Effects of priming self-construals on self-evaluations: Cultural game player perspective.

This study examined the validity of situational view on culture-specific behaviours focusing on self-evaluation. Two experiments with American students as samples were conducted to examine whether priming their self-construals would affect individuals' self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, the participants' self-evaluation was compared across different conditions of primed self-contruals. In Experiment 2, the participants were split into 2 groups based on their initial default self-consturals and, the self-evaluations were compared across the 2 groups after priming self-contruals. The results demonstrated that although the participants' self-evaluation was initially in accord with their default self-construal, it changed into accord with the primed self-construals. The findings supported the proposed cultural game player view. Implications on situational view of self-evaluation are also discussed.

Mirrors in the head: cultural variation in objective self-awareness.

In a society where there are pronounced concerns for "face," people come to be especially focused on how they are being evaluated by others. We reasoned that Japanese should conceive of themselves in terms of how they think they are considered by others. This hypothesis was tested by contrasting Japanese and North American participants who were in front of a mirror with those who were not. In two studies, replicating past research, North Americans who were in front of a mirror were more self-critical and were less likely to cheat than were those who were not in front of a mirror. In contrast, Japanese participants were unaffected by the presence of the mirror.