On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: The case of Easterners and Westerners.

Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In Study 4, when Asian Canadians made choices for a friend, an independent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for bicultural Asian Canadians but not for monocultural Asian Canadians. These studies demonstrate that both Easterners and Westerners can experience dissonance, but culture shapes the situations in which dissonance is aroused and reduced. Implications of these cultural differences for theories of cognitive dissonance and self-affirmation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Secure and Defensive High Self-Esteem.

Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensiveness. In Studies 2 and 3, the correspondence between implicit and explicit SE predicted defensive behavior (in-group bias in Study 2 and dissonance reduction in Study 3), such that for high explicit-SE participants, those with relatively low implicit SE behaved more defensively. These results are consistent with the idea that high SE can be relatively secure or defensive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)