Culture- and Gender-Specific Implications of Relational and Collective Contexts on Spontaneous Self-Descriptions

Abstract

Social contexts that invoke sociality may be more relational in Asian cultures and for women in general but more collective in Anglo-European cultures and for men in general. Study 1 tested this notion by priming Australians and Asians in Australia with four contextual primes: individual, relational (interpersonal), collective (out-group), and control (nonsocial). As predicted, the relational context increased the proportion of social self-descriptions (relational and collective jointly) among Asians and women, whereas the collective context increased it among Australians. Study 2 reexamined the effects of contextual primes by using relational, in-group, and out-group primes with Japanese students in Japan. Japanese women activated their relational self more when primed with the relational context, whereas men activated their collective self more when primed with a collective (in-group or out-group) context. Both culture and gender interact with social context to show configural effects on the self.