Implicit theories and self-perceptions of traitedness across cultures: Toward integration of cultural and trait psychology perspectives

College

Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education

Department/Unit

Counseling and Educational Psychology

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Volume

37

Issue

6

First Page

694

Last Page

716

Publication Date

11-1-2006

Abstract

From the trait perspective, traitedness, or consistency of behavior, is expected in all cultures. However, cultural psychologists argue that behavior may be more determined by traits in individualistic than collectivistic cultures. The authors investigated implicit theories and self-perceptions of traitedness in two individualistic cultures, the United States (n = 342) and Australia (n = 172), and four collectivistic cultures, Mexico (n = 400), Philippines (n = 363), Malaysia (n = 251), and Japan (n = 192). Although implicit trait beliefs were endorsed in all cultural groups, they were stronger in individualistic than collectivistic cultures. Cultural differences in self-perceptions of one's own traitedness, as operationalized by self-monitoring, were also found, and comparisons involving the United States and most collectivistic cultures were consistent with cultural psychology perspectives. The ability of self-construals to predict implicit beliefs and self-perceptions of traitedness was also investigated. Overall, the results supported efforts to integrate trait and cultural psychology perspectives. © 2006 Sage Publications.

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Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1177/0022022106292078

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