Self-Concept in Collectivist Cultures

Self-concept is defined as the mental image one has of one’s self with regards to

strengths, weaknesses, status, and other self beliefs. The Twenty Statements Test

(Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) is a test used to measure self-concept by evaluating a

participant’s spontaneous self-description answers to the statement “I am ______.”

The test has been used in numerous studies to identify and evaluate contents of the

self-concept, as well as to examine differences in self-concept between gender (Gigy, 1980), with regards to generational and birth-order effects (Lund, Caserta, Dimond, and Gray, 1986; Montemayer and Eisen, 1977; Bigner, 1971), between ethnic groups (Benglis & Sheikh, 1974), and between cultures (Rhee, Uleman, Lee, & Roman, 1995; Bond & Chung, 1983). Because the format of the test is one that can be universally understood, the test

has proved to be particularly useful for cross-cultural comparison, and various studies have shown that spontaneous self-descriptions do vary between Eastern and Western cultures.

The study by Rhee, Uleman, Lee and Roman (1995) was comprised of Korean

students from Yonsei University in Seoul, and Euro and Asian American students from

New York University. Koreans were selected because they are from one of the most collectivist cultures (Bond, 1988; Hofstede, 1980). Because little research had been done on Asian Americans, the Asian Americans were subdivided into three groups, based on the spontaneous self-identity answers given on the Twenty Statements Test to imply ethnicity, those who did not identify themselves as Asian Americans were called unidentified, those who identified themselves by either ethnicity or nationality were called singly identified, and those who identified themselves on both ethnicity and nationality were called doubly

identified. The Asian Americans were divided as such, because in addition to the main study, an additional hypothesis based on acculturation was also being...