Comparing self-construal scales: Cultural implications for the United States, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East

Abstract

Contemporary self-construal research indicates that people define themselves either as independent or interdependent. We review self-construal scales across the United States, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to compare/contrast their operationalizations of interdependence (or independence). Taken together, this body of research suggests that, consistent with findings on American and East Asian selves, Southeast Asian cultures also exhibit interdependent self-construal. Latin Americans, however, display independent self-construal despite their long-standing characterization as a collectivist culture, while Arabs display both independence and interdependence. Future directions—including the improved validity of multidimensional measures of the self over dichotomous scales, cultural differences on distinctiveness, research on bicultural individuals, within-cultural comparisons, and the role of polyculturalism—are discussed.