From culture to priming conditions: Self-construal influences on life satisfaction judgments

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Citation:

Suh, E. M., Diener, E., and Updegraff, J. A. (2008). From culture to priming conditions: Self-construal influences on life satisfaction judgments. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39(1), 3-15.

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Abstract:

Existing cross-cultural research often assumes that the independent versus interdependent self-construal process leads to different cultural behaviors, although few studies directly test this link. Extending from prior cross-cultural findings, two studies were conducted to explicitly test whether self-construal is linked with the differential use of emotions versus social information in judgments of life satisfaction. Study 1 confirmed the prediction that even among Americans, those who view themselves in interdependent terms (allocentrics) evaluate their life satisfaction in a more collectivistic manner (strong reliance on social appraisal) than those who view themselves in independent terms (idiocentrics). Study 2 replicated these findings in two cultural settings (United States and Korea) by using experimental primes of independent versus relational self-construal. Results strongly suggest that differences in self-construal processes underlie cross-cultural differences in life satisfaction judgments.

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