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Evaluating the evidence for pancultural self‐enhancement
Author(s) -
Sedikides Constantine,
Gaertner Lowell,
Vevea Jack L.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-839x.2007.00227.x
Subject(s) - psychology , nomothetic and idiographic , self enhancement , social psychology , social comparison theory , cognitive psychology
We do not regard the better‐than‐average effect as ‘the only acceptable measure of self‐enhancement’ (Heine, Kitayama, & Hamamura, 2007b). Rather, we object to meta‐analytical inclusion of effects that are incapable of testing the tactical self‐enhancement hypothesis. In Investigation 1 of Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea (2007a), 12 of the 24 effects involved attributes that were unvalidated for domain (collectivistic vs individualistic): these effects are uninformative. The 12 domain‐validated effects supported the hypothesis. In Investigation 2 of Sedikides et al. (2007a), 12 of the 29 effects were deemed irrelevant. None of these effects involved a correlation between: (a) a participant's rating of self and his/her rating of another person; and (b) idiographic importance rating of the comparison attributes. These effects, then, cannot test whether the self–other comparison varies with the personal importance of the comparison attributes. The 17 relevant effects supported the hypothesis. The weight of the evidence points to the panculturality of self‐enhancement.