Inclusion of additional studies yields different conclusions: Comment on Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea (2005), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

2007/03/26 by Steven J. Heine, Shinobu Kitayama, Takeshi Hamamura · 65 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cultural Differences and Values #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Psychology #Big Five personality traits #Meta-analysis #Interdependence #Social psychology #Personality #Variation (astronomy) #Inclusion (mineral) #Self-enhancement #Social science #Sociology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1467-839x.2007.00211.x

published in Asian Journal Of Social Psychology 10(2), 49-58 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 2007/03/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

In a Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, Sedikides, Gaertner and Vevea (2005) presented two meta‐analyses that included eight papers to investigate the question of whether people from Eastern cultures self‐enhance more for traits that they view to be important compared to those that they view as unimportant. The results supported their hypothesis: Self‐enhancement appears to be pancultural. However, this conclusion is severely compromised by six relevant papers that are not included in their meta‐analyses. Importantly, all of these six studies contradicted their hypothesis. When complete meta‐analyses are conducted which include all of the relevant papers, a very different pattern of results emerges. Eastern and Western cultures do not differ from each other in the pattern of their self‐enhancement of independent and interdependent traits. Furthermore, whereas Westerners self‐enhanced significantly more for traits that they viewed to be especially important, East Asians did not. Contrary to the Sedikides et al. (2005) suggestion, the existing evidence suggests substantial cross‐cultural variation in self‐enhancement, with Westerners being far more self‐enhancing than Easterners. Reasons for the conflicting pattern of findings across methods and meta‐analyses are discussed.

Citations

• On the psychology of prediction.
• Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan.
• In Search of East Asian Self-Enhancement
• Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?
• Divergent consequences of success and failure in Japan and North America: An investigation of self-improving motivations and malleable selves.
• Where Is the Evidence for Pancultural Self-Enhancement? A Reply to Sedikides, Gaertner, and Toguchi (2003).
• Pancultural self-enhancement.
• Cultural variation in unrealistic optimism: Does the West feel more vulnerable than the East?
• Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: A meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005).

Cited by

• Inclusion of theory‐relevant moderators yield the same conclusions as Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea (2005): A meta‐analytical reply to Heine, Kitayama, and Hamamura (2007)
• Which studies test whether self‐enhancement is pancultural? Reply to Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea, 2007
• On Pancultural Self-Enhancement
• The evolution and psychology of self-deception
• Self-enhancement [wikipedia]