Content area
Full Text
Contents
- Abstract
- What Is Self-Esteem?
- Culture and Self
- The Role of Positive Self-Views Within North American and Japanese Cultures
- Independent Selfways
- Interdependent Selfways
- Self-Criticism
- Self-Discipline
- Effort
- Perseverance
- Endurance
- External Frame of Reference
- Shame and Apologies
- Emotional Restraint and Balance
- Summary
- Evidence Bearing on a Need for Positive Self-Regard in North America and in Japan
- Possessing a Positive Self-View
- Correlates of Cultural Values and Self-Esteem
- The Cultural Discourse of Self-Esteem
- Enhancing the Positivity of One's Self-View
- Maintaining a Positive Self-View
- Evidence for Self-Critical and Self-Improving Orientations Among Japanese
- Alternative Explanations
- What “Self” Is Being Enhanced: The Independent or the Interdependent?
- North American Biases in the Selection of Questions
- Are Japanese Hiding Their “True” Feelings of Positive Self-Regard?
- The Search for Japanese Self-Regard
- At What Level Is a Need for Self-Regard Universal?
- Concluding Remarks
Figures and Tables
Abstract
It is assumed that people seek positive self-regard; that is, they are motivated to possess, enhance, and maintain positive self-views. The cross-cultural generalizability of such motivations was addressed by examining Japanese culture. Anthropological, sociological, and psychological analyses revealed that many elements of Japanese culture are incongruent with such motivations. Moreover, the empirical literature provides scant evidence for a need for positive self-regard among Japanese and indicates that a self-critical focus is more characteristic of Japanese. It is argued that the need for self-regard must be culturally variant because the constructions of self and regard themselves differ across cultures. The need for positive self-regard, as it is currently conceptualized, is not a universal, but rather is rooted in significant aspects of North American culture. Conventional interpretations of positive self-regard are too narrow to encompass the Japanese experience.
People have a need to view themselves positively. This is easily the most common and consensually endorsed assumption in research on the self (e.g., Allport, 1955; Epstein, 1973; James, 1890; Maslow, 1943; Rogers, 1951; Steele, 1988; Tesser, 1988). In fact, positive self-regard is thought by many to be essential for achieving mental health (e.g., Baumeister, 1993; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Although the presumption of this need appears across research paradigms (e.g., self-esteem, self-enhancing biases, self-evaluation...