This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0022022108330992v1 40/4/603    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Xiaohua Chen, S. Articles by Buchtel, E. E. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Behavioral Manifestations of Modesty

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, ssxhchen{at}polyu.edu.hk

Michael Harris Bond

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Bacon Chan

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Donghui Tang

Beijing Normal University

Emma E. Buchtel

University of British Columbia

Three studies examined the social manifestations of modesty in Chinese and Canadian cultures, conceptualizing and operationalizing it as a self-presentation tactic with communal functions. In Study 1, the authors developed a self-report Modest Behavior Scale (MBS) to tap the behavioral aspects of modesty and identified three factors: self-effacement, other-enhancement, and avoidance of attention-seeking. The authors validated the scale by establishing its nomological network with trait modesty, individuation, independent and interdependent self-construals, traditionality, and modernity, in both Hong Kong and Shanghai, which are culturally different regions of China. In Study 2, the MBS was supplemented with additional items, and a different set of predictors, including values, was used to predict the three factors in both Hong Kong and Beijing, China. In Study 3, we administered the MBS in Vancouver, Canada, adding emic items generated from this Canadian sample and using values and other variables as predictors. Gender differences are discussed in terms of the role played by modest self-presentations in promoting intragroup harmony in different cultural settings.

Key Words: modesty • modest behavior • individuation • traditionality and modernity • independent and interdependent self-construals

This version was published on July 1, 2009

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 4, 603-626 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0022022108330992


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?