Cultural Identity and Dynamic Construction of the Self: Collective Duties and Individual Rights in Chinese and American Cultures

Previous studies have contrasted the self-conceptions of Chinese people and those of North Americans using the Twenty Statements Test (TST). Guided by the dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition, the present study examined the effects of cultural identity activation on Chinese and North Americans' spontaneous self-concepts. Specifically, we manipulated the salience of individual self (“I”), collective self (“we”), and cultural identity (being Americans or being Chinese). We predicted that Chinese people, believing in a relatively fixed social world, would be more likely than Americans to focus on collective duties when their cultural identity is evoked. In contrast, North Americans, believing in a relatively malleable social world, would be more likely than Chinese to focus on individual rights when their cultural identity is made salient. In Experiment 1, we compared the spontaneous self-concepts of Hong Kong Chinese and North American participants and found supportive evidence for our predictions. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the salience of Chinese Americans' Chinese or American cultural identity and found a similar pattern of results. The implications of the dynamic constructivist approach for culture and self-cognition are discussed.