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Self-Esteem and the Cultural Trade-Off

Evidence for the Role of Individualism-Collectivism

University of Toronto, tafarodi{at}psych.utoronto.ca

James M. Lang

University of Wales, Cardiff

Alyson J. Smith

University of Wales, Cardiff

According to the cultural trade-off hypothesis, individualism and collectivism entail inverse costs and benefits for the two dimensions of global self-esteem. Specifically, individualism is described as promoting the development of self-competence but inhibiting the development of self-liking. Collectivism is described as doing the opposite. To examine the hypothesis, Malaysian (collectivist) and British (individualist) students were compared on their self-liking and self-competence. Consistent with predictions, Malaysians were significantly lower in self-competence when self-liking was held constant but were higher in self-liking when self-competence was held constant. The differences, however, were not reliable after statistically equating the cultural groups on two derived dimensions of individualism-collectivism—deference to the direction of relatives and connectedness to parents—suggesting that these dimensions might account for the trade-off in self-esteem.

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 5, 620-640 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/0022022199030005004


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