A Latin American Paradox: Both Self-Enhancing and Interdependent

Prior work shows that Latin Americans are emotionally expressive and yet interdependent since they utilize emotional expression to nurture warm sociality. Here, we extended this analysis to self-enhancement, expecting that Latin Americans would emphasize the self’s positive uniqueness, or self-enhancement, like European Americans. However, unlike European Americans, Latin Americans may utilize the self's positive uniqueness to form mutually supportive social relations. That is, self-enhancement is in service of maintaining interdependent social relations in Latin America. Here, we found support for this analysis. Like European Americans, Latin Americans in Mexico and Colombia judged the self to be more positive and important. However, unlike European Americans, this positive orientation extended to close others. Moreover, although Latin Americans were self-enhancing, they were so less than European Americans. Lastly, Latin Americans in Ecuador showed self-enhancement when primed with interdependence--a pattern that did not apply to European Americans.