Block-2

BLOCK 2
SELF IN SOCIAL CONTEXT

Self In Social Context
INTRODUCTION
This block consists of two units. The first unit deals with self and its processes. It
also discusses the formation and management of impression. Interestingly, it
also discusses the tactics with the help of which you can enhance self presentation.
In this unit we will move ahead continuing our description from the previous
units. But here we are going to explore the cognitive and dynamics of these
processes and would be studying the most pertinent question – to what extent
our social perceptions and person perceptions are accurate? Do these processes
have errors, bias and misinterpretation which affect our real understanding of
social world? In layman’s language, can we trust the information which we have
gathered from impression formation, attributions and social categorisation? If
not what do we about it.
The second unit deals with the concept of society as well as society and their
influences on individual’s behaviour. Society and culture are important
determinant of how our perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours are shaped and
moderated throughout our lives.The type and nature of bonds and relationships
people form in their societies and families are also unique to them. We often
attribute such differences in the societies to the differences in their cultures. In
this unit, you will come to know about the concept of culture, process of
enculturation and acculturation as well as individualistic and collectivistic
societies. By the end of the unit, you will also come to know about the cultural
influences on individuals’ perception and actions.
40
Self and its Processes
UNIT 3 SELF AND ITS PROCESSES*
Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Self Concept
3.2.1 Formation of Self Concept
3.2.2 Self Esteem
3.2.3 Self Efficacy
3.3 Cognitive and Motivational Basis of Social and Person Perception
3.3.1 Impression Formation and Management
3.3.2 Impression Management
3.3.3 Theories of Self Presentation
3.3.4 Self Presentation Tactics
3.3.4.1 Ingratiation
3.3.4.2 Intimidation
3.3.4.3 Self Promotion
3.3.4.4 Exemplification
3.3.4.5 Supplication
3.3.5 Individual Differences in Self Presentation
3.4 Let Us Sum Up
3.5 Unit End Questions
3.6 Glossary
3.7 Answers to Self Assessment Questions
3.8 Suggested Readings and References
3.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
Describe the concept of self and self- esteem;
Identify the different features of self- efficacy;
Analyse the dynamics of impression formation; and
Explain the theories and tactics of self- presentation.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit we have studied social cognition – a process of knowing,
understanding and predicting the behaviour of others. Social cognition involves
two basic processes i.e. social perception and person perception. Under social
perception, we had studied various mechanisms of social perception – non-verbal
communications, attributions, impression formation, and implicit personality
theory. In person perception, the mechanisms we studied were physical cues,
schemas, heuristics, construct and social categorisation. Here we concentrated
on the structural and functional aspects of social and person perception. In this
* Adapted from BPC-006, Block 1, Unit 4 41

Self In Social Context unit we will move ahead continuing our description from the previous unit. But
here we are going to explore the cognitive and dynamics of these processes and
would be studying the most pertinent question – to what extent our social
perceptions and person perceptions are accurate? Do these processes have errors,
bias and misinterpretation which affect our real understanding of social world?
In layman’s language, can we trust the information which we have gathered
from impression formation, attributions and social categorisation? If not what
do we about it.
3.2 SELF-CONCEPT
It refers to our understanding about us. It provides a clue to what he or she thinks
about them. Each individual has a self concept of themselves which consists of
those characteristics which they feel are important and related to them self and is
their identity. It is related to our capabilities, nature, personality and other personal
characteristics which help us to define who we are. Further, our self concept is
also dependent on situation, that is, we react differently in different situation.
For example, you might consider as fun loving, adventurous, sports person, good
leader or traditional, less confident and so on. Our identity with any organization,
membership, culture or family also is a part of our self concept.
3.2.1 Formation of Self-Concept

Our definition of selfconcept is developed through our experiences and interaction
with others. Some of the theorists have given certain explanation towards the
process of development self-concept, few of them can be explained as follows:
Looking Glass Self

The looking glass self theory says that we try to form our self image and concept
on basis of what others believe about us. So self-concept is developed through
other people’s reactions towards us and how we believe other people see us. For
example, if your friend says–"you are too benevolent” and there have been similar
occasions when others have come to you to discuss their problems. These
collective thoughts evoke emotional responses and the characteristics of
benevolence is added to your self-concept.
Social Comparison Theory

According to this theory comparison of self with others leads to development of
self-concept. We compare and evaluate ourself with others on basis of two
dimensions: superiority/ inferiority and similarity/ difference. The characteristics
like level of intelligence, attractiveness, creativity and so on, which are used for
comparison falls under the dimension of superiority and inferiority. For Example,
you might judge yourself to be more attractive than your friend or less creative
than your sister, then all these judgements are become a part of your self-concept.
The groups with which we compare ourselves is called as reference groups.
Comparing and evaluating of self with others is not harmful but the reference
group with which we compare should be reasonable, appropriate and adequate.
For example, if you have started attending painting classes and you judge yourself
as inferior whenever you compare your paintings with famous painters, then that
42
may have a negative effect on your self-concept. In such case, you need to compare Self and its Processes
yourself with those who are new learners in the field of painting.
Social comparison is also done on basis of similarities and differences with

others.There may be situations when our similarity with reference group is more
desirable while at certain circumstances difference with others is more desirable.
It depends upon whether we want to fit in or we want to stand out (e.g. on basis
of age, personality) differently from the reference group. Yet, it is to be understood
that, there can positive and negative consequences of social comparison.
3.2.2 Self Esteem

Self-esteem refers to the judgments and evaluations we make of our concept of
self. It is an evaluation of our self, e.g. Are you honest…dishonest; good….bad?
or Who are you? Like our self-concept, self-esteem also differs from situation to
situation and across our lifetime. Self-esteem is one of the contributing factors
toward our self-concept while self-perceptionalso plays a significant role in
developing our sense of self.
3.2.3 Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy refers to the evaluations that people make about their ability to
perform a task within a specific context. The feedback of our potent and abilities
that we get from others reinforces our self-perception and self-efficacy. So, if the
perception of self is positive, more is the confidence level and more will be the
self-efficacy. Therefore, self-perception affects our behaviour and responses.
While some of this process is under our control, much of it is also shaped by the
people in our lives. Positive feedback increases our self-efficacy while negative
feedback of ourselves decreases our self-efficacy. If there is a contradiction on
how others opine for us and what we think about us, then it has a significant
impact on our self-concept as well as self-esteem.
3.3 COGNITIVE AND MOTIVATIONAL BASIS OF

SOCIAL AND PERSON PERCEPTION
The cognitive basis of social and person perception involves the processes through
which we collect the information, process and select it and later interpret this
information. But what is more important in this information processing, is the
role played by our emotions, motives in distorting this information so as to suit
our needs, goals and aspirations. So, the truthfulness and accuracy of the
information collected about others gets distorted. The information turns out the
way in which it protects one’s self esteem, leading to various bias in our attribution
process, in our managing impression’s and influencing the self presentation tactics.
Most importantly our basic emotional states, motives, our goal of accurate
information gathering shadows our social and person perception. We will now
deal with the various biases in attributions, impression formation, categorisations
which are result of these cognitive and dynamic factors.
43
Self In Social Context 3.3.1 Impression Formation and Management
In forming impression about others, there are six simple and general principles:
People form impressions of others quickly and on the basis of minimal

information and go on to infer about general traits about them.
People pay attention to most salient features of a person we notice the

qualities that make a person distinctive or unusual, rather than to everything.
In processing information about people involves some coherent meaning in

their behaviour and use context of a persons behaviour to infer its meaning,
rather than interpret the behaviour in isolation.
We organise our perceptions by categorising or grouping stimuli i.e. rather

than to see each person as a separate individual, we tend to see people as
members of a group – for example: people wearing while coat are doctors.
We use cognitive structure to make sense of people’s behaviour. If we come

across woman doctor, we use our information about doctor more generally
to infer her attributes and meaning of her behaviour.
A perceivers’ own needs and personal goals influences how he or she

perceives others.
Why are our impressions of others sometimes wrong? Our impressions are
sometimes wrong because of the mental shortcuts. We use when forming social
judgment people are too ready to attribute other’s actions to their personalities
rather than to the situation.
Another reason our impression can go wrong concerns our use of schemas. People
use implicit personality theories to fill in the gaps in their knowledge about other
people and use schemas or theories to decide why other people what they do.
Why does it seem like our impression are accurate when as we have seen that
‘our impressions can go wrong’? There are three reasons behind it:
First – we often see people in a limited number of situations and thus never have
the opportunity to see that our impressions are wrong.
Second – we will not realise that our impressions are wrong if we make them
come true, this is the case with self-fulfilling prophecies even if an initial
impression is incorrect, we often make it come true.
Third – we might not realise we are wrong if a lot of people agree on what
someone’s is like – even when everyone is wrong.
3.3.2 Impression Management (Impression Management - The

Fine Art of Looking Good)
The desire to make a favorable impression on others is a strong one so most of us
do our best to look good to others when we meet them for the first time. Social
psychologists use the term impression management (or self-presentation) to
describe these effort to make a good impression on others and the results of their
research on such efforts suggest that they are worthwhile.
44
The different techniques for boosting their image fall into two categories: self Self and its Processes
enhancement – effort to increase their appeal to others and other enhancement –
effort to make the target person feel good in various ways. With respect to self-
enhancement, the strategies include effort to boost one’s physical appearance
through style of dress, personal grooming and the use of various props. (example:
eye glasses).
Additional tactics of self enhancement involves efforts to describe oneself in

positive terms. Turning to other enhancement, individuals use many different
tactics to induce positive moods and reaction in others example: flattery.
According to William James observation, people often shows different sides of
themselves to different groups of people. Youngsters who are demure and obedient
before their parents and teachers and may swear and swagger in the company of
their friends. Most parents do not show their actual self to their children as they
do to their colleagues or intimate friends.
We usually talk as if there is a single self which is stable and well defined. But
social psychologists believe it is more appropriate to think of self as multiple
selves because people display different aspects of themselves in
differentsituations. Schlenker (1980) has termed this as ‘impression management’
and defined it as the conscious or unconscious attempt to control images that are
projected in real or imagined social interactions. When there images deal with
some aspects of self we call the process as self presentation.
Self Assesment Questions I

Fill in the blanks:
1) ....................... is developed through our experiences and interaction with
others.
2) People form .................... of others quickly and on the basis of minimal

information.
3) The different techniques for boosting their image fall into two categories
........................ and ........................ .
4) A perceivers’ own needs and ................................... influences how he or

she perceives others.
3.3.3 Theories of Self Presentation

Cooley (1902/1922) and Mead (1934) have put forth a theory known as:
A symbolic interactionism: They have stressed that participants in social
interactions try to take the role of the others and see themselves as others
see them. This process helps them to know how they appear to others and
also guide their social behaviour so that it has the desired effect. By taking
the role of others, a person can choose the right clothes and the right speech
patterns to communicate with others. For example: politicians, and leaders
like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi would wear the traditional dresses
of the places which they visited and also spoke few words of local language.
45
Self In Social Context Theory of self presentation: Erving Goffman has drawn parallels of this
behaviour to the world of theater and formulated a theory of ‘self presentation
in everyday life’. Goffman (1959/1967) has described social interaction as
a theoretical performance in which each individual acts out “live” – a set of
carefully choosen verbal and non-verbal acts that expresses one’s self. In
self presentation, one of the fundamental rules of social interaction is mutual
commitment i.e. all the members of the interaction use certain face-saving
devices, so as to maintain a face. Through maintaining face is not the goal
of the social interaction it is rather necessary for social interaction to continue.
Incidents that threaten the face of participant also threaten the survival of
the relationship. Therefore we somehow try to avert the embarrassment that
might occur and threaten the relationship by overlooking by helping others
apologise for the social blindness that they commit. Thus for Goffman social
interaction requires its participants to be able to regulate their self presentation
and that it will be perceived and evaluated appropriately by others.
Situated identities theory: C.N. Alexander has put forth another theory
called the ‘situated identities’ theory. There is a pattern of social behaviour
for each social setting and Alexander claimed that people strive to create
the most favourable situated identities for themselves in their social
encounters. For example a college professor might aim for a highly academic
identity when presenting a paper at a seminar, a somewhat more relaxed
identity during lectures and a causal and informal situated identities at a
social gathering and with friends. This is simply a role a person is performing
in different situations.
However a situated identity is tied much more to a specific situational context

than a role is. Where role focuses on behaviours that are expected, situated
identities deal more with the images one choose to project in a particular
social interaction. Each of the three theories of self presentation agrees that
other people are forming impressions of us and are using these impressions
to guide their interactions with us. Further each theory also points to variety
of tactics that individuals use to manage and control the image they present
to other.
3.3.4 Self Presentation Tactics

There are a variety of tactics that people use in presenting themselves to others.
Jones and Pittman (1982) have identified five major tactics of self representation
which differ according to the particular attribute the person is trying to gain.
They are:
3.3.4.1 Ingratiation
This is the most common of presentation techniques and is defined as a class of
strategic behaviour illicitly designed to influence a particular other person
concerning the attractiveness of one’s personal qualities. In other words, the
main goal of the ingratiator is to be seen to be likeable. There are number of
ways in accomplishing this and one of the most common tactics is to give
compliment to another person.
46
However a successful ingratiatory knows when to compliment people and also Self and its Processes
has certain amount of credibility and sincerity. He uses his discrimination properly.
Another tactics is to confirm to other person’s opinions and behaviours. We tend
to like people whose beliefs, attitudes and behaviours are similar to our own.
But, there is a danger here, i.e. if the other person (target) suspects ingratiation
this factor does not work.
3.3.4.2 Intimidation
Is to arouse fear in other people. This is in contrast to ingratiation. In intimidation
by creating the image of dangerous person, the intimidator seeks to control and
interaction by the exercise of power. Intimidation is mostly used in relationships
that are non voluntary in which escape is not easily accomplished. Example a
street robber with a threat to kill if money or jewelry is not handed over. Some
times parents do it with their children and also teachers with their pupils.
3.3.4.3 Self Promotion

If a person wants to show himself as competent person at some activity this is
the tactics mostly used. He does this by accepting or acknowledging some of the
minor flows or weaknesses he has to target person and then go and emphasis the
positive traits that the target person was not aware of him. However, there is one
danger in using self promotion. i.e. the mismatch between the self promoted
claims of competencies and the reality. For example if a person claims to the
target person that he is very good at some things and of that skill come upto be
tested and he does not show any competencies then he looses his credibility.
3.3.4.4 Exemplification
Here the goal is to influence the impressions that others are not conscientious
workers. The person here wants to prove that he has more integrity and moral
worthiness compared to others, and wants to arouse guilty in the target person.
He wants to create an impression of a sufferer.
3.3.4.5 Supplication
Here the person advertises his/ her weakness and dependent on other person. He
is seeking sympathy. This is usually a last resort i.e. what a person is unable to
use any other strategies, he resorts to gaining sympathy. The person is presenting
an image of helplessness hoping to elicit a sense obligation from the target. The
person may use all five self presentation tactics on different occasions. So people
may specialise in one or other tactic and may use it on more than one occasions.
What ever choice or combination, the person’s aim is to create the desired
impressions someone else, there by increasing the chances of obtaining the desired
effect.
3.3.5 Individual Difference in Self Presentation

People strive to influence the images that others form of them during social
interaction has been found to be true even through research on self presentation.
Though everyone engages in such actions from time to time, there are important
47
Self In Social Context differences in the extent to which they control their self presentation. Some people
engage in such actions from time to time, there are important differences in the
extent to which they control their self presentation and some people engages in
this tactics more often and with greater skill. People differ in exercising control
over their verbal and non-verbal cues of self presentation and this is termed as
self monitoring of expressive behaviour (Synder 1979).
High self monitoring persons are particularly sensitivite to the expressions and
the self presentations of others in social situation and they use these as cues in
monitoring, their own self presentation for purpose of impression management.
High self monitoring persons are good at learning what is socially appropriate in
new situations, have good control of their emotional expression and effectively
use these abilities to create the impression they want to display.
In fact they can adapt themselves to any social situation, for example: they can
adopt the mannerism of a reserved, withdrawn and introverted person and then
they can abruptly do about face and portray themselves as equally convincing,
friendly, outgoing and extroverted person. In self-presentation situations, high
selfmonitoring persons are quite likely to seek out social comparisons and
information about the appropriate patterns of behaviour. They put in considerable
effort in attempting to read and understand others and behave accordingly and
guide their self presentation so as to gain approval or power of an interaction.
However self presentation on impression management is not for deceptive
purposes but is an adaptive skill in environments where there is a complex mixture
of people and policies.
Self-presentation and Human Nature: Self presentation is a basic fact of
social life. People influence the images of their ‘selves’ that are projected to
others but where is the ‘real’ self in all this? As already known, each of us
have multiple selves which we present to different people in different ways
but all of them are many aspects of only one ‘true self’ self presentation
factors is selecting certain characteristics and omitting other. Therefore,
presentation of self is an integral part of everyday social interaction.
Self Assessment Questions II
1) Discuss any two tactics of self-presentation.

.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
48
3.4 LET US SUM UP
In this unit we have tried to cover the cognitive and motivational basis of social Self and its Processes
and person perception. We tried to show how neural mechanisms do affect
perception etc. We also studied about the impression formation and the processes
involved thereof. A discussion in detail about the processes involved in impression
management was taken up. Following this a detailed analysis of how one presents
oneself was taken up. In these theories of self presentation was discussed and the
many tactics that are used in presenting oneself in the correct light were
considered.
3.5 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1) Explain the meaning and process of development of self-concept.
2) Elaborate upon the formation and management of impression.
3) Discuss the theories of self-presentation.
4) Describe the tactics of self-presentation.
3.6 GLOSSARY
Self Concept: It refers to our understanding about us.
Self-Esteem: Refers to the judgments and evaluations we make of our concept
of self.
Self-Efficacy: The evaluations that people make about their ability to perform a
task within a specific context.
Self-Presentation Tactics: Variety of tactics that people use in presenting

themselves to others.
Ingratiation: A class of strategic behaviour illicitly designed to influence a

particular other person concerning the attractiveness of one’s personal qualities.
Intimidation: In intimidation by creating the image of dangerous person, the

intimidator seeks to control and interaction by the exercise of power.
Self promotion:This tactics is used if a person wants to show himself as competent

person at some activity.
Exemplification: The person here wants to prove that he has more integrity and
moral worthiness compared to others, and wants to arouse guilty in the target
person.
Supplication: Here the person advertises his/ her weakness and dependent on
other person.
3.7 ANSWERS TO SELF-ASSESSMENT

QUESTIONS
Self Assement Question I
1) Self concept
49
Self In Social Context 2) Impressions
3) self enhancement andother enhancement.
4) personal goals
Self Assement Question II
1) A) Ingratiation: This is the most common of presentation techniques and

is defined as a class of strategic behaviour illicitly designed to influence
a particular other person concerning the attractiveness of one’s personal
qualities. In other words, the main goal of the ingratiator is to be seen to
be likeable. There are number of ways in accomplishing this and one of
the most common tactics is to give compliment to another person.
However a successful ingratiatory knows when to compliment people

and also has certain amount of credibility and sincerity. He uses his
discrimination properly. Another tactics is to confirm to other person’s
opinions and behaviours. We tend to like people whose beliefs, attitudes
and behaviours are similar to our own. But, there is a danger here, i.e. if
the other person (target) suspects ingratiation this factor does not work.
B) Intimidation: Is to arouse fear in other people. This is in contrast to

ingratiation. In intimidation by creating the image of dangerous person,
the intimidator seeks to control and interaction by the exercise of power.
Intimidation is mostly used in relationships that are non voluntary in
which escape is not easily accomplished. Example a street robber with a
threat to kill if money or jewelry is not handed over. Some times parents
do it with their children and also teachers with their pupils.
3.8 SUGGESTED READINGS AND REFERENCES

Adorno and Colleagues quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007)
Essential Social Psychology, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Aronson E, Wilson T.D,and Akert R.M (1998) Social Psychology (third edition),
Longman Inc.
References
Aarts and Dijksterhuis 2003 quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David
O.Sears (2006), “Social Psychology (12th edition.), Pearson Education, India.
Ajzen 1996 quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential Social
Psychology, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (New York, NY: W. H.
Freeman, 1997).
Anderson 1968 quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential Social
Barbara M. Byrne, Measuring Self-Concept across the Life Span: Issues and
Instrumentation (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1996),
5.
50
Baron.R, Byrne D (2003), Social Psychology, Prentice Hall of India Pvt Ltd., Self and its Processes
New Delhi.
Bond and Atoum 2000 quoted in Baron, R.A Donn Byrne (2006) Social
Psychology (10th edition.) Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi.
Carner and Glass 1978, quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007)
Caroll 1996 quoted in Baron, R.A Donn Byrne (2006) Social Psychology (10th
edition.) Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi.
Charles Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, NY: Scribner,
1902).
Chaube S.P, Social Psychology (1986), Lakshmi Navayan Agarwal, Educational

Publishers, Agra. Pg-21-24.
Coffman, (1967) quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential

Social Psychology, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Cooley, (1922) quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential Social
Cross and John (2003) quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David O.Sears
(2006) Social Psychology (12th edition), Pearson Education, India.
Depaulo (1992) quoted in Baron, R.A Donn Byrne (2006) Social Psychology
(10th edition) Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi. Ekman and Friesen (1975)
quoted in Baron, R.A Donn Byrne (2006) Social Psychology (10th edition)
Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi.
Foriester and Liberman (2001) quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David
O.Sears (2006), Social Psychology (12th edition), Pearson Education, India.
Gray (2009) quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David O.Sears (2006),
Social Psychology (12th edition), Pearson Education, India.
Gross and Miller quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential
Social Psychology, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Harding, Kunter, Proshanky & Chein 1954, quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N
Turner (2007) Essential Social Psychology, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
Heider 1958 quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential Social
John Bargh & Assou 1996 quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David O.
Sears (2006), Social Psychology (12th edition), Pearson Education, India.
Joel Brockner, Self-Esteem at Work (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books,
1988), 11.
Joel Brockner, Self-Esteem at Work (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books,
1988), 2.
51
Self In Social Context Jones and Davis (1965) quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007)
Jones and Pillman (1982) quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007)
Milgram (1963) quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David O.Sears (2006),
Social Psychology (12th edition), Pearson Education, India.
Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice

(London: Routledge, 2011), 261.
Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice

(London: Routledge, 2011), 99.
Turner R.N and Richard J.Crisp (2007) Essential Social Psychology,Sage

Publications, New Delhi Pg-39-71.
Zalenski and Larsen 2002 quoted in Taylor, E.S, Letitia Anne Peplau, David
O.Sears (2006), Social Psychology (12th edition.), Pearson Education, India.
52
Self and its Processes
UNIT 4 SELF IN SOCIAL CONTEXT*
Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Culture: Meaning and Definition
4.3 Enculturation and Acculturation
4.3.1 Difference in Enculturation and Acculturation
4.3.2 Agents of Enculturation
4.3.2.1 Parents and Siblings
4.3.2.2 Extended Family
4.3.2.3 Peer Relations
4.3.2.4 Education
4.3.2.5 Religion
4.4 Self Across Cultures
4.4.1 Outcomes of Different Self Construals Across Cultures
4.4.2 The Case of Multicultural Identities
4.4.2.1 At Intrapersonal Level
4.4.2.2 At Interpersonal Level
4.4.2.3 At Collective Level
4.5 Social Behaviour Across Cultures
4.5.1 Cross-Cultural Differences in Dynamics of Group Membership
4.5.2 In-group Identification versus In-group Bias
4.5.3 Attribution
4.5.4 Aggression
4.5.5 Person Perception, Attraction and Relationships
4.6 Let Us Sum Up
4.7 Unit End Questions
4.8 Glossary
4.9 Answers to Self Assessment Questions
4.10 Suggested Readings and References
4.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
Define and describe culture;
Explain the difference between enculturation and acculturation;
Explain the agents that influence enculturation of an individual to their
society;
Differentiate between individualist and collectivist societies;
Comprehend in-group identification, multicultural identities and intergroup
bias;
Explain how the dynamics of group membership varies across cultures; and
Discuss the cultural influence on aggression, attribution, attraction, person
perception and relationships.
* Dr. Ari Sudan Tiwari, Scientist ‘E’Defence Institute of Psychological Research, Ministry of Defence,
Lucknow Road, Timarpur, Delhi 53
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Whenever we visit a foreign country, we find a number of differences between
the lives and lifestyles of the people of that country and that of our own. The
people of that country speak language that is different from ours. They eat foods
that we generally do not eat. They express happiness and grief in ways that are
not similar to ours. The type and nature of bonds and relationships they form in
their societies and families are also unique to them. We often attribute such
differences in the societies to the differences in their cultures. In this unit, you
will come to know about the concept of culture, process of enculturation and
acculturation as well as individualistic and collectivistic societies. By the end of
the unit, you will also come to know about the cultural influences on individuals’
perception and actions.
4.2 CULTURE: MEANING AND DEFINITION

The word culture is often used in common everyday language interchangeably
with race, nationality, ethnicity, etc. The word culture is also used to indicate
music, dance, art, food, clothing, rituals, traditions and larger heritage of a
particular geographical area. Culture has also been a very essential area of study
in many disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, education,
marketing and, certainly, psychology. All these disciplines view culture with
different perspectives. After reviewing all these perspectives, Berry, Poortinga,
Segall, and Dasen (1992) suggested six broader perspectives in which culture is
understood. Descriptive perspective of culture emphasises the spectrum of
activities or behaviours associated with a culture. Historical perspective helps in
understanding the heritage and traditions associated with a group of people.
Normative perspective describes the culture specific rules and norms.
Psychological explanation of culture lays emphasis on learning, problem solving
and other behavioural approaches associated with the culture. Structural
perspective highlights the societal or organisational elements of a culture. And
finally, genetic perspective discusses the genesis of a culture.
Thus, the word culture is a complex conceptualisation that helps us in

understanding various activities, behaviours, events, structures, etc. in our lives.
Reflecting its complexity, different researchers have defined culture in different
ways. Some of these representative definitions are as given below:
Rohner (1984): Culture is the totality of equivalent and complementary learned

meanings maintained by a human population, or by identifiable segments of a
population, and transmitted from one generation to the next.
Triandis (1972): Culture includes some objective aspects, such as tools; and
some subjective aspects, such as words, shared beliefs, attitudes, norms, roles,
and values.
Jahoda (1984): Culture is a descriptive term that captures not only rules and
meanings but also behaviours.
Matsumoto and Juang (2008): Cultureisa dynamic system of rules, explicit and
implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving
attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviours, shared by a group but harboured
54
differently by each specific unit within the group, communicated across Self in Social Context
generations, relatively stable but with the potential to change across time.
After viewing these definitions, it appears that Matsumoto and Juang (2008)
have explained culture in much broader sense by encompassing all essential
characteristics of other definitions. The definition describes the following
components of culture:
Dynamic nature: Culture is a dynamic system that describes the average,

mainstream and representative tendencies in a given population. Culture
cannot be taken as a definite guideline for the all behaviours of all persons
in a given culture. There is always a certain amount of divergence between
various behaviours of a single individual and also between behaviours of
different persons and culture. This inconsistency leads to a dynamic tension
within the culture and therefore, culture cannot be construed as static.
However, the degree of culture may vary across cultures resulting into some
cultures being exemplified as high on the degree of tension, whereas others
may have lesser degree of tension.
System of rules: Various behaviours, rules, attitudes, or values in a culture

do not exist in isolation. Rather, culture refers to a system that involves a
constellation of such apparently unrelated but functionally interrelated
psychological components.
Groups and units: There are different levels at which culture is reflected.
When we take it in the perspective of individuals within groups, the units
that reflect culture are specific individuals within the group. However, for a
large group that is comprised of multiple smaller groups, various sections
are the specific units reflecting the culture.
Ensuring survival of the group: The system of rules that exists in a culture
functions as a constraint on behaviour. Absence of the rules may lead to a
situation of chaos. These rules help the smaller units within the group to
coexist with one another by offering and promoting a structure for social
order. The rules also promote balance between the needs and desires of the
groups and units by taking the larger social context and the available
resources into account.
Psychological and behavioural components: Apart from the objective and

tangible components (music, dance, art, food, clothing, etc.), culture is also
constituted by the contents of the mind and psyche of the individuals living
in the culture. Such subjective and non-material components of culture
include attitudes, values, beliefs, ideas, norms, behaviours, etc. These
components are shared across the culture and are expressed in voluntary
behaviours, automatic responses and habits of the members, and overall,
rituals followed in the culture.
Individual differences: Different individuals in a particular culture vary in

the degree they carry and follow the cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, norms,
behaviours, etc. Therefore, in any culture there are individual differences in
observance of cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours or
conformity to culture. However, some loose societies or cultures allow its
members a greater amount of disagreements with the culture, whereas there
55
Self In Social Context are some tight societies or cultures that largely disapprove or do not
recognition individual differences within in the culture (Pelto, 1968).
Transmitted from one generation to the next: Culture is not a fashion trend
which is temporarily followed and practised by some people for some time
and which gets vanished with time. Rather culture, comprising of the core
aspects of the system of rules, is transmitted from one generation to the next
and therefore, it is relatively stable over time.
Inevitable changes over time: Although culture is believed to be relatively

stable over time, it also undergoes some amount of inevitable changes. For
example, in past 30 years Indian culture has witnessed radical changes driven
by technological advancements. Culture is a complex system comprising of
its interrelated components and units, and change in any of its components
and units paves the way to change in the overall culture as a system.
4.3 ENCULTURATION AND ACCULTURATION

We witness numerous differences in the people of different cultures in terms of
their values, attitudes, beliefs, norms, behaviours, music, dance, art, food and
clothing. The reason for such differences lies in the process of socialisation they
undergo in their distinct cultures. There are number of agencies of the culture,
such as parents, peers, educational institutions, religious institutions, etc., that
play a very important role in learning of various aspects of our own culture. The
processes by which we learn, acquire and adopt various aspects of a culture are
called as enculturation and acculturation. Enculturation refers to the process by
which various aspects of our own culture are transmitted from one generation to
the next by different agencies of the culture.
4.3.1 Difference in Enculturation and Acculturation

Acculturation is slightly different from enculturation. Acculturation is the process
by which a person adapts to, and in many cases adopts, a culture different from
the one in which that person was originally enculturated. Thus, enculturation
occurs in the culture where we are born and the process of familiarisation to the
culture begins right after the birth. However, in the case of acculturation the
influence of the culture other than our own starts only when we migrate to the
other culture. Furthermore, enculturation is smooth and largely an involuntary,
automatic and inevitable process. But the process of acculturation often encounters
conflicts between the existing cultural learning and the new cultural practices
and manners the person is exposed to.
4.3.2 Agents of Enculturation

As construed, culture is transmitted from one generation to the next. This
transmission process of various components of culture is carried out and facilitated
by various agents of the culture, such as parents and basic family, peers,
educational institutions, religious institutions, etc.
4.3.2.1 Parents and Siblings

The earliest environmental impact on an infant’s personality and her other
psychological make-up comes from the parents. A hierarchy of three parental
56
goals was posited by LeVine (1977) that includes: Self in Social Context
i) The offspring’s physical survival

ii) Fostering of behaviours that promote self-sufficiency
iii) Fostering of other cultural values, including morality.
The economic standing (even in the same society) of parents is an important
determinant of the level of parental goal that they could pay attention to. A number
of cross-cultural studies have been conducted in the past few decades in order to
examine the similarities and differences in parenting behaviours across cultures.
Similarities have been found in terms of developmental expectations (Solis-
Camara & Fox, 1995), use of authority as a disciplinary measure (Papps, Walker,
Trimboli, &Trimboli, 1995) and emphasis on higher power (McEvoy, Lee,
O’Neill, Groisman, Roberts-Butelman, Dinghra, &Porder, 2005), among others.
Studies pertaining to cross-cultural differences in parenting indicate that these

differences pertain to the particularities of the essence of parental goals. These
studies have also examined that up to an extent various parenting styles lead to
cultural differences on various psychological constructs. One such study (Conroy,
Hess, Azuma, & Kashiwagi, 1980) examined the strategies employed by Japanese
and American mothers in order to obtain compliance from their young children.
Findings of the study indicated that in order to obtain compliance Japanese
mothers largely relied upon personal and interpersonal ties, whereas American
mothers were more oriented towards employing rewards and punishments. The
Japanese mothers were more inclined to be involved in emotional appeals and
exhibited greater flexibility as compared to the American mothers, who employed
strategies based on their authority as mothers. Such differences on parenting
clearly reflect broad cultural differences in patterns of enculturation and
socialisation.
Cultural differences could also influence the type of involvement a parent would
have as guided by the beliefs about their roles as parents and goals of parenting.
LeVine et. al. (1996) observed an emphasis on interaction and active participation
by American mothers (of Boston suburbs), and a focus on child-safety by Kenyan
mothers (of Gusii region). This difference is thought to be a result of the difference
in the perceived goals of parenting and enculturation.
The popular model introduced by Baumrind (1971) and added on by Maccoby

and Martin (1983) describes four parenting styles:
i) Authoritarian style (low in warmth, high in control)
ii) Permissive style (high in warmth, low in control)
iii) Authoritative style (high in warmth and control) and
iv) Negligent style (low in warmth and control)
Out of these, authoritative parenting has often been recognised as the best style
for optimal development of the child (Baumrind, 1967). However, the model
that is theorised on the basis of European American participants may not sustain
strongly across other cultures. The Chinese concept of chiao shun (or training) is
a distinctive style of parenting that applied particularly to the parent-child
relationship and children’s outcomes in the culture (Chao, 1994). Stewart and
colleagues (1999) distinguished Pakistani parenting from the traditional studies
57
Self In Social Context on low-warmth Asian parenting styles, suggesting that the former is generally
high on warmth. This could also be a result of different meanings that the parenting
style components have across cultures. On similar lines, control may have a
negative implication in one culture while children from another culture may
perceive it positively. Acculturation, however, could modify these meanings.
For examples, when Korean children migrate to countries such as Canada and
the US, perceive the parental control negatively (Kim, 1992), although those
living in Korea view the same positively (Rohner & Pettenfill, 1985).
Study on maternal expectations (Joshi & MacLean, 1997) of children revealed

that Indian mothers generally had lower expectations of their children’s
developmental domains (expect for environmental independence) as compared
to Japanese and British mothers. Japanese mothers demonstrated higher
educational, self-care and environmental independence expectations of their
children as compared to British mothers. Immigrant parents of Asian Indian origin
avoid involving their children in part-time jobs as they consider them distractions
from a good education, thus enforcing behaviours that they considered are required
for a better education of their children (Hickey, 2006).
The difference in sleeping arrangements also highlights the difference in parenting

behaviour across cultures. Matsumoto and Juang (2008) write about the negative
attitude of many American parents toward co-sleeping with children; it is a trend
for children to have separate rooms in families that are economically stable.
Indian parents, and those in similar cultures, are often appalled by this practice
as it appears to be neglectful. They prefer co-sleeping over “sleep training”,
especially during the infancy, so as to build a strong mother-child relationship
(Isaac, Annie & Prashanth, 2014). Interestingly, communal sleeping was once
common in pre-industrial Europe and America (Braun, 2017). Hence, perceived
goals of parenting and thoughts on how to achieve them may change over time
within a culture.
One’s immediate family responsible for enculturation and socialisation also

includes their siblings. A process of mutual socialisation between siblings is
emphasised in research (e.g. Ernst & Angst, 1983). Siblings often pass on their
set of beliefs and behaviours on to each other (Zukow-Goldring, 1995). In families
having a large number of children, older siblings may take on the responsibilities
of caregiving for their younger brothers and sisters (Matsumoto &Juang, 2008).
The impact of number of siblings in the growth of children manifested mixed

results (Salem, 2006). Increased number of siblings led to increased chances of
nutritional stunting. At the same time, older siblings act as protective factors
against stunting of their younger brothers and sisters. However, according to a
study by Desai (1995), smaller number of siblings did not provide any advantage
if their remote village did not have a school. This highlights the point that
enculturation agents do not work independently and sometimes only have an
enhancing effect on factors affecting socialisation. Socialisation literature on
street children of India (mostly Hindus and Muslims) indicates that their work
life starts at a much younger age than the more privileged ones – around the age
of 6 to 9 years (Mathur, 2009). Younger children in this category are often
accompanied by their older siblings, thus being important agents of enculturation.
58
4.3.2.2 Extended Family Self in Social Context
It takes a village to raise a child. Or in many non-European American cultures, it

at least takes a larger family consisting of more than parents and their children.
Karve (1965) describes a joint family as “a group of people who generally live
under one roof, who eat food cooked in one kitchen, who hold common property
and participate in common family worship and are related to one another as
some particular type of kinder” – ‘generally’being the key term in this
comprehensive definition. Many cultures view extended family as a source of
passing on the cultural heritage to the later generations (Matsumoto & Juang,
2008).
Most Western studies, particularly on parenting styles, focus on the nuclear family
and often on the child’s relationship with her mother. Joint families demonstrate
important relationship dynamics with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins
almost as much as it does with the parents and siblings. Even in the US,
grandmothers often get more connected into the family when their daughters are
single mothers or teenage mothers (Garcia Coll, 1990).
Even after a process of acculturation and family nuclearisation after immigrating

to Western countries such as the USA, Asian Indian Americans maintain the
joint family values and etiquette (Hickey, 2006). Growing up in joint family
produces a sense of belongingness in children; they tend to have abundant
playmates and be endowed with limitless supply of love and warmth (Ghosh,
1983). This, in turn, reinforces loyalty to the family and respect for authority in
Asian Indian children.
4.3.2.3 Peer Relations

A peer group consists of a small group of individuals who are passably close to
friends, are of similar age group, and collectively engage in similar activities
(Castrogiovanni, 2002). Since early childhood, children interact with others of
their age who could be their potential playmates. In orphanages, children mostly
interact with peers of several age groups, where the older children take
responsibilities of the younger ones. The extent of interaction with peers may
differ from culture to culture; Western and industrialised cultures seeing more
interaction within peers than their Eastern counterparts. This extent determines
the importance level of peer interaction for socialisation of individuals. Peer
groups allow the individual to learn autonomy without adult involvement, coping
strategies (Castrogiovanni, 2002), and identity construction/reconstruction (Black,
2002). According to Nicole M. Howard (2004), peers may reinforce family values
but may also supplement problematic behaviours.
Children often interact with peers their own gender, creating disconnect from
the other gender. This may carry forward later into adolescence and adulthood as
these individuals are better socialised to and develop skills in interacting with
members of their own sex and not enough skills for opposite sex interactions
(Hanish & Fabes, 2014). A subsystem of peer relations is friendship. Youniss
and Smollar (1989) theorised that close friendships serve functional benefits by
facilitating the acquisition of social competencies such as interpersonal sensitivity,
reciprocity, cooperation, and negotiation that are congruent to the culture.
59
Self In Social Context Salman Akhtar (2009) investigated friendships of immigrant children in Western
countries, providing important insights into the acculturation process. Homo-
ethnic friendships (having friends of one’s own ethnic group) serve maternal
function of pacifying the individual but, on the negative side, impede one’s
individuation. Hetero-ethnic friendships (having friends belonging to ethnic
groups other than one’s own) play paternal role by bolstering the process of
acculturation but tend to lack earnest affective connections. Having exclusively
hetero-ethnic friends, or homo-ethnic friends results into slower psychological
development of the person.
4.3.2.4 Education
Recall that we mentioned about the positive effects of siblings on child
development being conditional, depending on whether there was a school in the
locality. Formal education and informal education become pivotal in the
assimilation of individuals into the society by teaching culturally appropriate
skills and values. John Dewey (1899, 1916) delineated the following roles of
education relevant to the society:
i) Culture Transmission
ii) Minimising inequality
iii) Social adaptability and social change
iv) Acquisition of new knowledge
v) Personal development
Cross-national studies of mathematics achievement and abilities show significant
differences in the same. Geary (1996) assert that secondary, not primary,
mathematical abilities manifest these differences. This would imply that the causal
factors for such difference are cultural and social, not biological. American
students tend to make more miscalculations as compared to East Asian students
(Miura, Okamoto, Kim, Steere, & Fayol, 1993). This may be due to the language
differences in numbers, in Japanese 1 to 10 have unique labels while all numbers
henceforth are combination of these numbers (e.g. 11 is “ten-one”) while in
English, numbers 1 to 19 and decade numbers have unique labels.
Cultural differences in teaching style could also account for the differences in
mathematical and other educational abilities. It was noted that as compared to
the United States, Chinese and Japanese teachers spent greater time with students
and the students spent greater time in the school in terms of days per day and
hours per year. Some cultures majorly opt for a didactic teaching style, where
teachers provide information to the students verbally and students acquire it as
per their level of understanding and memorisation. Alternatively, other cultures
majorly have more dynamic teachers who are actively involved with students,
providing them with a platform where the students can themselves uncover
concepts and theories of the workings of the world. American teaching system
believes in praising the students on correct answers while Indian, Japanese and
Taiwanese culture focus on correcting mistakes of the students.
Finally, of course, cultural differences are reflected in course content of an

education system across nations and within nations as well. The structure, content
and intent of a course could capably shape and modify the culture as well as
60 political current in a society. A negative example of this is the study by Jamatia
and Gundimeda (2019) on the curriculum of schools in Tripura that encouraged Self in Social Context
marginalisation of multiple cultures, particularly tribal groups, in the state. They
find that although Tripura is a state with people of multiple identities, the education
system fails to represent them and, instead, perpetuates a monolithic identity,
majorly representing Bengali Hindus by using Bengali as the administrative
language and idealising the Hindu religion. Hence, education has a major role in
shaping, fostering as well as transforming a culture and the society. However,
this quality also calls for caution while designing and implementing course
structure at different levels.
4.3.2.5 Religion
For long, religion and education as entities were not separate. Religious advocates
would impart values as well as education to children and educational institutes
encouraged religiosity. The religious text of Judaism in ancient Israel, Torah,
instructed and encouraged learning and literacy (Compayreì & Payne, 1899).
The schools, however, only allowed boys. In 622 AD, schools were opened in
the Islamic mosques in Medina (now in Saudi Arabia; Al-Hassani, 2011). Much
earlier, between 1500 and 600 BC, Veda and other Hindu scriptures were the
sources of education in ancient Indian that focused on teaching grammar,
composition, verses, logic and other occupational skills (Gupta, 2007). Gurukulas
were important institutions where Brahmin students studied under a Brahmin
teacher for around twelve years before returning home. While they taught many
life sustaining values, religion and its history dominated the system.
In modern time as well, depending on the level of religiosity in the culture and/
or family, religion plays a major role in socialisation. For Punjabi parents settled
in England, religious practices are important carriers of language and principles
for the next generation (Dosanjh &Ghuman, 1997). Some religions celebrate the
transition to adulthood of individuals by ceremonies such as the Bar Mitzvah in
Judaism and to adolescence by Ramadan fasting participation in Islam. Religious
belief has a strong link in moral development in Africa (Okonkwo, 1997) and
suicide attitudes for Hindus and Muslims in England (Kamal & Lowenthal, 2002),
among other linkages.
Fonerand Alba (2008) find that individuals that convert to Christianity in the
United States have positive outcomes in the acculturation process. Already
belonging to a religion of the majority where one migrates to also helped social
mobility (Cadge & Ecklund, 2007). Stronger religiosity, however, negatively
impacts assimilation in a new culture as they tend to prioritise their own cultures
(Borup & Ahlin, 2011).
Self Assessment Questions I
Fill in the blanks:
1) A peer group consists of a ……………………………………… who are

passably close to friends, are of similar age group, and collectively engage
in similar activities.
2) Acculturation is the process by which a person ............................... .
3) ……………….. occurs in the culture where we are born and the process of
familiarisation to the culture begins right after the birth. 61
Self In Social Context 4) ……………….. is a dynamic system that describes the average, mainstream
and representative tendencies in a given population.
5) The earliest environmental impact on an infant’s personality and her other

psychological make-up comes from the ………………...
4.4 SELF ACROSS CULTURES

One of the episodes of NPR’s Invisibilia podcast starts with a story of a woman
named Karen Byrne whose left hand hits her without her volition or cognitive
efforts, in a way that does not resemble an impulse or a tic. She suffers from a
syndrome known as the Alien Hand Syndrome that emerged after the surgical
removal of her corpus callosum (a collection of nerve fibres that connect the left
cerebral hemisphere to the right) to control her epileptic seizures. This means
that both her hemispheres work independently. According to her observations,
the left hand hits her every time she does something normatively wrong – like
using explicit language. It feels as if her left hand has a “mind of its own”. The
episode that aired this story was aptly named “The Culture Inside”.
Culture does not just exist and stay limited to the society and the country we live
in, but we become carriers of it, often perceiving and internalising events and
concepts in context of our personal cultures. Our personal cultures are a part of
our self-concepts. Wehrle and Fasbender (2019) defined self-concept as an
integration of “complex, organised, and yet dynamic system of learned attitudes,
beliefs, evaluative judgments that people hold about themselves.” Sense of self
could be broadly categorised into (Markus & Kitayama, 1991):
i) Sense of Self in Individualist societies: Generally prevalent in the Western

societies, such as in the United States, an independent sense of self is an
outcome of internalising independence values, where individuals are more
self-focused in life. Individualist cultures encourage personal goals over
group or collective goals, self-actualisation and “standing-out” over blending
in. They promote individualistic or independent sense of selves in the
members of its society. Individuals credit their own qualities, attributes and
decisions for achievements. People in an individualist society have been
found to have a broader radius of trust extending to who could be considered
outgroup members (Hoorn, 2015).
ii) Sense of Self in Collectivist societies: Eastern and other non-European

cultures are generally thought to encourage a more interdependent lifestyle
and goals, i.e. an interdependent sense of self. They value conformity and
loyalty to the group. Members of the group are expected to maintain group
cohesiveness and prioritise group interests over self interests (Hofstede,
2001). Hoorn (2015) found that in a collectivist society, individuals have a
narrower trust radius and tend to be more discriminatory towards out-groups.
They tend to withhold their trust for individuals of the in-group.
62
Self in Social Context
Individualist culture Independent self
Type of culture Sense of self promoted by the culture
Collectivist culture Interdependent self
Fig .4.1.: Types of culture and the sense of self they promote
The boundaries of these categories, however, are not well-defined. A society

does not have to be classified as one or the other. India has been majorly considered
to be a collectivist society; however, further studies have found that it is highly
situation-based (Tripathi, 1988). For example, in a 2001 study, students had a
collectivist orientation when conversing with friends, bonding with family, and
engaging with seniors. However, when personal issues and matters were made
salient, they had an individualistic orientation (Sinha, Sinha, Verma, & Sinha
2001). Gender differences were found where Indian females had a higher
collectivist orientation (Jha & Singh, 2011). This convoluted individualist-
collectivist coexistence is possible in India because the Indian psyche has a high
capacity to endure contradictions and discrepancies, thus, it becomes an
individualist collective society (Sinha, 1988). Hence, an integration of both
traditionally collectivist and western individualistic has been observed in the
Indian population.
4.4.1 Outcomes of Different Self-construals Across Cultures

Matsumoto and Juang (2008) delineated cognitive, emotional, and motivational
outcomes for the two different self construals that have been summarised in the
table below (Table 8.1). They focused on 7 areas to draw comparisons between
individualistic and collectivistic societies. These areas are self perception, social
explanation, motivation to achieve, self-enhancement, social implication of
emotion, Social implication and indigenous emotions, and happiness.
Table 4.1: Summary of outcomes for individualistic and collectivistic self

construals as described by Matsumoto and Juang (2008)
Areas Outcomes for individualism Outcomes for collectivism
Self perception Perceive selves in terms of Perceive selves in context of

internal characteristics: skills their social relations.
and personality traits.
Social Assume individualism of others Explain others’ behaviours

explanation and attribute behaviours to in context specific terms
dispositional factors, largely and tend to attribute them to
ignoring situational control. situational factors.
63
Motivation to Desire to achieve connected to Achievement orientation
achieve personal goals of striving for related to affiliation
success. Achievement orientation, having
orientation unrelated to social goals - others’
affiliation orientation. expectations and
obligations.
Self-enhancement Explicit self-enhancement. In explicit setting,

Attribute personal successes to display the opposite of
internal factors and failures to self-serving bias.
external factors (self-serving Implicit self-
bias). enhancement is found.
Social implication Socially disengaged emotions: Socially engaged

of emotion pride & supremacy (positive) emotions: positive -
caused by successes, and anger affection and respect;
& frustration (negative) from negative - indebtedness
shortcomings. and guilt.
Social implication More personal/private facets of Certain unique,

and indigenous emotions are salient and indigenous emotions
emotions fostered, although social related social and public
undertone is present. facets of emotion are
observed.
Happiness Happiness or general “good Happiness associated

feelings” associated more with majorly with socially
socially disengaged emotions. engaged emotions.
How one perceives oneself (self perception) is an important product of the culture
they grow up in. Members of individualistic societies are able to view themselves
consistently in different contexts on the basis of their perceived skills and
personality traits. This becomes a more difficult task in Eastern societies, where
self perception varies with context. Cross-cultural research on self concept reflects
that Americans focused on more self-evaluative statements while Indians largely
emphasised their social identity (Dhawan, Roseman, Naidu, Komilla, & Rettek,
1995).
Social explanation refers to one’s understanding and attribution of others’

behaviours. Heider (1958) postulated that people can attribute behaviours to either
dispositional factors (actor’s internal characteristics such as personality) or
situational factors (external or environmental factors out of the actor’s control).
Members of individualist society tend to assume individualism of others and
attribute behaviours to dispositional factors while collectivists have the opposite
tendencies. For example, Indians are often unable to think in terms of abstract
motives and tend to provide situational explanation for others’ behaviours, while
Americans tend to ignore these causes and focus on dispositional reasons (Miller,
1984).
Sagie, Elizur, and Yamauchi (1996) found that participants from collectivist
societies, such as Japan, displayed lower personal achievement orientation as
compared to those from individualistic societies, such as Hungary. Collective
64 achievement tendencies were found to be higher in the former. The motivation
to achieve is also related to one’s personal growth in individualist societies but Self in Social Context
in collective societies it tends to have social goals, such as obligatory feelings
and filial piety. In cultures such as that of Turkey, achievement motivation follows
both social and personal elements (Phalet & Claeys, 1993).
Aaker and Williams (1998) talk about ego-focused versus other-focused emotions.
They explained that members of individualist societies (say, in the US) feel ego-
focused emotions, such as pride and anger (also termed as socially disengaged
emotions; Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa, 1993) more intensely. Alternatively,
members of collectivist societies (say, in Japan) feel other-focused emotions,
such as respect, friendliness (socially engaged emotions) more intensely. General
and more universal emotions could be felt with different intensities, havedifferent
expressions, and vary in the context of social acceptance across cultures. For
example, a study by Ogarkova, Soriano, and Gladkova (2016) explored anger
metaphors in English, Spanish, Russian languages. English language displayed
more intense, expressive and unmonitored version of anger, while also
demonstrating higher tendency to experience and exhibit the same as compared
to the other two languages. The causation of anger was found to be internal (or
dispositional) as compared to situational, and more socially accepted in English.
Further, indigenous emotions that are unique to collectivist societies are also
related to public facets. Such as amae (Doi, 1973) is an indigenous Japanese
emotion that refers to the dependency on authority figures and yearning for their
acceptance, benevolence, and indulgence. It is noteworthy; however, that Aaker
and Williams found that other-focused emotional appeals worked much better in
persuading members of individualist societies as compared to the use of self-
focused emotional appeals, perhaps because of their novelty. The opposite was
found in collectivist societies because of similar reasons.
Interestingly, happiness levels were found to be significantly greater in highly

individualist societies as compared to collectivist societies (Suh & Oishi, 2002).
The possible causes of this are the dependence of collectivist members on
communal relationships for their subjective well-being (SWB), while there is a
direct relationship of SWB with individual endeavours among individualist
members (Ye, Ng, Lian; 2014; Suh & Oishi, 2002). In simple and redundant
terms, socially engaged emotions are associated with happiness in collectivist
societies, while socially disengaged emotions are associated with the latter in
individualist societies.
4.4.2 The Case of Multicultural Identities

Faster modes of transport and globalisation gave birth to an era where individuals
were not confined to their original societies. This provided a great opportunity
of direct intercultural exposure via tourism and migration. This exposure also
allows one to pick up new languages, habits, and social etiquette. Especially in
immigrants, a unicultural identity is not maintained as they take a leap into a
different culture but also have ingrained the values and habits of the societies
they were originally enculturated to. Children adopted into families of a different
race or religion could also have multiple cultural identities.
To study multicultural identities, Hong, Morris and Benet-Martínez (2016)

overviewed research at 3 levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and collective.
65
Self In Social Context 4.4.2.1 At Intrapersonal Level
Competent identification with multiple cultures was found to have positive
outcomes for adjustment in psychological as well as socio-cultural domains
(Morris, Chiu, & Liu, 2015). Hong et. al. speculated that positive acculturation
that would lead to such findings could be an outcome of internal factors (such as
bilingual proficiency and strong social support) and external factors (such as
state policies discouraging prejudice). Difference among bicultural individuals
is seen in terms of i) distance or the perceived dissociation between the two
cultures; ii) conflict (perceived) between the two cultures. Simply stated, low
distance and low conflict leads to reduced anxiety within the bicultural individuals
(Hirsh & Kang, 2015).
4.4.2.2 At Interpersonal Level

Interpersonal level influences broadly refer to the identity that others focus on
when encountering people of multicultural identities. Discrepancies in perceptions
of self and others about one’s identity would lead to difficulties (Wiley & Deaux,
2010; Sanchez, Shih & Wilton, 2014). People of multicultural identities often
face non-acceptance or hesitations from other individuals belonging to the sub-
ethnic groups they represent. This results in a lower self-esteem, sense of
belongingness (Sanchez, 2010; Townsend, Markus, & Bergsieker, 2009) and
poorer academic performance (Mistry, Contreras,& Pufall-Jones, 2014).
Individuals tackle discrimination due to their multicultural identities using identity
switching and/or identity redefinition:
Identity switching: switching to or accentuating the less vulnerable or more

positively viewed identity over others.
Identity redefinition: playing up positive attributes of the target identity so as to

create positive associations and feel better about the said identity.
4.4.2.3 At Collective Level

Two policies are discussed in the context of multicultural societies: multiculturalist
policies and interculturalist policies:
Multiculturalist policies emphasise the preservation of the multiple cultures in

their original essence pertaining to traditions and communities. Although it has
positive outcomes for the self-esteem of individuals that have high identity to an
ethnic minority (Verkuyten, 2009), it comes at a risk of reinforcing stereotypes
(Gutiérrez & Unzueta, 2010).
Interculturalist policies are a result of dissatisfaction from multiculturalist policies

as the latter could hamper national harmony (Reitz, Breton, Dion & Dion, 2009).
Interculturalism encourages intergroup contact and flexibility of one’s own
cultural identity as impacted by the intercultural exposure. They believe that
cultures have historically been fluid (Morris, Chiu & Liu, 2015), not rigid, as
they were exposed to various cultures, technologies or other novelties.
66
Self Assessment Questions II Self in Social Context
Fill in the following Blanks:

1) India has been majorly considered to be a ……………………… society.
2) ………………………… refers to one’s understanding and attribution of

others’ behaviours.
3) Our …………………..are a part of our self-concepts.
4) ………………….. encourages intergroup contact and flexibility of one’s

own cultural identity as impacted by the intercultural exposure.
5) Members of the group of ………………………. society are expected to

maintain group cohesiveness and prioritise group interests over self-interests.
4.5 SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR ACROSS CULTURES

Several newspaper articles (e.g., Outlook Web Bureau, 2018), blogs, and forums
debate and scrutinise littering behaviour of Indians – many believing that the
same people that litter the streets in India become more well-behaved and
conscientious about that behaviour when they visit another country. Consistencies
or inconsistencies in behaviour depend on several social variables, in this case,
perhaps, social acceptability of littering behaviour in India.
Culture has much control on how members of a society perceive, bond, or interact
with each other as well as how they interact with the out-group. It would be
functional to be familiar with the terms in-group and out-group at the onset of
this section, as they would be used frequently throughout. Maslow (1968), in his
hierarchical model of needs, mentions the need for belongingness as one of the
important needs, feeling a sense of acceptance in and affiliation to a social group.
In-groups: The groups we identify with or feel that we belong to. For example,
our religious community, nation, family, choir group, football team, etc.
Out-groups: The groups we do not identify with or feel some sense of

belongingness to.
One generally has multiple in-groups. Some group memberships are more
important to us than that of others (Bernstein, 2015). Also, some group
memberships are salient than others and/or become more salient at a particular
time as opposed to another time. For example, stereotypically, Asians are
considered good at mathematics, while women are considered incompetent at
the same. Being conscious of one’s group stereotypes may often reinforce those
stereotypes. Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) wanted to find how Asian women
would perform on a mathematical task when their Asian identity was made salient
as compared to when they were reminded of their gender identity. The results
indicated that making the Asian identity (the more “competent” identity) more
salient enhanced the mathematical performance of the participants, while making
the female identity more pronounced, hampered their performance. Mathematical
performance, of course, is not a social behaviour, at least in this context. However,
the example serves the function of understanding how group salience and existing
perceptions about a group could affect our behaviour depending on the situation.
67
Self In Social Context This section will take a gander at how culture can affect behaviour in the social
milieu, exploring the topics of group interaction dynamics, person perceptions,
individualist-collectivist differences, attribution, aggression, and close
relationships.
4.5.1 Cross-cultural Differences in Dynamics of Group

Membership
Stability of group memberships varies according to the culture – North Americans
generally have more stable ingroup and outgroup memberships as compared to
members of Asian culture (Matsumoto & Juang, 2008).
As indicated earlier in the Unit, collectivist cultures drew starker contrasts between
their ingroup and outgroup members, and also experience greater intimacy with
ingroup members as compared to their individualist counterparts (Triandis, 1988).
The negative effect of this is reflected in the difficulties in communicating with
outgroup members or strangers in collectivist cultures, such as Japan and Korea,
and compared to that in individualist cultures, such as the United States
(Gudykunst, Yoon, & Nishida, 1987). Also, the personalisation of communication
with outgroups in collectivist cultures depends highly on situational factors, while
situational demands do not play as important a role in individualist cultures
pertaining to the same concern.
In relation to communication and interaction with their own members,

collectivists (students from Hong Kong China) had more prolonged interaction
with each other as compared to individualists (American students), however the
former had fewer interactions in numbers (Wheeler, Reis, & Bond, 1989). Since
collectivists belong to fewer ingroups than individualists, they compensate
through increased commitment to their existing ingroups and have a greater sense
of group identification/belongingness. Collectivists value cohesion and harmony
because of which they tend to be more susceptible to social conformity
(Matsumoto & Juang, 2008).
Attachment theory and styles by Ainsworth et. al. (1978) has been studied in
group context (e.g. Rom & Mikulincer, 2003; DeMarco & Newheiser, 2018). In
simple terms, group attachment anxiety is related to the insecurity of not being
accepted in the in-group, while group attachment avoidance is characterised by
trying to refraining from depending on their in-groups (in spite of feeling
belongingness to the group). Anxious group member, hence, tend to manifest
behaviours that would increase intimacy with their in-group, while avoidant group
members prefer to maintain their distance from the in-group (Smith et. al., 1999).
Behaviours that increase intimacy with the group may include (as defined in
Matsumoto & Juang, 2008):
Conformity: adhering to real or perceived social pressure.
Compliance: explicitly (in behaviours manifested publicly) adhering to social
pressure, although private beliefs may remain unchanged.
Obedience: complying following some direct instructions or commands from a

person of authority.
Cooperation: group members’ potential to work together to achieve a common

goal.
68
DeMarco and Newheiser (2018) investigated the relationship between group Self in Social Context
attachment styles and investment in group. Expectedly, it was found that avoidant
group attachment styles was related to lower group investment while anxious
group attachment styles were related to higher group investment.
4.5.2 In-group Identification versus In-group Bias

Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978) is based on the supposition that building
identity in relation to social groups also strengthens and preserves one’s self
identity. The theory views intergroup conflict through the lens of and “as a function
of group-based self-definitions” (Islam, 2014). In-group bias refers to the
likelihood that one would favour their in-group and disfavour their out-group.
Tajfel et. al. (1971) demonstrated using a minimal group paradigm that simply
categorising people into abstract groups is enough for intergroup bias or in-group
favouritism to emerge. They divided participants into two groups based on their
accuracy/estimation level of number of dots flashed on a screen. When asked to
allocate money to people (even when told that this would not affect how much
money they would receive), the participants still chose to allocate more money
to in-group members in absence of any personal gain or loss.
While many previous studies suggest that recategorising small groups into larger
groups (for example, girls football team and boys football team into one school
football team) would reduce intergroup bias (e.g., Gaertner et al., 1990), newer
studies suggest the opposite effect (e.g., Hornsey & Hogg, 2000; Turner, & Crisp,
2010). Turner and Crisp confirmed that strong in-group identification would
predict intergroup bias after recategorisation into broader groups. They propose
that the reason for this phenomenon could be an individual’s need to distinguish
oneself and do so by belonging to a positively valued group or viewing the group
positively. If one’s group is merged which other groups that are equivalent on
some important factors, it would trigger the need for positive distinction further,
thus, aggravating the intergroup conflict (Brown & Wade, 1987). This might be
the reason why fascism is described a radical embodiment of nationalism, where
(extreme) nationalism facilitates racism and violence (Turner, 1975, Peters, 2018).
4.5.3 Attribution
Humans have a tendency to find reasons and explanations for their own and
others’ personalities/behaviours and events in their lives or in general. Such
explanations are referred to as attributions. This could explain people’s belief in
astrology and the pleasure we derive from buzz feed personality quizzes. You
could attribute your failure in examinations to the strict grading of the examiner
or to the fever you had that made you underperform. These attributions could be
true. You could attribute your car crashing into the vehicle in front to the other
driver’s sudden braking although it could be due to your own inability to maintain
a distance from the vehicle in front. It could be one of the reasons why we hesitate
to accept self-driving cars because in case of accidents, blaming someone gets
overly complicated – you cannot have a verbal road rage battle with a machine
as well as you can with an equally angry human driver.
69
Box 4.1: Errors of Attribution
People tend to attribute one’s own negative behaviours (or failures) to
external factors and positive behaviours (or successes) to internal factors,
i.e. self-serving bias (Bradley, 1978; “I was late to the office because the
traffic was unpredictable heavy”). On the other hand, they attribute most of
others’ behaviours to internal factors, i.e. Fundamental attribution error
(FAE; Jones & Nisbett, 1971; “he was late to the office because he is a lazy
person who does not take his career seriously”).
Another attribution error is defensive attribution, which is people’s propensity

to blame victims for their suffering, for example attributing the cause of
sexual assault of female survivors to everything other than the assaulter,
and viewing hate crimes against people of black ethnicity as a result of their
perceived aggression. According to Thornton (1984), this error serves a
purpose for the individual by making him/her feel less vulnerable to
becoming a victim of such transgressions. This is also explained by the just
world hypothesis – a cognitive fallacy the world is fair and “good” people
get rewarded, while only the “bad” people get punished so they deserve
their misfortune.
Cross cultural studies indicate that cultural differences emerge in attributional

styles throughout broad range of situations. While western researchers hypothesise
that individuals only attribute their successes to internal factors, in a study by
Moghaddam, Ditto and Taylor (1990), it was found that Indian females who
immigrated to Canada attributed both their successes and failures to internal
factors. Morris and Peng (1994) reviewed American and Chinese newspaper
articles about murders and found that American newspapers attributed the cause
of murder to the accused person’s internal characteristics, while Chinese
newspapers attributed it to situational factors (such as feeling isolated from the
community).
4.5.4 Aggression
Aggression is an overt expression of anger through behaviours that inflict physical
or psychological harm to another person. Besides genetic factors, environmental
and cultural factors have influence on the overall perception, experience, and
expression of aggression in a culture. In Finland, aggression is viewed as
something one does to gain pleasure and, hence, it is considered more deviant as
compared to Estonia, where aggression is considered a more normal means to
achieve a goal (Terav & Keltikangas, 1998). Further, aggression is more socially
acceptable and considered normal in Hong Kong (as compared to the United
States), when there is a difference in authority levels of two people (Bond, Wan,
Leong, & Giacalone, 1985).
Several factors are involved in determining this influence on aggression; some

of them are outlined below (Bond, 2004):
i) Collectivist versus Individualist societies.Individualism in culture has a

strong initial influence on violence reduction before economic factors come
in (Karstedt, 2001). Moreover, individualist societies do better economically,
thereby, further reducing patterns of aggression and violence. Due to the
social pressure of remaining loyal and committed to the in-group in
70
collectivist cultures, violence and aggression towards the out-group becomes Self in Social Context
more likely (Giddens, 1976; Inglehart, 1997). Further, aggression against
women is higher in collectivist societies as they feel more pressured to stay
in the abusive relationship (Vandello& Cohen, 2002).
ii) Economic situation. Wealthier societies tend to have lower rates of homicides
(Lim et al., 2005). More importantly, economic inequality, as compared to a
country’s wealth, is a better predictor of homicide rates (Kennedy, Kawachi,
& Prothrow-Stith, 1996; Lim et. al., 2005). Hence, equal distribution of
wealth and resources are important for controlling aggression and violence
in a society.
iii) War. Involvement in war and other violent political feuds creates and
environment of tension and aggression within a society. Countries that were
involved in World War II (combatant countries), had higher homicide rates
after the war was over, as compared to those that were not involved in the
war (combatant countries; Archer and Gartner; 1984). Hence, being involved
in an international conflict has a deep, negative impact on the internal
functioning of a country.
iv) Democratic versus nondemocratic society. Countries with stable democracies

are less inclined to participate in wars (Rummel, 1988). They are more likely
to honour freedom and human rights. This restricts the cause for homicides
and aggression within the culture.
4.5.5 Person Perception, Attraction, and Relationships

Individuals constantly evaluate others to form impressions of them, which are
shaped and modified according to new information and several other factors.
How we perceive people and their behaviours (person perception) is also heavily
shaped by our own assumptions about the perceived person’s inner state. Although
introduced in the context of memory, primacy effect is also used in person
perception to explain the tendency of individuals to overvalue first impressions
of others (in spite of meeting them several times later) when making overall
perception about them (Anderson, 1971). Noguchi, Kamada, and Shrira (2013)
find that American participants displayed primacy effect more strongly than
Japanese participants. The latter were more responsive to ensuing information
about information of people’s behaviours.
Facial recognition studies indicate that individuals can more accurately recognise
the face of people of their own ethnicities than others (e.g., Ng & Lindsay, 1994;
Bothwell, Brigham, &Malpass, 1989). One of the explanations for this could be
intergroup contact (or lack thereof), individuals tend to spend more time around
people of their own race than others, hence getting used to and better distinguishers
of facial features typical of that race.
Interpersonal attraction, love and relationships have been other interesting areas
of study in cross-cultural research. Croucher, Austin, Fang, and Holody (2011)
explored interpersonal attraction of Hindus and Muslims in India, and found that
both the groups displayed greater attraction (in the physical, social, and task
domains) towards their own religious group than for the other.
Attitudes about love were compared between the United States, Japan, and France
71
Self In Social Context by Ting-Toomey (1991). It was found that love commitment and disclosure
maintenance were rated much higher by American and French participants as
compared to Japanese participants; and the Americans rated relational
ambivalence higher than the Japanese. The domain of conflict expression was
rated higher by Japanese and American participants over French subjects.
Although people tend to be attracted to their in-groups, much of the recent work
demonstrates the benefits of developing close relationships with members of a
different culture. For example, Lu and colleagues (2017) conducted a series of
studies on the effect of intercultural relationships on creativity. Non-Americans
who had worked in the US under J-1 visas who stayed in touch with their American
friends were more innovative and had higher chances of becoming entrepreneurs.
More importantly, people with intercultural dating experience had significantly
higher levels of creativity than those with exclusive intracultural dating
experience. Thus, long-term intercultural friendships and a history of intercultural
romantic relationship have significant positive impact on people.
Self Assessment Questions III

State whether the following are ‘True’ or ‘False’:
1) Aggression is an overt expression of anger through behaviours that inflict
physical or psychological harm to another person. ( )
2) Self - serving bias is an attribution error in which people blame victims for
their suffering. ( )
3) Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978) is based on the supposition that building
identity in relation to social groups also strengthens and preserves one’s
self identity. ( )
4) Conformity refers togroup members’ potential to work together to achieve a

common goal. ( )
5) The groups we identify with or feel that we belong to are called ‘outgroups’.
( )
4.6 LET US SUM UP

Culture is an important determinant of how our perceptions, attitudes, and
behaviours are shaped and moderated throughout our lives. Some agents that
play important role in our enculturation are immediate family, extended family,
friends, education, and religion. Their roles are different in individualist cultures
that focus on developing an individual construal of sense and standing out, and
in collectivist cultures, that focus on group harmony and fitting in. According to
the type of culture one is brought up in, they generally display behaviours that
are more valued and socially appropriate. One could have multiple cultural
identities, where one becomes salient over others depending on the situation.
The pitfall of in-group identification, however, could be intergroup bias which
could restrict us from expanding our worldview through intergroup contact and
also ingrain prejudices and discriminatory behaviour.While finding cultural
differences, it is important to stay mindful of the many similarities that we may
not talk about. Also, cultural differences are not hierarchical differences, i.e.,
72 they may not essentially make one culture better over the other.
4.7 UNIT END QUESTIONS
1) Explain the nature and meaning of enculturation and contrast it with
acculturation.
2) Delineate and explain the major agents responsible for enculturating an
individual to a society.
3) Illustrate, with examples, the role of immediate and extended family as well
as peer relations in enculturation to different cultures.
4) What are the functions of education and religion? How do they influence
socialisation of individuals?
5) How does the sense of self vary across individualist and collectivist cultures?
Also describe the emotional, cognitive, and motivational outcomes for
individualist and collectivist construals of self.
6) What do you understand by multicultural identity? Explain its dynamics at
intrapersonal, interpersonal, and collective levels.
7) Describe the cross-cultural differences in dynamics of group membership.
8) Explain cultural differences in terms of attribution, aggression, person
perception, and close relationships.
4.8 GLOSSARY
Acculturation: adapting to and/or adopting a culture different from the one in
which that person was originally enculturated.
Aggression: overt expression of anger through behaviours that inflicts physical
or psychological harm to another person.
Attribution: evaluative judgment to ascribe the reason/explanation for a particular
event or behaviour as being caused or controlled by another person or situational
factors.
Co-sleeping: when young children and their parents sleep in the same room.
Collectivism: political or cultural ideology that focuses on interdependent self
and “fitting in” with the group.
Compliance: explicitly (in behaviours manifested publicly) adhering to social
pressure, although private beliefs may remain unchanged.
Conformity: adhering to real or perceived social pressure.
Cooperation:group members’ potential to work together to achieve a common
goal.
Culture: totality of equivalent and complementary learned meanings maintained
by a human population, or by identifiable segments of a population, and
transmitted from one generation to the next.
Defensive attribution: tendency to blame victims for their suffering.
Enculturation: transmission of aspects of our own culture from one generation
to the next by different agencies of the culture.
Fascism: an anti-democratic political ideology that encourages extreme
nationalism, denying fundamental rights to individuals of the out-group or that
are considered deviants. 73
Self In Social Context Fundamental attribution error: tendency to attribute others’ behaviours to
internal factors.
Group attachment anxiety: insecurity of not being accepted in the in-group.
Group attachment avoidance: refraining from depending on the in-group.
Hetero-ethnic friendships: Friendships with peers that belong to ethnic groups
different to one’s own.
Homo-ethnic friendships: Friendships with peers of one’s own ethnicity.
Identity redefinition: playing up positive attributes of the target identity so as
to create positive associations and feel better about the said identity.
Identity switching: switching to or accentuating the less vulnerable or more

positively viewed identity over others.
Individualism: political or cultural ideology that focuses on independent self

and “standing out” from a group.
In-group: the group we identify with or feel that we belong to.
In-group bias/Intergroup bias/In-group favouritism: the tendency to would
favour one’s in-group and disfavour the out-group.
In-group identification: identifying or feeling a sense of belongingness to one’s
in-group.
In-group investment: undertaking behaviours for group benefit over personal
benefit.
Interculturalist policies: policies that encourage intergroup contact and
flexibility of one’s own cultural identity as impacted by the intercultural exposure.
Just world hypothesis: a cognitive fallacy the world is fair and “good” people
get rewarded, while only the “bad” people get punished.
Multicultural identities: belonging to or identifying with more than one identity

or culture.
Multiculturalist policies: policies that stress on preservation of the multiple

cultures in their original essence pertaining to traditions and communities
Obedience:complying following some direct instructions or commands from a
person of authority.
Out-group: the group we do not identify with or feel some sense of belongingness
to.
Person perception: forming impressions of other and interacting with mental
representations about people and their behaviours.
Primacy effect: tendency of individuals to overvalue first impressions of when

making overall perception about them.
Recategorisation: redefining smaller in-groups by merging them into a larger

in-group.
74 Self-serving bias: tendency to attribute one’s own behaviour to external factors.

4.9 ANSWERS TO SELF ASSESSMENT
QUESTIONS
Self Assessment Question I
1) small group of individuals
2) adapts to, and in many cases adopts a different culture.
3) Enculturation
4) Culture
5) parents
Self Assessment Question II
1) Collectivist
2) Social explanation
3) personal cultures
4) Interculturalism
5) Collectivist
Self Assessment Question III
1) True
2) False
3) True
4) False
5) False
4.10 SUGGESTED READINGS AND REFERENCES

Branscombe, N. R., & Baron, R. A. (2016). Social Psychology (14th ed.). Boston:
Pearson/Allyn& Bacon.
Matsumoto, D. R., &Juang, L. P. (2008). Culture and Psychology. Belmont, CA:

Wadsworth/Thomson.
Myers, D. G. & Twenge, J. M. (2017). Social Psychology (12th ed.). New York,
NY : McGraw-Hill.
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BLOCK 2

SELF IN SOCIAL CONTEXT

* Adapted from BPC-006, Block 1, Unit 4 41

3.2.1 Formation of Self-Concept

Looking Glass Self

Social Comparison Theory

Social comparison is also done on basis of similarities and differences with

3.2.2 Self Esteem

3.3 COGNITIVE AND MOTIVATIONAL BASIS OF

People form impressions of others quickly and on the basis of minimal

People pay attention to most salient features of a person we notice the

In processing information about people involves some coherent meaning in

We organise our perceptions by categorising or grouping stimuli i.e. rather

We use cognitive structure to make sense of people’s behaviour. If we come

A perceivers’ own needs and personal goals influences how he or she

3.3.2 Impression Management (Impression Management - The

Additional tactics of self enhancement involves efforts to describe oneself in

Self Assesment Questions I

2) People form .................... of others quickly and on the basis of minimal

4) A perceivers’ own needs and ................................... influences how he or

3.3.3 Theories of Self Presentation

However a situated identity is tied much more to a specific situational context

3.3.4 Self Presentation Tactics

3.3.4.3 Self Promotion

3.3.5 Individual Difference in Self Presentation

1) Discuss any two tactics of self-presentation.

3.5 UNIT END QUESTIONS

Self-Presentation Tactics: Variety of tactics that people use in presenting

Ingratiation: A class of strategic behaviour illicitly designed to influence a

Intimidation: In intimidation by creating the image of dangerous person, the

Self promotion:This tactics is used if a person wants to show himself as competent

3.7 ANSWERS TO SELF-ASSESSMENT

1) A) Ingratiation: This is the most common of presentation techniques and

However a successful ingratiatory knows when to compliment people

B) Intimidation: Is to arouse fear in other people. This is in contrast to

3.8 SUGGESTED READINGS AND REFERENCES

Chaube S.P, Social Psychology (1986), Lakshmi Navayan Agarwal, Educational

Coffman, (1967) quoted in Crisp, R.J, Rhianomon N Turner (2007) Essential

Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice

Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice

Turner R.N and Richard J.Crisp (2007) Essential Social Psychology,Sage

4.2 CULTURE: MEANING AND DEFINITION

Thus, the word culture is a complex conceptualisation that helps us in

Rohner (1984): Culture is the totality of equivalent and complementary learned

Dynamic nature: Culture is a dynamic system that describes the average,

System of rules: Various behaviours, rules, attitudes, or values in a culture

Psychological and behavioural components: Apart from the objective and

Individual differences: Different individuals in a particular culture vary in

Inevitable changes over time: Although culture is believed to be relatively

4.3 ENCULTURATION AND ACCULTURATION

4.3.1 Difference in Enculturation and Acculturation

4.3.2 Agents of Enculturation

4.3.2.1 Parents and Siblings

i) The offspring’s physical survival

Studies pertaining to cross-cultural differences in parenting indicate that these

The popular model introduced by Baumrind (1971) and added on by Maccoby

Study on maternal expectations (Joshi & MacLean, 1997) of children revealed

The difference in sleeping arrangements also highlights the difference in parenting

One’s immediate family responsible for enculturation and socialisation also

The impact of number of siblings in the growth of children manifested mixed