Interdependent Self-Construals

Definition

Self-construal refers to the way in which a person thinks about and defines the self. Importantly, selfconstrual is not only a way of viewing oneself but also a way of understanding one's relationship to the larger social world. When people are construing or thinking about themselves in an interdependent way, they are likely to think first and foremost about their roles in relationships (e.g., “I'm Nancy's best friend” or “I'm the youngest son in my family”) and their important group memberships (e.g., “I'm a sorority sister” or “I'm an Asian American”). An interdependent selfconstrual, because of its emphasis on relationships and groups, is thus one in which the self is seen as fundamentally embedded in the larger social world. Interestingly, thinking of the self in this relatively social way has been shown to influence a wide range of values, emotions, and social behavior.

Background

Interdependent self-construals were first explored primarily in terms of cultural differences, because it was found that members of East Asian and Latin American cultures were much more likely to think of the self in an interdependent way than were North Americans, and it was thought that this social way of construing the self could potentially explain some well-known cultural differences. For example, an interdependent self-construal is very common in Japanese, Korean, and Indian cultures, and it was thought that this might explain why members of these cultures place a higher value on belonging, emphasize social obligations, and are more likely to view the causes of other people's behavior as rooted in the social situations they faced rather than in terms of being driven by their individual personalities.

Of course, to say that interdependent self-construal is a causal factor in these cultural differences, one would need to be able to look at the effects of selfconstrual apart from culture. Fortunately, the capacity to construe the self as interdependent is not limited by [Page 491]one's cultural upbringing. Everyone, regardless of cultural background, sometimes construes the self interdependently. Indeed, anytime one views the self as part of a “we” instead of only a “me,” this represents an interdependent construal. For example, when individuals are playing a team sport or spending time with their family, they are more likely to construe the self as interdependent. From this, researchers found that there were ways to study the effects of self-construal directly, by encouraging people to construe the self in a more or less interdependent fashion before they engaged in other tasks. Because the effects of experimentally manipulated self-construal were often found to be very similar to cultural differences, researchers who study self-construal can now do so in a variety of ways: Some look at members of East Asian cultures, who maintain relatively interdependent self-construals; some experimentally prime or activate interdependent self-construal; and some use personality scales to look at individual differences in interdependent self-construal. The effects of interdependent self-construal that are reviewed in this entry have been discovered using all of these methods.

Values, Emotions, and Social Behavior

When people construe the self as interdependent, it increases the importance of social connections and maintaining harmony with others. Values like belonging, friendship, family safety, and national security take precedence, and interdependent people become significantly less tolerant of others who break social norms or fail to live up to social obligations.

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