LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUAL PRIMING A Replication and Extension in a Hong Kong Sample

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1 / JOURNAL Kemmelmeier, OF Cheng CROSS-CULTURAL / LANGUAGE AND PSYCHOLOGY SELF-CONSTRUALS LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUAL PRIMING A Replication and Extension in a Hong Kong Sample MARKUS KEMMELMEIER University of Nevada BELINDA YAN-MING CHENG University of Michigan Previous research has argued that language serves as a cognitive cue to reinforce culturally normative selfconstruals. We hypothesize that language-priming effects would be stronger for women than men and that they would primarily occur for self-construals that are not already latently salient in the respondents culture. Also, in contrast to earlier research on language priming of self-construals, we rely on Singelis s independent and interdependent self-construal scales as closed-ended dependent measures. Using a bilingual sample from Hong Kong (n = 126), we experimentally varied questionnaire language (English vs. Chinese) and found support for all our predictions. The discussion focuses on cue strength as moderator of languagepriming effects. Keywords: self-construals; priming; language; gender Recently, cultural psychologists have argued for a social-cognitive approach to understanding cultural influences on experience and behavior (Hong & Chiu, 2001; Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martinez, 2000; Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991). At the heart is the idea that because individuals feeling and thinking are embedded in a particular context with its cultural practices and assumptions, cultural stimuli in the environment prime culturally normative responses in the individual. Put differently, culturally expected behavior is the result of situational cues that people encounter in their cultural environment. This approach has been particularly useful in accounting for the cross-cultural variability in the self-concept. Researchers have long distinguished aspects of the self that focus on individual independence, uniqueness, and agency from those aspects that focus on the ways in which the individual is connected to and interdependent with others, for example, through close relationships or by being embedded in social groups (e.g., Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Typically, both independent self-construals and interdependent self-construals form part of the same self-concept, but they are stored in separate locations in memory (Trafimow & Smith, 1998; Trafimow et al., 1991). Independent selfconstruals are more prevalent in individualist societies than in collectivist societies, whereas interdependent self-construals are more ubiquitous in collectivist societies than in individualist societies (see Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002, for a review). However, research into self-concept malleability has demonstrated that, often, independent and interdependent self-construals vary with different situational characteristics (e.g., Gardner, AUTHORS NOTE: We are indebted to Twila Tardif and Lijun Ji for their assistance in preparing the Chinese version of our questionnaire, and we would like to thank Heather Gillespie and Heather Coon for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Markus Kemmelmeier, Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Social Psychology, Department of Sociology/300, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada markusk@unr.edu JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 35 No. 6, November DOI: / Sage Publications 705

2 706 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY Gabriel, & Lee, 1999; Markus & Kunda, 1986; Trafimow et al., 1991). Hence, researchers have argued that cross-cultural differences in self-construals can be attributed to the structure of different cultural contexts. According to this conceptualization, everyday practices in individualist societies render independent self-construals salient, whereas practices in collectivist societies render interdependent self-construals salient (Gardner et al., 1999; Hong & Chiu, 2001; Trafimow et al., 1991). The issue of language has drawn some attention from cross-cultural researchers because it is a powerful device for reinforcing culturally normative self-construals (e.g., Kashima & Kashima, 1998). Bicultural individuals are particularly interesting in this context because for them language often serves as a cue to rely on one rather than another of two cultural frames. For example, Trafimow, Silverman, Fan, and Law (1997) asked a sample of Hong Kong Chinese to work on the Twenty Statements Test (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954), an openended task in which participants are presented with 20 sentences beginning with I am and are asked to complete it using a self-descriptive phrase. The questionnaire was presented either in English, the language associated with Western individualist culture, or Chinese, the language of a collectivistic culture. Trafimow et al. (1997) found that the English language primed independent self-construals as indicated in the frequent use of trait adjectives in participants self-descriptions that emphasize the individual s uniqueness and cross-situational consistency of the self. By contrast, the use of Chinese primed interdependent self-construals because participants were more likely to describe themselves with varying social roles (see also Ross, Xun, & Wilson, 2002; Watkins & Gerong, 1999). Thus, according to the dynamic constructivist approach, language shapes the content of the selfconcept by priming self-construals associated with the language. Arguably, this prediction with regard to the implication of language for self-construals coincides with that derived from the cultural accommodation thesis, which proposes that language is likely to bias responses in the direction valued by the culture in which the language is used (Bond & Yang, 1982; Yang & Bond, 1980). For instance, Ralston, Cunniff, and Gustafson (1995) found that Hong Kong managers were more likely to endorse stereotypically Western values (e.g., achievement) when responding to an English-language version of a value survey but were more likely to endorse traditionally Chinese values (e.g., tradition) when responding in Chinese. In research on cultural accommodation, such findings have been interpreted as evidence for participants embracing values and ideas that are socially desirable within the culture associated with the language (Bond & Yang, 1982; Marin, Triandis, Betancourt, & Kashima, 1983). Yet they are equally well accounted for within a social-cognitive framework in which language is conceived of as a situational cue. The present research expands on existing work on language effects in several ways. First, previous research has not paid sufficient attention to the role of gender in the effect of language on self-concept priming. Whereas Trafimow et al. (1997) briefly noted that gender had no effect on their results, Watkins and Gerong (1999) systematically explored the gender differences in language priming in a sample of Filipino high school students, but their results are hard to interpret (see also Watkins & Regmi, 2002). Hence, we reexamined the role of gender in a sample of bicultural students from Hong Kong. Research shows that women s self-concepts are often more attuned to aspects of their social environment. For example, women are more sensitive to feedback or social comparison information (e.g., Kemmelmeier & Oyserman, 2001; see Cross & Madsen, 1997). Extrapolating from this work and taking into account that women, on average, tend to have higher verbal ability (e.g., Halpern & LaMay, 2000), we predicted women to be more responsive to language priming than men.

3 Kemmelmeier, Cheng / LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUALS 707 Second, to our knowledge all research exploring the effects of language on selfconstruals has used open-ended self-description tasks (Ross et al., 2002; Trafimow et al., 1997; Watkins & Gerong, 1999), presumably to avoid the problem of cultural differences in survey item interpretation (Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001). However, with regard to the frequently used Twenty Statements Test, this introduces a problem related to the different grammatical structure of English and Chinese. Ross et al. (2002) noted that in English the phrase I am invites completion with a self-descriptive trait term (e.g., I am shy ). Unlike its English equivalent, the Chinese phrase I am does not invite adjectival selfdescriptions because in Chinese a self-descriptive adjective is more likely to follow I rather than I am. Because this represents an important confound, Ross et al. (2002) chose different prompts to elicit self-descriptions in English and Chinese. We circumvented this problem in the present research by using a closed-ended response format, namely an established and well-validated self-construal scale to tap self-descriptions. It is important to note that with regard to the study of language priming, closed-ended and open-ended response formats differ critically with regard to the cognitive processes required to generate an answer. Open-ended formats require language production by instructing respondents to write about themselves, whereas closed-ended formats merely ask participants to read text and respond in a format that does not require language production (e.g., by checking a number on a response scale). Because previous research on the effects of language on self-construals has only used open-ended formats, it is unclear whether language-priming effects only occur if participants read experimental instructions in a particular language and generate speech or text in the same language or if reading instructions in a particular language and responding in a number format is sufficient. Although not focused on self-descriptions, one study using both formats among bilinguals found evidence that open-ended responses are more sensitive to the effects of language than closed-ended ones (Church, Katigbak, & Castaneda, 1988). Here we argue, though, that language production is not necessary for language effects on self-descriptions to occur. Whether the format is openended or closed-ended, the language of the experiment prompts those self-relevant memories that occurred within the cultural context corresponding to the language (Marian & Neisser, 2000). And, given that both open-ended and closed-ended self-descriptions can be expected to be based on one s self-memory, both should be sensitive to language effects. Last, we explored a hypothesis concerning the symmetry of language-priming effects on the two types of self-construals. As a result of their experimental findings in the United States and Hong Kong, Gardner et al. (1999) proposed that self-construal priming is only effective if it is inconsistent with the cultural default. That is, in Chinese societies, where interdependent self-construals are chronically salient, only experimental manipulations of independent self-construals can be expected to succeed. At the same time, experimental manipulations are ineffective when aimed at self-construals that are rendered highly salient by the daily practices within a society (e.g., interdependent self-construals in a Chinese society). However, previous findings, including those of Trafimow et al. (1997), do not support this hypothesis. Note also that if one makes the unproblematic assumption that chronically salient self-construals coincide with those deemed socially desirable within a culture, Gardner et al. s hypothesis appears to be incongruous with predictions derived from the cultural accommodation thesis. Because cultural accommodation focuses on language effects with regard to culturally desirable values and behavior (Bond & Yang, 1982; Marin et al., 1983), in a collectivist society language should lead to a culturally consistent bias on those dimensions that are most desirable within the culture. In other words, in Chinese societies one should be able to expect that the Chinese language is more likely to influence

4 708 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY participants responses with regard to interdependent self-construals than independent construals a hypothesis that is diametrically opposed to that of Gardner et al. s In this study, we tested these competing predictions in a Hong Kong sample by observing the consequences of the language of the questionnaire (English vs. Chinese) on independent and interdependent self-construals. Note that Hong Kong represents a seemingly paradoxical case in cultural psychology. On one hand, recent research, including that of Trafimow et al. (1997), has focused on Hong Kong Chinese as a paradigmatic case of bilinguals because within the traditional Chinese culture individuals typically learn to speak English in kindergarten, and strong Western influences persist even after Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony in 1997 (see also Hong et al., 2000). This characterization implies that neither Chinese nor Western culture is dominant in the lives of individuals. On the other hand, cultural psychologists, including Gardner et al. (1999), have treated Hong Kong primarily as a Chinese culture, an assumption that is empirically corroborated by Hong Kong s similarity to other Chinese societies (e.g., Oyserman et al., 2002). Here, we argue that these two accounts are only seemingly contradictory. Notwithstanding that Hong Kong may indeed be regarded as a Chinese society, in the course of their daily lives most individuals transition in and out of different cultural contexts (e.g., home vs. university), requiring full cultural competency in both. Hence, Hong Kong Chinese are bicultural even though a larger proportion of daily contexts may be shaped by Chinese culture. METHOD PARTICIPANTS A total of 126 ethnically Chinese undergraduates (62 men, 64 women) volunteered to participate in the present study. The majority of students were from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (69%) and Pui Ching Middle School (24%) along with other students from the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The mean age of the sample was years (SD = 1.51; range = 17 to 25 years). All participants were bicultural and bilingual through their typical Hong Kong exposure to English and the Western culture. PROCEDURE Participants were randomly assigned to either the English language condition or Chinese language condition and received a corresponding questionnaire. The questionnaire mainly consisted of Singelis s (1994) independent and interdependent self-construal scales with 12 items each that have been used successfully around the world (see Oyserman et al., 2002). The original English version was translated into Chinese by two bilingual individuals using the back translation method (Brislin, 1986) and verified by another bilingual individual. The reliabilities of the Chinese version of the scales were satisfactory (independence α =.71; interdependence α =.69), but the English versions were somewhat low (independence α =.68; interdependence α =.59), although not atypical for this widely used scale (cf. Oyserman et al., 2002).

5 Kemmelmeier, Cheng / LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUALS 709 RESULTS A 2 (language version) 2 (sex) 2 (self-construal type) mixed factorial design was used to analyze the self-construal data. The first two factors were between-groups factors, and the last factor was a repeated-measures factor. We found, first, that participants scored significantly higher on interdependent as compared to independent self-construals (M = 4.75, SD = 0.58 vs. M = 4.62, SD = 0.69), F(1, 122) = 5.93, p <.02, a finding consistent with the notion that interdependent self-construals are latently salient in Hong Kong. Second, there was a main effect for language showing that, regardless of self-construal and sex, ratings in the English-language version (M = 4.77, SD = 0.48) were generally higher than those in the Chinese version (M = 4.57, SD = 0.58), F(1, 122) = 4.62, p <.04. Third, a language by sex interaction, F(1, 122) = 8.80, p <.005, showed that women scored higher on interdependent selfconstruals than men (M = 4.88, SD = 0.58 vs. M = 4.62, SD = 0.55), F(1, 122) = 6.80, p <.02, but that the sexes did not vary with regard to independent self-construals (M = 4.65, SD = 0.64 vs. M = 4.60, SD = 0.74), F < 1. Most important, though, the three-way interaction term also reached significance, F(1, 122) = 5.14, p <.03. To diagnose this interaction, we followed up by analyzing the two self-construal variables separately using a 2 (language version) 2 (sex) factorial design. With regard to independent self-construals, we obtained the expected Language Sex interaction, F(1, 122) = 5.70, p <.02. Women scored higher when the questionnaire was in English (M = 4.84, SD = 0.55) than when it was in Chinese (M = 4.25, SD = 0.84), F(1, 122) = 11.34, p <.001, whereas a comparable difference did not occur for men (M = 4.65, SD = 0.72 vs. M = 4.64, SD = 0.55), F < 1. For interdependent self-construals, there was only the sex effect reported above, but no other effect reached significance. It is conceivable that the absence of a priming effect for interdependent self-construals might be attributed to the disappointing internal consistency of the respective scales. To explore this possibility, we repeated all analyses, successively eliminating up to four items with the lowest item-total correlations to increase Cronbach s alpha. Because results were essentially the same, scale reliability does not seem to have compromised our experimental findings. DISCUSSION The present study adds to a body of research demonstrating that language crucially shapes self-concept content. Paralleling language effects on personal values (e.g., Ralston et al., 1995), we showed language-priming effects on self-construals even when the task is closed-ended and does not require any language production on the part of the participant. In other words, whereas Trafimow et al. (1997) and Ross et al. (2002) varied both the language of experimental instruction and the language of responding, the present data support the notion that for bicultural individuals, reading a particular language is sufficient to effect temporary shifts in the salience of self-construals. Our findings, however, diverge from earlier studies in that only women s self-construals were responsive to language priming a result consistent with the observation that women s self-concept is often more responsive to aspects of their social environment (cf. Cross & Madsen, 1997). Thus, to accurately establish the effects of language on self-construals, it is important to take gender into account, especially given that relevant experiments involve more women than men (Ross et al., 2002). For survey researchers working with bilingual

6 710 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY populations, gendered variation in language priming may pose a particularly difficult problem. If language alters women s response, monolingual assessment methods may represent a potential source of bias in research on sex differences. For instance, had we only used a Chinese questionnaire, we would have concluded that Hong Kong men tend to be higher in independence than their female counterparts, F(1, 51) = 4.00, p =.05, even though the Englishlanguage questionnaire showed no reliable sex difference, F(1, 71) = 1.56, p >.21, a finding that was corroborated by the overall analysis. Hence, to avoid unwarranted generalizations, it might be necessary to use both languages in data collection (see also Church et al., 1988). Another discrepancy of the present findings vis-à-vis the work of Trafimow et al. (1997) and Ross et al. (2002) is our observation that language priming occurs asymmetrically. Language priming did affect independent self-construals in our Chinese participants, but it did not affect interdependent self-construals. This represents a conceptual replication of Gardner et al. (1999, Study 2) and supports their proposition that in Hong Kong interdependent self-construals cannot be primed experimentally because the latter are rendered chronically salient by common cultural practices. However, this finding appears to be inconsistent with the cultural accommodation hypothesis, which postulates that language reinforces socially desirable values (Bond & Yang, 1982; Yang & Bond, 1980). In the present study, language priming did not influence the culturally championed interdependent selfconstruals, but it did affect the less desirable independent self-construals. Thus, although the cultural accommodation thesis and a social-cognitive approach often yield overlapping predictions, we argue that the latter is the more comprehensive approach as it can integrate Gardner et al. s (1999) hypothesis regarding the interaction of ecological and experimental salience of self-construals. Why did previous research not find similar gender effects in language priming, and why has the asymmetry in priming effects thus far been reported exclusively by Gardner et al. (1999)? Although we cannot provide a conclusive answer to these questions, we surmise that the reason is one of experimental methodology. As mentioned earlier, previous studies used open-ended tasks to elicit self-descriptions, whereas we utilized a closed-ended selfdescription questionnaire. Indeed, a recent review is consistent with the idea that open-ended measures may lead to different conclusions than closed-ended ones (Oyserman et al., 2002; see also Grace & Cramer, 2003). We believe that, in the present context, differences between Trafimow et al. (1997), Ross et al. (2002), and our findings are because of the varying potency of the language cues in their and our experimental procedure. All else being equal with regard to the activation of different aspects of the self, there is little doubt that reading in a particular language is a weaker cognitive cue than reading and writing in the same language. Because in the present experiment the linguistic cue was relatively weak, we propose that participants sensitivity to linguistic cues was a moderating factor: For the men in our sample, it appears that the cue was never potent enough to elicit differential sampling of selfmemories. However, presumably because women s self-concepts are generally more sensitive to contextual cues, the linguistic cues provided in our experiment were sufficient to activate different aspects of the self. A similar process may be responsible for the fact that we found language-priming effects to be limited to independent self-construals but not interdependent self-construals. Because interdependent self-construals were indeed more chronically salient and, thus, more stable in our Hong Kong sample, comparatively strong cues may be needed to make this type of self-construal even more salient. Conversely, relatively weak contextual cues such as our language variation in the closed-ended format are sufficient to produce temporary shifts in independent self-construals, which is less chronically salient in Hong Kong. This analysis is

7 Kemmelmeier, Cheng / LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUALS 711 consistent with Gardner et al. s (1999) proposal of asymmetrical priming effects on selfconstruals, but it introduces cue strength as a critical moderator. If cues are potent enough, the asymmetry in language effects on self-construals disappears, as documented by Trafimow et al. (1997) and Ross et al. (2002). Finally, this analysis also eliminates an apparent contradiction in the literature. Gardner et al. (1999) argued that cultural practice and interaction render one type of self-construal chronically salient, but that experimental manipulations were unlikely to effect change on the chronically salient dimension. Trafimow et al. (1997) and Ross et al. (2002) argued that language is one of the premier cultural practices to render one type of self-construal salient, but they demonstrate this by experimentally priming both chronically and not chronically salient self-construals. We believe that the notion of cue strength resolves this contradiction. In this conception, most experimental manipulations of self-construals are indeed weak. However, the language activities of everyday life (i.e., speaking and acting in a particular language) are powerful cues not only because they prime aspects of the self but because they require speakers to enact structural properties of the language that exhibit a systematic relationship to cultural notions of the person. A good example is the so-called pronoun drop (Kashima & Kashima, 1998, 2003). Languages such as English require a speaker to clearly specify the pronominal subject of a sentence as in, I went to a movie last night. By contrast, other languages, such as Chinese, drop the subject pronoun as in, Went to a movie last night, requiring the audience to rely on contextual cues to infer the actor s identity. This implies that in languages such as English the actor is decontextualized and emphasized as individual, whereas in languages such as Chinese the actor is embedded in the context. Theorists have argued that these characteristics differentially foster independent and interdependent self-construals in users of these languages, and indeed pronoun drop is less likely to be found in highly individualist societies (Kashima & Kashima, 2003). In sum, although the present study only taps one aspect of the complex relationship between language and culture, it nevertheless shows that under some circumstances reading in a particular language is sufficient to prime cultural self-construals. REFERENCES Bond, M. H., & Yang, K. S. (1982). Ethnic affirmation versus cross-cultural accommodation: The variable impact of questionnaire language on Chinese bilinguals from Hong Kong. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 13, Brislin, R. (1986). The wording and translation of research instruments. In W. Lonner & J. Berry (Eds.), Field methods in cross-cultural research (pp ). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Church, A. T., Katigbak, M. S., & Castaneda, I. (1988). The effects of language of data collection on derived conceptions of healthy personality among Filipino bilinguals. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 19, Cross, S. E., & Madsen, L. (1997). Models of the self: Self-construals and gender. Psychological Bulletin, 122, Gardner, W. L., Gabriel, S., & Lee, A. Y. (1999). I value freedom, but we value relationships: Self-construal priming mirrors cultural differences in judgment. Psychological Science, 10, Grace, S. L., & Cramer, K. L. (2003). The elusive nature of self-measurement: The self-construal scale versus the Twenty Statements Test. Journal of Social Psychology, 143, Greenwald, A. G., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1984). The self. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Krull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 3, pp ). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Halpern, D. F., & LaMay, M. L. (2000). The smarter sex: A critical review of sex difference in intelligence. Educational Psychology Review, 12, Hong, Y.-y., & Chiu, C.-y. (2001). Toward a paradigm shift: From cross-cultural differences in social cognition to social-cognitive mediation of cultural differences. Social Cognition, 19, Hong, Y.-y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C.-y., & Benet-Martinez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55,

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