PSY352: Research Question Is There a Relationship Between the Organization of Self-Concept: Cultural Psychology Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

Lab Report Plan

Research Question: Is there a relationship between the organization of self-concept and the individualism/collectivism domain of culture?

A statement of the topic that you are researching:

• explain self-concept
• explain different self-construals
• explain the potential effect of culture
• explain the specific domain of culture being examined (individualism versus collectivism)

Dimensionality Of Individualism– Collectivism And Measurement Equivalence Of Triandis And Gelfand’s Scale:

Despite the importance that business scholars and cross-cultural
researchers ascribe to individualism and collectivism (Kagitcibasi, 1994),
general consensus on both conceptualization and measurement of the
constructs remain elusive (Chen, Meindl, & Hunt, 1997).

Theoretical Perspectives on Self-Concept Content across Cultures: 
Trait psychologists have argued that certain trait dimensions are evolved, heritable, and universal across cultures (MacDonald, 1998; McCrae, 2000). The existence of heritable traits with adaptive significance, in combination with an ecological-realist perspective on person perception (Baron & Miscovich, 1993), leads to the prediction that trait attributes will be an aspect of self-concept in all cultures.

Culture and Self-Concept Stability: Consistency Across and Within
Contexts Among Asian Americans and European Americans:

Whereas prior cultural research has focused on consistency of self-descriptions across contexts, the current 4 studies examined cultural differences inconsistency of multiple self-dimensions and did so both across and within different contexts.