A four-culture study of self-enhancement and adjustment using the social relations model: Do alternative conceptualizations and indices make a difference?

In the self-enhancement literature, 2 major controversies remain--whether self-enhancement is a cultural universal and whether it is healthy or maladaptive. Use of the social relations model (SRM; Kenny, 1994) might facilitate resolution of these controversies. We applied the SRM with a round-robin design in both friend and family contexts in 4 diverse cultures: the United States (n = 399), Mexico (n = 413), Venezuela (n = 290), and China (n = 222). Results obtained with social comparison, self-insight, and SRM conceptualizations and indices of self-enhancement were compared for both agentic traits (i.e., egoistic bias) and communal traits (i.e., moralistic bias). Conclusions regarding cultural differences in the prevalence of self-enhancement vs. self-effacement tendencies, and the relationship between self-enhancement and adjustment, varied depending on the index of self-enhancement used. For example, consistent with cultural psychology perspectives, Chinese showed a greater tendency to self-efface than self-enhance using social comparison and self-insight indices, particularly on communal traits in the friend context. However, no cultural differences were observed when perceiver and target effects were controlled using the SRM indices. In all cultures, self-enhancement indices were moderately consistent across friend and family contexts, suggesting traitlike tendencies. To a similar extent in all 4 cultures, self-enhancement tendencies, as measured by the SRM indices, were moderately related to self-rated adjustment, but unrelated, or less so, to observer-rated adjustment.