendencies to distort their perceptions
of the world in a self-enhancing manner (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Although a need for
positive self-regard (i.e., a self-enhancement bias) has long been considered a
fundamental truth of human nature that transcends cultural boundaries, several
researchers have recently come to cast doubt on the universality of these biases (Heine,
2003 ; Heine, Kitayama, & Lehman, 2001 ; Heine, Kitayama, Lehman et al., 2001 ;
Heine & Lehman, 1995, 1997 ; Heine et al., 1999 ; Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, &
Norasakkunkit, 1997 ; Kitayama et al., 1995). These biases are generally thought to
affect various self-relevant information-processing, offering people an unrealistically
positive self-evaluation (Brown & Kobayashi, 2003). Taylor and Brown (1988) divided
these biases into three distinctive spheres : unrealistically positive view of the self , which
includes the self-serving attributional bias (a tendency to take credit for success but deny
responsibility for failure) and the self-other bias (a tendency for people to believe they are
better than most other people), exaggerated perceptions of personal control (a tendency to
exaggerate one’s ability to bring about desired outcomes), and unrealistic optimism (a
tendency for people to believe that positive events are more likely to occur and negative
incidents are less likely to take place to them than to similar others). Although self-
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enhancing biases are quite prevalent in Western, individualistic cultures, they are not so
common in Eastern, collectivistic cultures.
1. Unrealistically Positive View of the Self
Despite a traditional concept that the mentally healthy individual holds a view of the
self that comprises an awareness and acceptance of both positive and negative
components of self, there is ample evidence to indicate that, far from being balanced
between the positive and the negative, most individuals possess the perception of self
that is heavily skewed toward the positive end of the scale (Taylor & Brown, 1988).
There are roughly two types of evidence that show the inclination of individuals’ having
unrealistically positive view of self : the self-other bias and the self-serving attributional bias.
The self-other bias is a widespread tendency to see the self as better than others.
Individuals judge positive personality traits to be more illustrative of themselves than of
the average person but see negative personality features as less descriptive of themselves
than of the average person. Because most people cannot possibly be better than the
average person, these heavily distorted positive views of the self clearly indicate their
unrealistic and illusory quality. Instead of directing their attention to both the positive
and negative aspects of self, individuals tend to be more mindful of their strengths and
less aware of their weaknesses. Therefore, most individuals not only see themselves as
better than the average person, but they also see themselves as better than others see
them (Taylor & Brown, 1988).
Cross-cultural researchers have recently challenged the universality of this overly
positive view of self. Markus and Kitayama (1991) reported that the Japanese and the
Americans students revealed striking differences in their evaluation of their own
uniqueness : the Americans displayed significantly more false uniqueness (i.e., the
tendency to overemphasize the uniqueness of one’s own positive attributes) than the
Japanese. Whereas American students thought that no more than 30% of people would
be better than themselves on such traits and abilities as memory, athletic abilities,
independence, and sympathy, the Japanese students showed virtually no evidence of this
false uniqueness. In general, the Japanese students expected that about half of students
would be better than they were on those favorable traits and abilities, which, of course,
was not surprising, provided that a representative sample of college students were
judging themselves in a nonbiased manner.
In Heine and Lehman’s (1999) study, Japanese and Canadian participants’ ratings of
the average students in terms of 20 important personality traits were subtracted from
their self-assessments to construct the measures of their self-enhancing biases. European
Canadians exhibited significantly more self-enhancing bias (i.e., their self-ratings were
significantly more positive than their ratings of the average students) than Asian
Canadians and Japanese. In addition, this study revealed that Japanese felt greater
actual-ideal self-discrepancies than Canadians. Heine and Lehman argue that, while
smaller actual-ideal discrepancies or unrealistically positive views of self serve to endorse
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
89
North Americans’ cultural ideal of independence (i.e., being complete and autonomous
individual who is capable of taking care of themselves), greater actual-ideal self-
discrepancies promote the Japanese to make efforts to improve themselves, which may be
necessary to ensure that they are invariably adjusting themselves to the needs of the
group.
Heine and Renshaw (2002) obtained a similar result, providing additional support for
cultural differences of the self-other bias. They asked participants to evaluate themselves
in terms of 30 personality traits and asked their four peers to evaluate the participants
regarding the same items. Self-enhancement measures, which were constructed by
comparing participants’ self-assessments with their peers’ average assessments, indicated
that 62% of the American participants viewed themselves more positively than their
peers (i.e., more self-enhancing), whereas 84% of the Japanese participants viewed
themselves less positively than their peers (i.e., more self-critical).
Previous research in self-enhancement clearly suggests the Japanese are more likely to
view themselves less positively than North Americans. This tendency also seems to be
reflected in their scores of self-esteem, which have consistently indicated that the
Japanese generally have more negative self-views than North Americans. Self-esteem,
often refers to the way people generally feel about themselves most of the time across
most situations, is related to self-evaluation such that people with high self-esteem tend
to think they have many more positive qualities than those with low self-esteem (Brown,
1998). In fact, the magnitude of the self-other bias is greater among high self-esteem
than low self-esteem people. Heine et al. (1999) reported that a meta-analysis of
Rosenberg’s (1965) global self-esteem scores of the Japanese who had never lived outside
of Japan showed a markedly different distribution than that of the European Canadians.
The self-evaluation for Japanese is usually moderate and is normally distributed,
comparable to naturally occurring phenomenon. However, a heavily negatively skewed
distribution was found in North American studies of self-esteem. The meta-analysis also
suggested that North American culture promotes the growth of positive self-view. More
than 4,000 Canadians and Japanese were categorized into seven groups in terms of their
exposure to North American cultures ranging from the least exposure, “Japanese who
had never been outside Japan,” to the most exposure, “European-descent Canadians.”
The result of this classification clearly showed the relation between the amount of
exposure to North American culture and self-esteem, such that global self-esteem scores
increase with the exposure to North American culture.
The self-serving attributional bias (a tendency to attribute success to dispositional or
internal factors and failure to situational or external causes) is another manifestation of
self-enhancing motives. Studies in the U.S. have consistently demonstrated that they
generally take credit for their successes, but deny responsibility for their failures (e.g.,
Miller & Ross, 1975 ; Zuckerman, 1979). For instance, Zuckerman (1979) reported that of
a total of 38 studies reviewed, 27 studies found such self-serving attributional biases.
Attribution of success to one’s own induces positive esteem-related emotions and a
90 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
confidence of high self-perceived ability, resulting in self-enhancement. External
attributions for failure generate less distressing emotions than internal ones and do not
cause doubts about one’s ability (i.e., self-protection). The preference for dispositional
attributions for success and situational attributions for failure could reflect self-serving
mechanisms (self-enhancement and self-protection).
Although self-serving attributional biases are commonly found in Western countries,
the universality of this tendency has been challenged (Chandler, Shama, Wolf, &
Planchard, 1981 ; Kashima & Triandis, 1986 ; Kitayama et al., 1995 ; Takata, 1987 ;
Yan & Gaier, 1994). Kitayama, Takagi, and Matsumoto (1995) reviewed 23 studies that
dealt with Japanese causal attributions for success and failure, concluding that there was
nearly no evidence of a self-serving tendency among Japanese participants. Instead, they
found some evidence suggesting a self-critical bias. In general, those studies showed that
the Japanese tend to attribute their successes to luck and ease of task, but their failures
to ability and effort. Kitayama et al. (1995) contend that with respect to abilities,
Americans typically give themselves higher ratings than they give to others. Thus, unlike
Japanese, Americans usually attribute their successes to ability and it is very unlikely
that they attribute their failures to ability.
The ability dimension seems to be the specific area in which Japanese are likely to
reveal self-effacing tendency. In fact, recent studies indicate that ability(1) is the single
most significant contributor to the cross-cultural attributional difference, i.e., Japanese
consistently devalue their own ability as an attributional factor of success, but they are
likely to attribute failure to their ability. Kashima and Triandis (1986), for example,
found that, in dealing with success and failure experiences, American students tend to
use an individual coping strategy (i.e., self-serving attributions) more than Japanese
students only on the ability-related dimensions. In this context, Kudo and Numazaki
(2003) remind us of the two dimensions that people wish to look desirable to others :
competence and likableness. Because people are likely to show a self-serving bias when
they wish to look competent and they would show a self-effecting bias when they wish to
look likeable, Kudo and Numazaki argue that cultural norms may exert influence on
which motive (self-serving or self-effacing) should be activated more frequently and
easily.(2)
Furthermore, self-serving biases may influence the perceptions of fairness in conflict
and negotiation. Gelfand et al. (2002) argue that self-serving biases in negotiation reflect
cultural ideals such that an individual is motivated to enhance one’s positive qualities to
“stand out” and outdo others in individualistic cultures and that an individual is expected
to attenuate self-serving biases in negotiation by focusing on one’s negative aspects to
“blend in” and maintain a interdependent relationship with others in collectivistic
cultures. In study one, participants from the U.S. and Japan were asked to generate fair
and unfair behaviors and indicate whether they engaged in such behaviors more
frequently than others (“I-fair” and “I-unfair”) or whether others did more than them
(“they-fair” and “they-unfair”). The result showed that U.S. participants generated more I
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
91
-fair items and they-unfair items, suggesting greater self-serving perceptions of fairness
as compared with Japanese participants. Study two examined how participants from the
two cultures would judge their own behavior and the other party’s behavior during the
conflict from an objective third party’s perspective. The result indicated that U.S.
participants were more likely to think that their behavior was perceived as more fair
than the behavior of their counterparts’ from an objective third party perspective,
whereas this tendency was moderated in Japan. Study three, which examined the
fairness of the other negotiator’s offer, and study four, which explored the degree of
anticipated fairness prior to negotiating between the two cultures, both exhibited the
expected results. U.S. participants felt that the offer was much less fair than Japanese
participants, and prior to the negotiation, U.S. negotiators expected that they would be
more fair than their counterparts as compared with Japanese negotiators. Study four
also found that U.S. negotiators would be more inclined to accept feedback when it was
self-serving and to reject feedback when it brought damage to the self, whereas the
reversed tendencies were found among Japanese negotiators. Gelfand et al. argue that
the U.S. cultural imperative of “standing out” may make self-serving bias more
reasonable and be part of normal adaptations to individualist cultures.
2. Illusions of Control
A second domain in which most individuals’ perceptions appear to be less than realistic
concerns beliefs about personal control over environmental occurrences. Many theorists (e.
g., Bandura, 1997 ; Heider, 1958) have maintained that a sense of personal control is
integral to the self-concept and self-esteem. Although extensive writing on psychological
control beliefs exists, it is mainly based on Western, individualistic views of control. In
most American theories and research, a common theme is that psychological control
means that the individual actively seeks to change existing physical, social, or behavioral
realities to fit his or her cognitive, affective, and behavioral needs. This view of control
holds that individuals who believe the existing situation cannot be changed or is beyond
one’s ability or effort to change is pathological in some way, termed learned helplessness
or low self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), possibly resulting from low self-esteem.
Cross-cultural studies (Chang, Chua, & Toh, 1997 ; Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ;
Morling, Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002 ; Weisz, Rothbaum, & Blackburn, 1984) have
indicated that there are at least two forms of psychological control that differ between
the West and the East. In the West, primary control focusing on influence is emphasized,
and in the East, secondary control focusing on adjustment is stressed. Primary control
may be defined as a belief that individuals can enhance their rewards by influencing
existing realities such as other people or circumstances. Secondary control is defined as
the belief that individuals can enhance their rewards by accommodating to existing
realities via changing their cognition, affects and/or behaviors (Weisz et al., 1984).
Rothbaum, Weisz and Snyder (1982) suggested four major types of secondary control :
predictive (attempts to accurately predict events and conditions in order to control their
92 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
impact on self, e.g., to avoid uncertainty, anxiety, or future disappointment), vicarious
(attempts to associate or closely align oneself with other individuals, groups, or
institutions in order to participate psychologically in the control they exert), illusory
(attempts to associate or get into synchrony with chance in order to enhance comfort with
and acceptance of one’s fate), and interpretive (attempts to understand or construe
existing realities in order to derive a sense of meaning or purpose from them and thereby
enhance one’s satisfaction with them). These four forms of control share the same
quality in that individuals actively change some aspects of the self in order to minimize
the negative psychological impact and to maximize the potential satisfaction in the face
of stressful events.
Mahler, Greenberg and Hayashi (1981) found that the Japanese were much more likely
than Americans to believe that a) the world is a capricious place where individuals do not
always attain the outcomes they deserve, b) individuals can have only limited
effectiveness acting alone, and c) chance and fate have a major influence on the outcomes
individuals experience. In fact, Parsons and Schneider (1974) found that, relative to
Americans, Japanese felt fate and luck much more influential, and perceived themselves
as less able to change others’ opinions. In addition, Weisz et al (1984) reported that,
whereas the Japanese most preferred way to live was close association with others and
dissuaded attempts to make realities suit one’s own desires, Americans preferred the way
that emphasized self-directed pursuit of self actualization and depreciated association
with others.
Morling, Kitayama, and Miyamoto (2002) tested the hypothesis that Americans and
Japanese are attuned to their cultural practices that emphasize “influence” (primary
control) in the United States and “adjustment” (secondary control) in Japan.(3) Their
results revealed that Americans remembered more, and more recent, influence-attempt
situations whereas Japanese remembered more, and more recent, situations that involves
adjustment. In addition, American-made influence situations evoked stronger feelings of
efficacy, whereas Japanese-made adjustment situations evoked stronger feelings of
relatedness. Furthermore, Americans reported more efficacy than Japanese, especially
when responding to influence situations. Japanese felt more interpersonally close than
Americans, especially when responding to adjustment situations.
The preceding evidence suggests that Japanese may perceive primary control as both
less attainable and less desirable than Americans, which in turn implies that control
illusion, which is based on primary control, may be weaker and even irrelevant to
Japanese who emphasize adjustment or secondary control more (Rothbaum et al., 1982).
Cheng et al. (1997) attributes the Eastern emphasis on adjustment and de-emphasis on
influence to the Asia worldview :
The individual as an integral part of the universe has a limited, pre-charted course
in life. It would be healthy for the individual to “flow with” the tide rather than fight
it. Taoists and Buddhists are especially against the assertion of the self or the
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
93
agentic part of the self in an attempt to change reality. Taoists and Buddhists,
instead, maintain that the way to long-lasting happiness and fulfillment (nirvana) is
to have “no self,” “no desire” and “no complaints.” This state of perfection and
fulfillment can be attained by a change of the self, in terms of the self’s cognition,
affect and behavior (p.97).
3. Unrealistic Optimism
Unrealistic optimism refers to as the tendency for people to believe that positive events
are more likely to occur and negative events are less likely to happen to them than
others (Heine & Lehman, 1995). In future-oriented Western cultures, most people appear
to hold the belief, “The future will be great especially for me,” but since it is impossible
for most people’s future to be brighter than their similar others’, this excessive optimism
may be illusory. In non-Western cultures, however, this extreme optimism can be
attenuated.
Heine and Lehman (1995) compared levels of unrealistic optimism for Canadian (a
culture typical of an independent construal of self) and Japanese students (a culture
typical of an interdependent construal of self). In the first study, participants were asked
what the estimated chances were that a number of positive (e.g., “You will live past the
age of 80,” “Sometime in the future you will own your own home”) and negative future
events (e.g., “Sometime in the future you will develop skin cancer,” or “You will get
divorced a few years after marriage”) would happen to them compared to other students.
The results indicated that Canadians were found significantly more unrealistically
optimistic than Japanese. Compared to Japanese, Canadians reported that positive
events were more likely to happen to themselves than to others. In addition, Canadians
felt those future events were more controllable than Japanese, suggesting a stronger
illusion of control on the part of Canadians.
In the second study, 10 negative independent future events (e.g., Sometime in the
future you will be an alcoholic) and 10 negative interdependent future events (e.g.,
Sometime in the future you will do something that will make your family ashamed of
you) were evaluated. Heine and Lehman anticipated that independent events would be
more threatening than interdependent events for Canadians and that interdependent
events would be more threatening than independent events for Japanese. It was found
that Canadians were more unrealistically optimistic than Japanese for both independent
and interdependent events. Moreover, although Canadians exhibited significant
unrealistic optimism for both independent and interdependent events, Japanese showed
significant unrealistic pessimism for both types of events.
Heine and Lehman (1995) argue that unrealistic optimism may serve a self-protective
function. In line with Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) conceptualization of independent
and interdependent construals of self, they assert that in an individualistic culture where
one’s independent construals of self are stressed, self-enhancing evaluations place people
in a favorable position in the face of threatening events, which helps relieve the
94 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
independent self of some of the stress associated with these events. On the other hand, in
a collectivistic culture where one’s interdependent construals of self are stressed, self-
enhancing evaluations may serve only to isolate the interdependent self from collectivist
network, and thus, this isolation could hardly be conceived as coping mechanism when
confronted with threat. Heine and Lehman concluded, “the self-effacing manner of
viewing their futures as about average, or sometimes even worse than average, appears
more characteristic of Japanese” (p.604).
Accounts and Self-enhancing Bias
To the extent that the individual’s self-enhancing tendency has a great impact on the
interpretation of the reality he or she is facing, it may also affect his or her choice of
account-making tactics. Many theorists (Buttny, 1993 ; Schonbach, 1990 ; Snyder &
Higgins, 1988 ; Weiner, Figueroa-Munoz, & Kakihira, 1991) agree that the basic
functions of account-making are to maintain and promote individual’s self-esteem(4)and
the sense of control. For example, Snyder & Higgins (1988) argue that account-making(5)
is the process in the context of “reality negotiation.” All people are holding so-called self-
theories of reality, which operate to form their views of themselves and the exterior
world. When they are confronted with the events that threaten their self-theories,
correcting the inconsistencies between the new and old information about the self
becomes inevitable. The new self-view, constructed as a consequence of the process of
responding to and accepting new personal information, is a “negotiated reality.” The
negotiated reality is constantly changing in response to the endless flow of challenging
events, though a certain version of negotiated reality may be temporarily prevailing over
others (Snyder & Higgins, 1988).
In Snyder and Higgins’ theory, offering accounts is a volitional course of action that
intends to maintain the underlying motives of positive self-image and control upon which
the personal self-theory is based. In order to accomplish these objectives, the actor
distorts information so as to facilitate the preservation and promotion of these motives.
The extent to which the actor can alter information, however, is restricted by the reality
defined by other people (e.g., partners and/or observers), because negotiated reality can
be seen as an agreed-upon interpretation of the failure event(6) between the parties
concerned. The actor may have to admit the partner’s rules and opinions that shape his
or her reality in the course of reality negotiation. Nonetheless, the actor leans heavily
toward his or her personal interpretation of the event. A negotiated reality, therefore, is
the actor’s subjective estimation that he or she deems valid and the partner would not
raise serious doubts about his or her interpretation.
Failure events normally reduce the participants’ self-esteem and sense of control. The
actor may lose them by realizing the negative consequence of the failure event or being
confronted with a harsh reproach attacking directly either his or her control
competencies or self-esteem. By the same token, the actor’s unreasonable accounts may
give the partner the feelings of loss of control and self-esteem. The participants’ feelings
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
95
of self-esteem and control are assumed to be extremely vulnerable in failure events, and
this vulnerability of control beliefs and feelings of self-worth frequently provoke certain
maladaptive reproaches and accounts. Such maladaptive reproaches and accounts that do
not take into consideration of the need of the other participants are issued to sustain self-
esteem and a sense of control, and if egocentric reproaches meet with egocentric accounts,
a likely consequence is an escalation of conflict and ill feeling (Schonbach, 1990).
It is important to note that an underlying motive behind people’s self-serving
attribution is to secure feelings of control ; i.e., people tend to attribute personal success
to self-relevant factors (e.g., ability and/or effort) but attribute personal failures to
environmental factors (e.g., luck and/or task difficulty) so that they can gain a sense of
control over their own result. Schlenker (1980) argues that attribution processes should
be viewed not only as a means of providing the actor with his or her view of the world,
but as a means of upholding his or her effective exercise of control in that world. He
contends : “The necessity for feelings of personal control as prerequisites for action, then,
could produce perceptions and attributions that appear to be self-serving and esteem
enhancing” (p.90).
Compared to the self-serving bias and the perceived control, the theoretical link
between optimism and account-making is less clear. However, it seems that an
individual’s optimism tendency serves to alter the perception of failure events. Optimistic
individuals, by definition, tend to view communication situations more optimistically, and
thus may perceive failure events less negatively than average people. The positive
evaluation of the failure events is likely to provide an advantage to the actor in the
process of reality negotiation. It is possible to speculate that the optimistic evaluation of
the situation may operate on manipulating the partner-defined reality in the process of
reality negotiation such that the optimistic actor can construct more self-serving accounts.
Implications for Interpersonal Accounts between Japan and North America
As argued above, there appears to be a strong theoretical link between account-making
and self-enhancement biases, especially positive view of the self (e.g., self-serving biases)
and control beliefs. What are the implications for the interpersonal accounts across
cultures? In order to delve into this issue, a brief review of interpersonal account
research may be in order.
There are at least four types of accounts : concessions, excuses, justifications, and
refusals (Schonbach, 1990), which are ordered on a “mitigating-aggravating continuum”
with concessions as the most mitigating forms, followed by excuses and justifications,
with refusals portraying the most aggravating forms of accounts (McLaughlin, Cody, &
Rosenstein, 1983 ; McLaughlin, Cody, & O’Hare, 1983). Research evidence supports that
concessions and excuses are more mitigating than justifications and refusals (Cody &
McLaughlin, 1985 ; Holtgraves, 1989 ; McLaughlin, Cody, & Rosenstein, 1983 ;
McLaughlin, Cody, & O’Hare, 1983).
In addition, accounts can be analyzed in terms of the perceived causality of failure
96 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
events : locus (internal vs. external), controllability (controllable vs. uncontrollable), and
stability (stable vs. unstable) (Cody, Kersten, Braaten, & Dickson, 1992 ; Dunn & Cody,
2000 ; Weiner, 1992 ; Weiner, 1995 ; Weiner et al., 1991). For example, if a person were
late for the business meeting because of a traffic accident on the road, then that cause
would be classified as external, uncontrollable, and unstable. However, if the same
person were late for the meeting because he or she simply forgot it, it would be internal,
controllable, unstable cause, and if that individual frequently forgot the meeting, then it
would be a stable cause.
The locus of a cause influences the actor’s self-esteem (Weiner et al., 1991), and this
dimension is directly related to self-enhancement bias, because self-enhancers tend to
attributes successes to internal causes and attributes failures to external causes. The
controllability dimension of causality is linked with affects including anger and pity.
Anger is a primary consequence after an individual has performed a controllable act that
hurts others, but pity and sympathy may be aroused by uncontrollable difficulties. The
dimension of stability concerns expectancy of success and failure. Failure in exam
attributed to a stable cause such as low ability is expected to repeat because ability is
conceived as an enduring property. However, attribution of failure to an unstable cause
such as temporary illness or bad luck is not likely to recur in future (Weiner et al., 1991).
Provided that cultural differences of self-enhancing motives and the variety of account
tactics available, the following proposition regarding cultural preferences of account
tactics may be posited :
Proposition 1 : To the extent that North Americans have greater self-enhancing
motives (esp., self-serving bias and need for primary control) than Japanese,
North Americans are expected to use more self-serving accounts than Japanese
in failure events.
Self-serving accounts may include excuses, justifications and denials. Excuses are
explanations in which an actor admits that the act in question is bad, wrong, and
inappropriate but denies full responsibility (Scott & Lyman, 1968). Excuses are usually
considered mitigating accounts (Cody & McLaughlin, 1990 ; McLaughlin, Cody, & O’Hare,
1983), and therefore, regarded as less self-serving than justifications. Nonetheless,
excuses are fundamentally similar to justifications (Schonbach, 1990) and include self-
serving qualities in that an actor usually makes excuses in an attempt to reduce his or
her responsibility. Although virtually all excuses have the properties of externality,
uncontrollability, and instability (Weiner, 1992), the externality dimension is particularly
relevant here because it is the very dimension that may affect the Japanese and North
American account-making. More specific, excuses for external causes (e.g., being late
because of accident) are more self-serving than internal causes (e.g., being late because of
oversleeping). People may use excuses for actions caused by external sources to protect
their own self-esteem. Sometimes, real, internal reasons are withheld, and false, external
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
97
reasons are offered as an excuse (Weiner, 1992). Because North Americans are more
motivated to protect and enhance their self-esteem than Japanese, the former may use
more excuses with external causes than the latter, and this may include the case in
which the real, internal reasons are deliberately hidden, and the false, external reasons
are revealed. Excuses including appeal to accident and scapegoating (e.g., “My friend told
me this was the correct form”) are examples of external causes.
Justifications are accounts in which an actor accepts responsibility for the act in
question, but denies the negativity involved in it and claims the positive consequences
that prevail over the negative outcomes (Scott & Lyman, 1968). Typical justifications
include direct minimization (“No harm done”), justification through comparison
(“everyone does it” or “some people do much worse things”), and justifications through
higher goals (“I did it out of a sense of loyalty”) (Schlenker, 1980). All of these
justifications are used to minimize the negative implications of the acts so that the actor
can promote a positive image of self and protect against negative image, i.e., self-
enhancing motive. Given that North Americans have a stronger self-enhancing motive
than Japanese, it seems reasonable to assume that North Americans use more
justifications than Japanese.
Denials are assertions in which an actor claims the alleged failure event never
occurred, or clearly denies his or her personal involvement in the failure event and does
not accept his or her responsibility (Schonbach, 1990). The actor may use “defense of
nonoccurrence,” to show that the alleged event did not occur, or “defense of noncausation”
(“I didn’t do it.”) to show that he or she is not responsible at all for the alleged
undesirable event. Denials are effective only in limited situations where the partner
accepts them as something believable. If alleged undesirable events were observed and
accusations were made, denials would be seen as extremely self-protective and self-
serving. Although “reality constraints” normally operate to prevent the actors from
distorting the facts beyond what is acceptable, most situations involve some ambiguous
elements that the accurate allocation of responsibility is not possible. In addition, facts
can be selected and interpreted in multiple ways. Thus, egocentric actors may try out
their preferred interpretations of situations so as to present the situation in a positive
light, hoping that the partners will accept their accounts.
Compared to excuses, justifications, and denials, concessions are more mitigating and
the least self-serving accounts. In a concession, the actor neither denies responsibility nor
attempts to justify improper behavior, but simply admits to the failure in question.
Concessions are often accompanied by apologies, expressions of remorse, offers
compensation, etc. In concessions with apologies, the actor attempts to persuade the
partner to view the undesirable event as not a fair representation of what he or she
really is like, redressing the past and promising to improve his or her behavior in the
future (Schlenker, 1980). Concessions effectively alleviate the partner’s resentment (Itoi,
Ohbuchi, & Fukuno, 1996) and help maintain relational harmony. Apologies, which are
admissions of an individual’s weakness, reflect the Japanese tendency for critical self-
98 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
evaluation. In North America, however, apologies are perceived self-denigrating and
psychologically damaging because they interfere with self-enhancing orientation (Heine
et al., 1999).
Proposition 2 : To the extent that North Americans have greater self-serving
attribution of fairness than Japanese, North American actors are expected to
perceive their partners’ reproaches more unfairly than Japanese.
Accounts can be viewed as a response to the partner’s reproaches (Schonbach, 1990).
The partner’s reproaches, which are usually issued before accounts, vary from very mild
to very severe depending on his or her interpretation of the failure event. Because self-
serving attribution of fairness implies that North Americans tend to consider their own
conducts more fair than what actually are, they may feel the partner’s reproaches to be
more harsh and unfair, which may end up giving more aggravating accounts.
Schonbach’s (1990) theory of conflict escalation explicitly depicts this interaction process.
Given that North Americans are likely to consider themselves more fair than Japanese, it
seems logical that, compared with Japanese, North Americans perceive their partners’
reproaches as unfair and their own accounts as fair explanations of the failure events.
Proposition 3 : To the extent that North Americans have greater self-enhancing
motives (esp., unrealistic optimism) than Japanese, North Americans are
expected to view failure events less negatively than Japanese.
Given that North Americans are more optimistic than Japanese, they may be more
confident in coping with stressful failure events. This optimism has to do with the
perceptions of primary control (the belief that an individual’s behavior can produce a
desired outcome). An individual’s exaggerated perception of control provides confidence,
which in turn permits North Americans to perceive the failure events less negatively. In
addition, North American future orientation helps prevent them from worrying too much
about what has already happened. The differences of the perceived negative implications
for the failure events between North Americans and Japanese apparently have influences
on their choice of accounts, as posited in proposition 1.
Proposition 4 : The greater an individual’s self-enhancing motive is, more likely he
or she use self-serving accounts. Correspondingly, the greater an individual’s self
-effacing motive is, the more likely he or she is to use less self-serving accounts.
To the extent that self-enhancing tendencies influence the preference of account tactics,
an individual with a higher self-enhancing motive should use more self-serving accounts
(e.g., excuses, justifications, and denials), regardless of his or her cultural membership.
Culture affects its members’ values, norms, opinions, beliefs, behaviors, and so on, and
Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancing Tendencies and
Their Implications for Interpersonal Accounts
99
thus, North American culture is more conducive to its members’ self-enhancing biases,
and Japanese culture is more conducive to its members’ self-effacing tendencies
(Kitayama et al., 1997). Nevertheless, individuals are not totally subject to their cultural
influence. Like many other self-concepts such as independent and interdependent self-
construals (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), there should be considerable individual
differences of self-enhancing biases within a given culture. Evidently, not all North
Americans are self-enhancing and not all Japanese are self-effacing. The distinction
between self-enhancing and self-effacing is a general propensity that may surface when
members of the culture are evaluated as a group. Given the assumption that the self-
enhancing bias affects the use of accounts, and North Americans are more self-enhancing
than Japanese, there should be more North Americans with higher self-enhancing
tendencies than Japanese. Similarly, there should be more Japanese with less self-
enhancing (higher self-effacing) than North Americans. For the self-enhancing bias to act
as a mediating variable in cross-cultural research, the individual-level, within-culture
analysis of the construct is necessary.
Conclusion
Cultural differences of self-enhancing tendencies have attracted considerable research
interest in the field of cultural psychology because self-enhancement needs has long been
considered universal that transcends particular eras and cultures. The fact that the
recent special issue(7)of Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology was devoted to “Culture
and Self-Enhancing Bias” reflects the enthusiasm concerning this research topic.
Although the debate on the universality of self-enhancement needs is yet to be settled,(8)
most researchers seem to agree that cultural difference exits. The differences of self-
enhancement motives are attributed to individuals’ self-construals ; People with
independent self-construals (e.g., North Americans) are self-enhancing, whereas those
with interdependent self-construals (e.g., Japanese) are self-effacing or self-improving
(e.g., Heine, 2003 ; Heine, Kitayama, & Lehman, 2001 ; Heine, Kitayama, Lehman et al.,
2001 ; Heine & Lehman, 1995 ; Heine et al., 1999 ; Kitayama et al., 1997 ; Markus &
Kitayama, 1991).
Albeit the significance of self-enhancement as a construct and the theoretical link with
interpersonal accounts, numerous studies on accounting for untoward conduct have been
done with no attention to this variable. This paper attempted to fill this gap by
incorporating self-enhancing motives into the framework of interpersonal account
research. The implications of the self-enhancing motive are far-reaching. Given that most
communication problems stem from perceptual gap between the participants, the actor’s
self-enhancing motive, which provides him or her with a distorted reality, is likely to play
a critical role in not only interpersonal accounts but also many other genres of
interpersonal communication.
A total of four testable propositions concerning self-enhancing motive and interpersonal
accounts are presented. Future research should empirically test the tenability of these
100 天理大学学報 第62巻第2号
propositions. Also, research efforts should be exerted to explicate how self-enhancing
biases interact with situational variables. For instance, a recent study (Takata, 2003)
suggests that competitive situations induce self-enhancing bias and that competition-free
situations induce self-critical tendency among Japanese. In addition, Kitayama et al
(1997) emphasize the importance of culturally shared situational definitions that the
members of the culture follow, and because each culture has chosen and maintained
situational definitions that are effective in endorsing their own cultural imperatives,
many North American situations encourage self-enhancing whereas many Japanese
situations discourage it. The inclusion of these situational effects would definitely
advance our understanding of interpersonal accounts.
NOTES(1) In line with Weiner’s (Weiner, 1979) conceptualization, many studies on self-serving
attributional bias include four factors : ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Ability and
effort are internal and task difficulty and luck are designed as external attributions.
(2) A collective constructionist theory of the self proposed by Kitayama et al. (1997)
supports Kudo and Numazaki’s contention. Kitayama et al. maintain that many
psychological processes (e.g., self-enhancement and self-criticism) result from and support
the ways in which social acts and situations are collectively defined and subjectively
experienced in the respective cultural contexts. That is, American situations are more
conducive to self-enhancement, whereas Japanese situations are more conducive to self-
criticism.
(3) Morling et al. used less biased terms such as “influence” and “adjustment” instead of the
original “primary” and “secondary” control because primary control may not universally
precede secondary control, especially in interdependent cultural milieus.
(4) Some theorists use the term, “face” instead of “self-esteem.” Although face and self-
esteem are not the identical concepts, they are, nevertheless, conceptually similar with
many common attributes, and thus, no differentiation was made here.
(5) Snyder and Higgins refer to “excuse-making” rather than “account-making” in their
article.
(6) The term “failure event” is used to denote the specific behavior or offense that resulted
in an account’s being requested, offered, and evaluated (Schonbach, 1990).
(7) Volume 34, No.5, September 2003.
(8) Instead of finding the differences in the presence and absence of the self-enhancement
bias per se, some cross-cultural psychologists assume that cultures differ in the degree to
which they permit, promote, or restrain the expression of the tendency (Brown &
Kobayashi, 2003).
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