The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of cultural-self-construal on self-presentation to significant-others that belong to the participants' ingroup (miuchi) or outgroup (soto). In the pilot study, 54 undergraduates and graduate students described self-images that they wanted to present to significant-others, and 19 desirable self-images were extracted. Two hundred and twenty-four undergraduate students were then included in the present survey. In terms of results, two implications were induced. First, participants who had inter-dependent-self-construal changed the presentation of their self-images than those who had independent self-construal. This result is congruent with the theory of the cultural construal of self. Second, the data show the tendency of self-depreciation to their self-images independent to the cultural-self-construals. However, the tendency is more remarkable among the people who had inter-dependent-self-construal. The discussion considered the effects of cultural-self-construal on self-presentation.
Japanese Journal of Social Psychology 21 (1), 44-52, 2005
The Japanese Society of Social Psychology