University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Jun;37(6):838-49. doi: 10.1177/0146167211400621. Epub 2011 Mar 11.
Self-concept consistency is viewed as central to authenticity and adjustment in Western cultures. The authors propose that the implications of self-concept consistency depend on both the cultural background of the individual and the type of consistency involved. Specifically, although consistency of the self-concept across different contexts may be less important in East Asian than Western cultures, East Asians may still benefit from consistency within specific social contexts over time (i.e., maintaining stable, distinct relational selves). Supporting these ideas, across three studies, inconsistency of trait self-perceptions across different relationship contexts was linked to lower subjective authenticity and relationship quality for European Americans but not East Asian Americans. However, inconsistency within the same relationship context over time showed similar negative associations with these outcomes in both groups. Overall, the results suggest that inconsistency may be less consequential for East Asians relative to Westerners only if it reflects culturally prescribed adjustment to different social contexts.
自我概念的一致性被认为是西方文化中真实性和适应性的核心。作者提出，自我概念一致性的影响取决于个体的文化背景和所涉及的一致性类型。具体来说，尽管在东亚文化中，不同情境下的自我概念的一致性可能不如西方文化重要，但随着时间的推移，东亚人可能仍然会从特定社会情境中的一致性中受益（即，保持稳定、独特的关系自我）。为了验证这些观点，在三项研究中，欧洲裔美国人的不同关系情境下特质自我知觉的不一致性与较低的主观真实性和关系质量有关，但东亚裔美国人则没有。然而，随着时间的推移，同一关系情境中的不一致性与这两个群体的这些结果都有类似的负面关联。总的来说，研究结果表明，只有当不一致性反映了对不同社会情境的文化规定性调整时，它对东亚人的影响才可能相对小于对西方人的影响。
