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Decomposing a Sense of Superiority: The Differential Social Impact of Self-Regard and Regard for Others
Journal of Research in Personality 34, 537–553 (2000) doi:10.1006/jrpe.2000.2297, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
Decomposing a Sense of Superiority: The Differential Social Impact of Self-Regard and Regard for Others Michael Harris Bond Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
Virginia S. Y. Kwan University of California, Berkeley
and Chun Li Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China The tendency to self-enhance has been related to a host of beneficial psychological outcomes (Taylor & Brown, 1988), although some negative social consequences have also been identified (Colvin et al., 1995, Paulhus, 1998). One operationalization of self-enhancement is derived by subtracting the rater’s evaluations of others from his or her self-ratings to yield a measure of the rater’s sense of superiority/inferiority, i.e., rater-derived self-enhancement. The present research assessed the psychological and social correlates of a person’s sense of superiority in groups whose members worked on tasks together for 3 months. A sense of superiority was scored as a composite but also separated into its two components, self-regard and regard for others, to determine if these components of a sense of superiority have separate relationships to psychological and social processes. A sense of superiority evidenced the same self-rated psychological benefits as had been found in Western research, though it showed both positive and negative social outcomes, as assessed on an eight-factor measure of the target’s personality rated by his or her other group members. Positive psychological characteristics and a stereotypically masculine reputation were associated with higher levels of self-regard; lower levels of self-rated Agreeableness, a stereotypically nonfeminine reputation, and lower liking were associated with lower levels of regard for others. Given their different functions, it
The authors express their thanks to Lee Hamilton, Po Man Lo, Del Paulhus, and David Winter for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Michael Harris Bond, Psychology Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong S.A.R., China. E-mail: [email protected]. 537 0092-6566/00 $35.00 Copyright 2000 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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is proposed that self-regard and regard for others be separated in future research and attention directed toward characterizing the behavioral profiles of those high and low in these two measures of basic personality orientation. 2000 Academic Press The Wise Man chooses to be last And so becomes the first of all; Denying self, he too is saved. For does he not fulfillment find In being an unselfish man? Lao Tzu, The way of life (R. B. Blakney, trans.)
In 1988, Taylor and Brown published a provocative article titled, ‘‘Illusion and Well Being,’’ showing that inaccurate self-perceptions had psychologically beneficial correlates. This position challenged the widely held assumption that an accurate perception of one’s place in the social scheme of things was the hallmark of healthy adaptation. In consequence, their article stimulated an enormous response in the psychological literature (Block & Colvin, 1994; Colvin & Block, 1994; Colvin et al., 1995; John & Robins, 1994; Paulhus, 1998). Taylor and Brown (1988) focused on three illusions concerning selfworth, perception of control, and optimism about future events. In examining the value of illusions about self-worth, Taylor and Brown reported on studies that asked participants to compare themselves against normative criteria, e.g., the respondent’s perception of ‘‘most other people.’’ Those persons who regarded themselves as possessing higher levels of desired personal qualities than they reported most other people to possess showed other indicators of positive mental health, e.g., higher levels of self-esteem. This comparison between self and others may be given a more grounded, social basis by asking people to compare themselves with specific, known others. So, for example, Kwan (1997) asked group members to rate their fellow group members on a comprehensive set of eight independent dimensions of personality following three months of working together. After scoring each of these eight dimensions in the favorable direction, one may take the average of the ratings a group member gives to his or her fellow group members as a measure of that group member’s general regard for others; likewise, one may take the average of the ratings a group member gives himor herself on these eight dimensions, again scored in the favorable direction, as a measure of overall self-regard. The level of a group member’s general regard for others may then be subtracted from his or her level of self-regard to yield an index of rater-derived self-enhancement, perhaps more commonsensibly labeled as a sense of superiority, that is based on exchanges with others in an extended task context. One can then examine the correlates of a sense of superiority for personal adjustment by associating this type of self-enhancement score with measures
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of psychological health. However, it is important to note that this measure of a sense of superiority is a composite, constituted by a measure of selfregard and of regard for others. Either or both of these variables may be connected to the personal and social outcomes other researchers have identified. If self-regard and regard for others exercise an impact on different variables, then their distinctive functional relations will be overlooked by defining a sense of superiority in terms of a difference score. No empirical evidence to date addresses the consequences of self-regard and regard for others separately rather than together as a composite. Those with a sense of superiority separate themselves from others. Doing so publicly would invite social criticism, especially in collectivist cultures that emphasize restraint when considering the ‘‘self-in-relation-to-the-other’’ (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 2000). However, even in Chinese culture, with its emphasis on humility (Gao, TingToomey, & Gudykunst, 1996), there is evidence of a sense of superiority in ratings of self and of others (Falbo, Poston, Triscardi, & Zhang, 1997). As in the West, this type of self-enhancement is associated with higher levels of self-esteem in Chinese culture (Yik, Bond, & Paulus, 1998). From the perspective of the rater, a sense of superiority is beneficial, even in a collectivist cultural system. However, these sorts of rater-derived measures fail to address the social consequences of enhancing oneself relative to others. How are those who self-enhance perceived by individuals who have interacted extensively with them, and what are the possible consequences of a sense of superiority for one’s social relations? Colvin et al. (1995) have proposed that there is a ‘‘dark side’’ to self-enhancement (see also, Paulhus, 1998). Given the apparently universal condemnation of egotism, one would expect that selfenhancers would be perceived negatively, at least across the communal (Bakan, 1966) dimensions of reputation. If so, that consequence would qualify the benefits of a sense of superiority. Surprisingly, this question of how selfenhancing regard is related to one’s social reputation has not been empirically addressed by researchers in this area. This way of measuring one’s sense of superiority combines a measure of self-regard algebraically with a measure of one’s regard for others. Either or both of these variables may be connected to the personal and social outcomes identified in previous research for rater-derived self-enhancement. Brown (1986) has found that self-regard and regard for others are not significantly correlated, so they may thus relate to different social outcomes. If self-regard and regard for others exercise an impact on different variables, then their distinctive functional relations will be overlooked by operationalizing a sense of superiority in terms of a difference score. So, it may be that the reputational dark side attached to self-enhancers arises from their low regard for
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others rather than from their high self-regard, but this important distinction would be obscured by the use of the self-enhancement score produced by subtracting the rater’s regard for others from his or her self-regard. So, in the present study, we propose to reanalyze data from Kwan (1997) and Li (1999), deconstructing rater-derived self-effacement, i.e., a sense of superiority, into its two components, self-regard and regard for others. These two components of sense of superiority are regressed against the social outcomes in this group setting, i.e., liking, perceived contribution to the group’s success, and perceptions of the self by the other group members on the eight, comprehensive dimensions of perceived personality used by Hong Kong people. This procedure will reveal which social outcomes are connected to which form of rater-derived regard, self-regard or regard for others. These results may be compared against those arising from using their difference score, as is currently used in the Taylor and Brown (1988) procedure to assess the impact of rater-derived self-enhancement. If self-regard and regard for others relate to different social outcomes, theorizing about social dynamics would require their analytic and operational separation. Separating out self-regard will enable us to connect literature from the self-enhancement paradigm to the literature on Chinese modesty and humility. Basing her assessment on observation of repeated exchanges, Wierzbicka (1996) has identified a modesty script as characteristic of Chinese social exchanges. She portrays this script as follows by using the simple terms of her lexical universals (Wierzbicka, 1993): I can’t say something like this to other people: I did something good I think something good about me It is good if people think that I don’t think good things about me. Wierzbicka, 1996, p. 337
This script has both a cognitive and a social component, mandating a low level of self-regard and a humble presentational style. Consistent with this script, Chinese respondents typically report fewer positive relative to negative self-statements on the Twenty Statements Test compared to Americans (Bond & Cheung, 1983), and this difference appears to derive from the Chinese reluctance to make as many positive self-statements as the Americans (Ip & Bond, 1995). More modest descriptions of one’s management styles have also been reported from Chinese as opposed to British managers (Goodstein, Stringfield, & Zevulun, n.d.). The Chinese also adopt a more self-effacing attributional style following success and a less defensive attributional style following failure (Crittendon, 1996). Such modest self-references are likely to result in the Chinese being perceived as depressed when evaluated by those using norms appropriate in cultures normatizing greater self-aggrandizement (see, e.g., Li-Repac, 1980).
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These private aspects of a modesty script revealed in self-ratings translate socially into greater liking for those who publicly make self-effacing attributions for their performance (e.g., Bond, Leung, & Wan, 1982). It would thus seem that a lower level of self-regard would result in a positive reputation for Chinese people, at least for the dimensions of personality perception which associate with likability, i.e., helpfulness and intellect (Lee & Bond, 1997; Wong & Bond, 1999). Regard for others is conceptually related to considerations of face giving, i.e., the tendency to communicate positive information about others either directly through verbal praise or indirectly through deploying respect markers to those others. Although there have been no cross-cultural comparisons, Chinese are widely regarded as especially vigilant about protecting other’s ‘‘faces’’ (Gao et al., 1996). They show a nuanced consideration of contextual considerations surrounding another’s potential face loss (Bond & Lee, 1981) and report greater levels of embarrassment over another’s loss of face than do Americans (Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, & Lai, 1999). It is therefore probable that those who give lower levels of regard for others will be disliked and perceived negatively across the communal dimensions of personality perception. Showing lower levels of regard for others probably has no relation, however, to the agentic dimensions of social perception and to one’s personal self-esteem (see Brown, 1986). In sum, this article proposes to examine the social correlates of self-regard and of regard for others separately. In previous literature these two measures have typically been combined by subtraction to yield a measure of selfenhancement. However, the two components of such a sense of superiority are probably associated with different social outcomes. If so, theoretical developments would be better served by considering these types of regard separately, linking them to the literature on modesty and saving face, respectively. METHOD Participants The present study was conducted in a realistic, academic group setting. Two hundred thirtyfive students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong participated in the study across 3 years (see Kwan, 1997; and Li, 1999) as partial fulfillment of their social psychology course requirements. Of these 235 students, 182 were female and 53 were male, with ages ranging from 19 to 22 years old. All participants grouped themselves with occasionally 3, generally 4, and occasionally 5 other students, yielding a total of 47 groups.
Experimental Design A round-robin design (Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979) was used in the present study. In this design, each participant was required to make personality judgments of all other group members in the group after they had worked together for 3 months, and each participant was
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also rated by all other group members (Kenny, 1994). Additionally, their self-ratings were collected for analysis. Of note, all participants were required to complete three group assignments with their group members. In addition to the regular class meeting, each group met at least an hour per week on average. This frequency of group interactions ensured that they all had adequate opportunities to observe one another.
Instruments Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is a 10item measure of global, personal self-esteem. Responses were made on a 4-point scale with anchors of 1 (strongly disagree) and 4 (strongly agree). The α coefficient for this scale was .80. Sino-American Person Perception Scale. The Sino-American Person Perception Scale (SAPPS) (Yik & Bond, 1993) is composed of both indigenous and imported personality trait items: the indigenous items were derived from research on Chinese personality and its perception by Yang and Lee (1971) and by Lew (1985); the imported items were derived from instruments tapping the Big Five lexical markers provided by Goldberg and by McCrae. These two sets of measures were combined and administered to Hong Kong respondents. The result of this synthesis was an instrument consisting of 32 bipolar adjective scales comprehensively measuring the perceived dimensions of Chinese personality. All items are mixed randomly with half of the positive poles on right side and the remaining half on left side of the scale. There are eight dimensions in the SAPPS, i.e., Openness, Emotional Stability, Extroversion, Application, Intellect, Helpfulness, Restraint, and Assertiveness. The positive ends of these eight dimensions are the more favorable (Lai & Bond, 1997) and are rated as very favorable, so that an overall index of personality favorability may be produced by adding together the ratings across the eight dimensions of personality perception scored in the positive direction. These eight exceed the five typically found elsewhere (Saucier, Hampson, & Goldberg, in press) because Hong Kong people define the Conscientiousness and Culture factors more precisely than Americans. The 235 participants were asked to rate themselves and each group member in their group on the 32 7-point scales with anchors of 1 (very low) and 7 (very high). The α coefficients of the eight self-reported SAPPS dimensions showed acceptable levels of internal consistency for scales of only four items, with values ranging from .56 for Helpfulness to .85 for Openness. Individual group grade. All participants learned important information about their and other group members’ skills and shortcomings by completing their group assignments. Thus, each group designed its own evaluation form to evaluate each of their member’s contributions to the group assignments. The criteria and the weight of each criterion in the evaluation form were independently chosen by each group. The most frequently selected criteria were variants of participation, responsibility, creativity, attentiveness, and communication skills. All participants rated themselves and each member of their group based on those criteria. The averaged score from all members was used as each individual’s group grade and constituted 20% of each student’s course grade. Liking scale. A simple liking scale was designed to investigate to what extent the participants liked each member of their group. The participants were asked to rate each group member on a 7-point scale with anchors of 1 (really dislike) and 7 (really like). A liking score for each participant was computed by averaging the ratings that were given by all their group members.
Procedure The instruments were administered at two different time periods during the term. Participants were asked to fill out the self-report measures in the 1st week of the term before their
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group’s formation. All three member-reported measures were collected in the 12th week of the term. All member-reported ratings were made privately, and the confidentiality of all responses was guaranteed by the experimenter and the course teacher.
RESULTS First, we averaged the eight self-rated SAPPS dimension ratings scored in the favorable direction to obtain the self-regard measure. Second, we averaged across the eight SAPPS dimension ratings scored in the favorable direction that each participant gave to the three or four other group members to find his or her average level of general regard for others. These two scores were then subtracted to produce a sense of superiority score for each group member.1 As in Brown (1988), the self-regard and regard-for-others measures were not significantly correlated, r(233) ⫽ .09, ns. A participant’s level of selfregard is thus independent of his or her level of regard for others, suggesting that these may be functionally distinct personality processes with different social correlates. Interjudge Agreement of Observers James, Demaree, and Wolf (1984) proposed the within-group interrater reliability statistic (r wg ) ‘‘for assessing agreement among the judgements made by a single group of judges on a single variable in regard to a single target’’ (p. 85). SAPPS. For the eight dimensions of personality perception, r wg coefficients ranged from .84 (Emotional Stability and Assertiveness) to .93 (Intellect), again showing substantial social consensus among a group’s members on a given group member’s personality. Liking scale. The r wg was .77 for the liking scale. Social Impact To assess each group member’s social impact, we averaged the ratings on the eight SAPPS dimensions of personality that each participant received from his or her group members. In addition, the scores that each group member received on the liking scale were averaged to produce a liking score for that group member. His or her group performance score was taken from
1 In addition to the difference score, there is an alternative way to index self-enhancement by using residual scores (i.e., regressing self-regard on regard for other and saving the residual as the self-enhancement index). We thus computed the rater-derived self-enhancement index by using the residual method and correlated these two different ways to index self-enhancement. We found that the two different indices (i.e., the subtraction versus the residual) were highly correlated with each other, r ⫽ .82, p ⬍ .01. For the sake of simplicity we only report our findings based on the subtraction method.
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TABLE 1 Intercorrelations between Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement (Sense of Superiority), Regard for Others, Self-Regard, and Social Impact Indices
Social impact indices Openness Emotional Stability Extroversion Application Intellect Helpfulness Restraint Assertiveness Liking Group Performance
Rater-derived self-enhancement (Sense of superiority)
Regard for others
Self-regard
.26* .02 .20* ⫺.16 ⫺.03 ⫺.27** ⫺.22* .26* ⫺.25* .06
⫺.12 ⫺.04 ⫺.03 .13 .07 .24 .24* ⫺.13 .36* ⫺.06
.21* .05 .22* ⫺.09 .02 ⫺.16 ⫺.09 .21* ⫺.03 .03
Note. N ⫽ 235. * p ⬍ .01.
the average contribution ratings given that individual by his or her group members. Then, we correlated self-regard, regard for others, and the rater’s sense of superiority, i.e., rater-derived self-enhancement measure, with the above 10 indices of social impact (see Table 1). In order to reduce the probability of type 1 errors, we chose the more conservative α level of .01 in assessing statistical significance. By this criterion, the rater-derived self-enhancement index or sense of superiority was related to six of the social impact scores, five dimensions of other-perceived personality or reputation, i.e., Openness, Extroversion, Assertiveness, negative Helpfulness, and negative Restraint, and to negative liking. Self-regard was related to three of these dimensions of other-perceived personality or reputation, i.e., Openness, Extroversion, and Assertiveness; regard for others was related to Restraint and Helpfulness, along with liking. Thus, there was functional differentiation between selfregard and regard for others in predicting the indices of social impact, with a clear division of labor between the two predictors. Each participant’s Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem score was correlated with: his or her rater-derived self-enhancement score or sense of superiority, r(233) ⫽ .45, p ⬍ .001; self-regard score, r(233) ⫽ .55, p ⬍ .001; and regard for others score, r(233) ⫽ .02, ns. The finding that one’s sense of superiority correlated with a widely used measure of personal adjustment, self-esteem, replicates in a different culture the results obtained in research using the Taylor and Brown (1988) approach. That self-regard also correlated
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TABLE 2 Regressed Social Impact Indices on Self-Regard and Regard for Others Predictors Criterion variable
Self-regard
Regard for others
Total R 2
Member report Openness Emotional Stability Extroversion Application Intellect Helpfulness Restraint Assertiveness Liking Group Performance
.23* .05 .23* ⫺.11 .01 ⫺.19* ⫺.11 .23* ⫺.06 .04
⫺.14 .04 ⫺.05 .14 .06 .26* 25* ⫺.15 .37* ⫺.06
.07 .00 .05 .03 .00 .09 .07 .07 .13 .01
Note. N ⫽ 235. Coefficients are standardized beta weights. * p ⬍ .01.
strongly with self-esteem is hardly surprising, as they are alternative measures of the same construct, favorable self-assessment. The lack of correlation between regard for others and self-esteem, however, shows these two measures to be psychologically unrelated. The favorability of one’s overall assessment of oneself bears no relation to one’s overall assessment of similar other persons. Regression equations were run in order to compare the relative efficacy of the composite self-enhancement or sense of superiority measure against that provided by the self-regard and regard-for-others measures used separately in the same equation. Again, the .01 level was used to assess statistical significance (see Table 2). The pattern of significance for the beta weights generally parallels that of the correlations described above. DISCUSSION This research was focused on the social correlates of self-regard and regard for others, the two ratings constituting the self-enhancement or sense of superiority index derived from the person’s ratings in a group setting. This sense of superiority was a mixed blessing—those who self-enhanced were perceived by their co-workers as higher in the stereotypically masculine personality dimensions, but as lower in the stereotypically feminine personality dimensions. Also, they were less liked. However, these social outcomes were differentially associated with the two constituents of a sense of superiority, self-regard and regard for others. Higher self-regard predicted the masculine
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dimensions of perceived personality; higher regard for others predicted both the feminine dimensions of perceived personality and also greater liking. Given that self-regard and regard for others were themselves uncorrelated aspects of an individual’s personality, the results of this study suggest that the nomological networks surrounding self-regard and regard for others should be separately examined in future work. Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement or a Sense of Superiority The results from the present study replicate those arising from the Taylor and Brown (1988) operationalization of self-enhancement. That is, higher levels of rater-derived self-enhancement are associated with self-reported indicators of positive mental health, such as self-esteem. Indeed, in Kwan’s (1997) research, a host of self-rated (i.e., rater-derived) measures of adjustment were associated with such self-enhancement: higher levels of Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, and Broadnax’s (1994) collective self-esteem; higher conscientiousness, extroversion, openness to experience, and lower neuroticism, as measured by the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992); higher levels of individuation (Maslach & Stapp, 1985); and higher levels of interpersonal relationship harmony (Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997). Even in a collective cultural context, a sense of superiority is closely linked to positive psychological adjustment as assessed by the person him- or herself. Rater-derived self-enhancement has a warm, personal glow. These findings simply tell us that those with high levels of self-regard think positively about themselves in many dimensions. More consequential is the positive, social glow attached by others to those with a sense of superiority: they were perceived as more assertive, more open, and more extroverted. These are favorable, proactive qualities in Chinese culture, associated with another’s being ‘‘Westernized’’ (Yik & Bond, 1993), and are precisely those dimensions of personality characterizing the male stereotype (Lai & Bond, 1997). On the other hand, a cold, interpersonal side to rater-derived self-enhancement also emerges when some of its other social correlates are examined. After 3 months of working together, group members rate those with a high sense of superiority as less helpful and as less restrained. Both restraint and helpfulness are positive aspects of personality and are the two dimensions of personality characterizing the female stereotype in Chinese culture (Lai & Bond, 1997). These dimensions of one’s perceived personality or earned reputation are important integrative resources in a social setting, related to one’s attractiveness as a social partner (see, e.g., Lee & Bond, 1998; Wong & Bond, 1999). Thus, in the present group context, those who self-enhanced were perceived as less socially attractive than those who self-effaced. This outcome is consistent with the position of Colvin et al. (1995), who maintained that ‘‘A vicious cycle is generated whereby self-enhancement is rig-
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idly and frequently used to maintain positive self-regard but at a continual and cumulative cost of alienating one’s friends and discouraging new acquaintances’’ (p. 1161). Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement and the Rater’s ‘‘True’’ Worth As assessed with this procedure, self-enhancement is a measure confined within the rater. So, the rater’s sense of superiority or inferiority has a truth or validity for the rater, at least so far as the rater is revealing his or her true perceptions in this measurement context. This validity is evidenced by its correlates with the other, self-rated psychological qualities noted above. In addition, rater-derived self-enhancement evidences additional truth value with respect to its reliable social correlates noted above. By using a raterderived measure of self-enhancement, however, the social scientist allows that raters may be accorded a superiority over others or an inferiority with respect to others that may not be ‘‘deserved’’ with respect to the level of regard others accord to that person. One could attempt to measure the rater’s self-enhancement by using a measure of the rater’s worth as assessed by others, e.g., Colvin et al. (1995). By taking this ‘‘external’’ approach to assessing the rater’s worth, however, one confounds the social with the personal so that the relation between the social and the personal perspectives on the person can never be disentangled conceptually or statistically. The present approach to studying the person’s sense of superiority allows the social scientist to explore the relationship between these internal and external domains of reality. And, as described below, rater-derived measures of self-regard and of regard for others have different nomological networks both within the rater’s personal system and within the rater’s social system. Perhaps then, these two components of raterderived self-enhancement are better considered as separate constructs. Self-Regard The positive masculine qualities associated with a sense of superiority were contributed by one of its constituents, self-regard. Those who rated themselves more favorably across the whole range of lexical personality traits were seen as more assertive, more extroverted, and as more open by their co-workers. These dimensions of personality define the male stereotype in Hong Kong Chinese culture (Lai & Bond, 1997) and encompass the some of the potency and activity associated with the male role in most cultural groups (Williams & Best, 1982). Additionally, these three dimensions of personality are regarded by Hong Kong Chinese as characteristic of those Hong Kong Chinese persons higher in Westernization (Yik & Bond, 1993), further reinforcing its agentic associations with the technological prowess historically attached to the West (Bond & King, 1985). We speculate that a sense of favorable self-regard is necessary to unfreeze
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a person socially to act, to engage his or her self with the material and interpersonal world. However, a sense of favorable self-regard is not the same as a sense of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), which is more narrowly focussed upon a belief in one’s competence or effectance. A high sense of self-efficacy probably also helps unfreeze the person to act and is included in the Hong Kong Chinese sense of favorable self-regard under the dimensions of Application and Intellect. A sense of favorable self-regard, however, includes a wider range of personality resources that together generate proactive engagement and that then result in a person’s being perceived as socially active. This agentic profile is probably communicated to others through observable actions like greater talkativeness, verbal self-disclosure (Wong & Bond, 1999), playfulness, a dramatic communication style (Leung & Bond, in press), more frequent use of dominance markers in speech, volunteerism, and time spent with others. Research is currently being conducted in task group settings to ascertain how those high in self-regard behave toward others. Persons with higher levels of self-regard perceive themselves as the acme of psychological health, as the present study and those of others have consistently shown (e.g., Taylor & Brown, 1988). The present results, however, showed that those high in self-regard were not regarded by others in such broadly positive ways: they were seen as no more emotionally stable, as no more helpful, as no more intelligent, as no more restrained, and as no higher in application than those low in self-regard. In fact, those high in self-regard enjoyed a narrow reputational profile, focused on their social activity level. In some task contexts (see, e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991), these three dimensions of the typical male or Western profile may be relevant and rewarded, but in most contexts they will be only part of the required profile. And it is important to remind ourselves that it is one’s reputation or personality as perceived by others, not as perceived by oneself, that has the more decisive organizational and social consequences (Bass & Yammarino, 1991; Furnham & Stringfield, 1994; Lee, 1997). Given previous research, it should be noted that higher levels of selfregard were not associated with being liked by others. The only prior evidence showing that self-regard possibly leads to dislike was a study on attributions for performance by Bond et al. (1982). In that research those who made self-serving attributions publicly were less liked than those who made self-effacing attributions publicly. We speculate that all public attributions in Chinese culture are implicitly comparative, exalting the self-server over the audience or humbling the self-effacer in front of an audience. These attributions respectively demean or enhance the audience and so are manifestations of low or high regard for others, not of high or low self-regard. In Chinese culture, self-enhancing public claims contravene modesty norms and
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violate principles of interactional justice (Leung, 2000). Those making such claims are socially sanctioned. Regard for Others It is perhaps a reflection of cultural individualism (Sampson, 1981) that Western psychologists have devoted so much attention to self-esteem (see, e.g., the catalog by Wylie, 1974), but so little to other-esteem, i.e., regard for others. Recent work on Chinese social behavior puts focal attention onto regard for others as a key construct in understanding the communication processes of collectivists (Gao & Ting-Toomey, 1998). Self-regard seems to be a basic motivator of social activity, but regard for others seems to be a guarantor of social integration, knitting persons together. In this regard, it is worth noting that the only one of the self-rated measures associated with regard for others in Kwan’s (1997) earlier research was the Big Five personality dimension of agreeableness. Those who privately rate others more favorably are liked more and seen by group members who have worked closely with them as more helpful and as more restrained. It is probable that their profile of social behavior is different, with those high in regard for others engaging in greater frequencies of what Honeycutt and Patterson (1997) have labeled ‘‘affinity maintenance strategies.’’ In this regard, research by Leung and Bond (in press) on perceived communication style provides encouraging support. In task groups like those used in the present study, members’ perceived ways of characteristically communicating were assessed. Three independent factors emerged: Verbal Impact, involving the use of a direct, dramatic, open, and precise style of speaking; Feelings vs Silence, involving the use of feelings in one’s communications coupled with a dislike of silence; and Internal Focus, involving the use of inference about another’s feelings coupled with sensitivity to the other’s situation. A group member’s level of regard for others correlated strongly with being perceived by these same group members as high both in verbal impact and in internal focus. Additionally, those perceived as using more internal focus were liked more by these others. So, the personality disposition to regard others positively relates to being perceived as using positively construed methods of communicating with others. In contrast, there were no associations between a group member’s self-regard and his or her perceived use of any of the three communication styles. As discussed earlier in this article, making self-effacing rather than selfenhancing attributions publicly also seems to be an integrative social strategy. Other integrative actions probably include behaviors like praising others; inviting others to spend social time together; restraining one’s criticism of, and disagreement with, others, either directly or indirectly; inviting input
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from others; giving gifts; listening attentively and considerately to others, as in Leung and Bond’s (in press) perceived internal focus during communication; smiling; and so forth (see also Bales’, 1950, work on the verbal inputs of maintenance specialists). These social behaviors result in reputational consequences essential for the cohesiveness of groups and organizations. Such a reputation may be relatively more consequential within a collectivist cultural dynamic (Heine et al., 2000), but is probably universally important. This prosocial reputation develops out of attributions derived from the behavioral profile of those high in regard for others and this behavioral profile needs to be identified in future research to help develop a more social model of the perceptual/cognitive processes characterizing social life. CONCLUSION The present study replicated previous findings in the self-enhancement literature: (a) similar to Taylor and Brown (1988), we found an extensive range of positive personal characteristics associated with those who selfenhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority; (b) similar to Colvin et al. (1995) and John and Robins (1994), we found certain negative social perceptions and interpersonal attitudes attached to those who self-enhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority; (c) similar to Paulhus (1998), we also found certain positive social perceptions associated with those who self-enhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority. Going beyond these previous studies, we separated self-enhancement or a sense of superiority into its constituents: self-regard and regard for others. We found that those with higher levels of self-regard were seen as more stereotypically masculine, whereas those with higher levels of regard for others were seen as more stereotypically feminine and were liked more. The present findings thus furnish insight into the mixed blessings of self-enhancement or a sense of superiority by showing that its constituents of self-regard and regard for others have separate nomological networks. These networks appear to be driven by distinctive profiles of social behaviors characterizing those with higher levels of self-regard and of regard for others. These behavioral profiles must now be identified to ground these personality processes in interpersonal exchanges. REFERENCES Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Bales, R. F. (1950). Interaction process analysis: A method for the study of small groups. Cambridge, MA: Addison–Wesley. Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44,, 1–26. Bass, B. M., & Yammarino, F. J. (1991). Congruence of self and others’ leadership ratings
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of naval officers for understanding successful performance. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 40, 437–454. Block, J., & Colvin, C. R. (1994). Positive illusion and well-being revisited: Separating fiction from fact. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 28. Bond, M. H., & Cheung, T. S. (1983). The spontaneous self-concept of college students in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 14, 153–171. Bond, M. H., & Lee, P. W. H. (1981). Face-saving in Chinese culture: A discussion and experimental study of Hong Kong students. In A. King, & R. Lee (Eds.), Social life and development in Hong Kong (pp. 288–305). Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. Press. Bond, M. H., Leung, K., & Wan, K. C. (1982). The social impact of self-effacing attributions: The Chinese case. Journal of Social Psychology, 118, 157–166. Bond, M. H., & King, A. Y. C. (1985). Coping with the threat of Westernization in Hong Kong. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 9, 351–364. Brown, J. D. (1986). Evaluations of self and others: Self-enhancement biases in social judgments. Social Cognition, 4, 353–376. Colvin, C. R., & Block, J. (1994). Do positive illusions factor mental health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 3–20. Colvin, C. R., Block, J., & Funder, D. C. (1995). Overly positive self-evaluations and personality: Negative implications for mental health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 1152–1162. Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PIR) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Crittendon, K. S. (1996). Causal attribution processes among the Chinese. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The handbook of Chinese psychology (pp. 263–289). Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press. Falbo, T., Poston, D. L., Triscari, R. S., & Zhang, X. D. (1997). Self-enhancing illusions among Chinese schoolchildren. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 172–191. Furnham, A., & Stringfield, P. (1994). Congruence of self and subordinate ratings of managerial practices as a correlate of supervisor evaluation. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, 67, 57–67. Gao, G., & Ting-Toomey, S. (1998). Communicating effectively with the Chinese. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gao, G., Ting-Toomey, S., & Gudykunst, W. (1996). Chinese communication processes. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The handbook of Chinese psychology (pp. 280–294). Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press. Goodstein, L., Stringfield, P. A., & Zevulun, E. (n.d.). Differences in self and other ratings between Chinese and Caucasian managers. Unpublished manuscript. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (2000). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766–794. Honeycutt, J. M., & Patterson, J. (1997). Affinity strategies in relationships: The role of gender and imagined interactions in maintaining liking among college roommates. Personal Relationships, 4, 35–46. Ip, G. W. M., & Bond, M. H. (1995). Culture, values, and the spontaneous self-concept. Asian Journal of Psychology, 1, 30–36.
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James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1, 85–98. John, O. P., & Robins, R. W. (1994). Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 206–219. Kwan, V. S. Y. (1997). Alternative conceptualizations of self-enhancement. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kwan, V. S. Y., Bond, M. H., & Singelis, T. M. (1997). Pancultural explanations for life satisfaction: Adding relationship harmony to self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1038–1051. Lai, M., & Bond, M. H. (1997). Gender stereotypes and the self-concept in Hong Kong. Bulletin of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, 38/39, 17–36. Lee, R.Y. P. (1995). A longitudinal study of friendship development in Hong Kong. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lee, R. Y. P., & Bond, M. H. (1998). Personality and roommate friendship in Chinese culture. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 179–190. Leung, K. (2000). Justice for all: Psychological insights for creating a fair world. Professorial inaugural address, City University of Hong Kong, March. Leung, V. S. K., & Bond, M. H. (in press). Interpersonal communication and personality: Self and other perspectives, Asian Journal of Social Psychology. Lew, W. J. F. (1985). Traits and dimensions of personality: Chinese intellectuals in Taiwan. CUHK Education Journal, 13, 37–48. Li, C. (1999). Social perception of achieved relationship harmony in the workplace. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Li-Repac, D. (1980). Cultural influences on clinical perception: A comparison between Caucasian and Chinese-American therapists. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 11, 327– 342. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognitive, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. Maslach, C., & Stapp, J. (1985). Individuation: Conceptual analysis and assessment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 729–738. Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1197–1208. Sampson, E. E. (1981). Cognitive psychology as ideology. American Psychologist, 36, 730– 743. Saucier, G., Hampson, S. E., & Goldberg, L. R. (in press). Cross-language studies of lexical personality factors. In S. E. Hampson (Ed.), Advances in personality psychology (Vol. 1). London: Routledge. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perceptive on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210. Wierzbicka, A. (1993). A conceptual basis for cultural psychology. Ethos, 21, 205–231. Wierzbicka, A. (1996). Contrastive sociolinguistics and the theory of ‘‘cultural scripts’’: Chinese vs. English. In M. Hellinger, & U. Ammon (Eds.), Contrastive sociolinguistics (pp. 313–343). Berlin: de Gruyter. Williams, J., & Best, D. (1982). Measuring sex stereotypes: A thirty nation study. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Wylie, R. C. (1974). The self concept (Vol. 1). Lincoln, NB: Univ. of Nebraska Press.
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Wong, S. C. H., & Bond, M. H. (1999), Personality, self-disclosure and friendship between Chinese university roommates. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 2, 201–214. Yang, K. S., & Lee, P. H. (1971). Likability, meaningfulness and familiarity of 557 Chinese adjectives for personality trait description. Acta Psychologica Taiwanica, 13, 36–57. [in Chinese] Yik, M. S. M., & Bond, M. H. (1993). Exploring the dimensions of Chinese person perception with indigenous and imported constructs: Creating a culturally balanced scale. International Journal of Psychology, 28, 79–95. Yik, M. S. M., Bond, M. H., & Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Do Chinese self-enhance or self-efface? It’s a matter of domain. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 399–406.
Decomposing a Sense of Superiority: The Differential Social Impact of Self-Regard and Regard for Others Michael Harris Bond Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China
Virginia S. Y. Kwan University of California, Berkeley
and Chun Li Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., China The tendency to self-enhance has been related to a host of beneficial psychological outcomes (Taylor & Brown, 1988), although some negative social consequences have also been identified (Colvin et al., 1995, Paulhus, 1998). One operationalization of self-enhancement is derived by subtracting the rater’s evaluations of others from his or her self-ratings to yield a measure of the rater’s sense of superiority/inferiority, i.e., rater-derived self-enhancement. The present research assessed the psychological and social correlates of a person’s sense of superiority in groups whose members worked on tasks together for 3 months. A sense of superiority was scored as a composite but also separated into its two components, self-regard and regard for others, to determine if these components of a sense of superiority have separate relationships to psychological and social processes. A sense of superiority evidenced the same self-rated psychological benefits as had been found in Western research, though it showed both positive and negative social outcomes, as assessed on an eight-factor measure of the target’s personality rated by his or her other group members. Positive psychological characteristics and a stereotypically masculine reputation were associated with higher levels of self-regard; lower levels of self-rated Agreeableness, a stereotypically nonfeminine reputation, and lower liking were associated with lower levels of regard for others. Given their different functions, it
The authors express their thanks to Lee Hamilton, Po Man Lo, Del Paulhus, and David Winter for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Michael Harris Bond, Psychology Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong S.A.R., China. E-mail: [email protected]. 537 0092-6566/00 $35.00 Copyright 2000 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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is proposed that self-regard and regard for others be separated in future research and attention directed toward characterizing the behavioral profiles of those high and low in these two measures of basic personality orientation. 2000 Academic Press The Wise Man chooses to be last And so becomes the first of all; Denying self, he too is saved. For does he not fulfillment find In being an unselfish man? Lao Tzu, The way of life (R. B. Blakney, trans.)
In 1988, Taylor and Brown published a provocative article titled, ‘‘Illusion and Well Being,’’ showing that inaccurate self-perceptions had psychologically beneficial correlates. This position challenged the widely held assumption that an accurate perception of one’s place in the social scheme of things was the hallmark of healthy adaptation. In consequence, their article stimulated an enormous response in the psychological literature (Block & Colvin, 1994; Colvin & Block, 1994; Colvin et al., 1995; John & Robins, 1994; Paulhus, 1998). Taylor and Brown (1988) focused on three illusions concerning selfworth, perception of control, and optimism about future events. In examining the value of illusions about self-worth, Taylor and Brown reported on studies that asked participants to compare themselves against normative criteria, e.g., the respondent’s perception of ‘‘most other people.’’ Those persons who regarded themselves as possessing higher levels of desired personal qualities than they reported most other people to possess showed other indicators of positive mental health, e.g., higher levels of self-esteem. This comparison between self and others may be given a more grounded, social basis by asking people to compare themselves with specific, known others. So, for example, Kwan (1997) asked group members to rate their fellow group members on a comprehensive set of eight independent dimensions of personality following three months of working together. After scoring each of these eight dimensions in the favorable direction, one may take the average of the ratings a group member gives to his or her fellow group members as a measure of that group member’s general regard for others; likewise, one may take the average of the ratings a group member gives himor herself on these eight dimensions, again scored in the favorable direction, as a measure of overall self-regard. The level of a group member’s general regard for others may then be subtracted from his or her level of self-regard to yield an index of rater-derived self-enhancement, perhaps more commonsensibly labeled as a sense of superiority, that is based on exchanges with others in an extended task context. One can then examine the correlates of a sense of superiority for personal adjustment by associating this type of self-enhancement score with measures
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of psychological health. However, it is important to note that this measure of a sense of superiority is a composite, constituted by a measure of selfregard and of regard for others. Either or both of these variables may be connected to the personal and social outcomes other researchers have identified. If self-regard and regard for others exercise an impact on different variables, then their distinctive functional relations will be overlooked by defining a sense of superiority in terms of a difference score. No empirical evidence to date addresses the consequences of self-regard and regard for others separately rather than together as a composite. Those with a sense of superiority separate themselves from others. Doing so publicly would invite social criticism, especially in collectivist cultures that emphasize restraint when considering the ‘‘self-in-relation-to-the-other’’ (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 2000). However, even in Chinese culture, with its emphasis on humility (Gao, TingToomey, & Gudykunst, 1996), there is evidence of a sense of superiority in ratings of self and of others (Falbo, Poston, Triscardi, & Zhang, 1997). As in the West, this type of self-enhancement is associated with higher levels of self-esteem in Chinese culture (Yik, Bond, & Paulus, 1998). From the perspective of the rater, a sense of superiority is beneficial, even in a collectivist cultural system. However, these sorts of rater-derived measures fail to address the social consequences of enhancing oneself relative to others. How are those who self-enhance perceived by individuals who have interacted extensively with them, and what are the possible consequences of a sense of superiority for one’s social relations? Colvin et al. (1995) have proposed that there is a ‘‘dark side’’ to self-enhancement (see also, Paulhus, 1998). Given the apparently universal condemnation of egotism, one would expect that selfenhancers would be perceived negatively, at least across the communal (Bakan, 1966) dimensions of reputation. If so, that consequence would qualify the benefits of a sense of superiority. Surprisingly, this question of how selfenhancing regard is related to one’s social reputation has not been empirically addressed by researchers in this area. This way of measuring one’s sense of superiority combines a measure of self-regard algebraically with a measure of one’s regard for others. Either or both of these variables may be connected to the personal and social outcomes identified in previous research for rater-derived self-enhancement. Brown (1986) has found that self-regard and regard for others are not significantly correlated, so they may thus relate to different social outcomes. If self-regard and regard for others exercise an impact on different variables, then their distinctive functional relations will be overlooked by operationalizing a sense of superiority in terms of a difference score. So, it may be that the reputational dark side attached to self-enhancers arises from their low regard for
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others rather than from their high self-regard, but this important distinction would be obscured by the use of the self-enhancement score produced by subtracting the rater’s regard for others from his or her self-regard. So, in the present study, we propose to reanalyze data from Kwan (1997) and Li (1999), deconstructing rater-derived self-effacement, i.e., a sense of superiority, into its two components, self-regard and regard for others. These two components of sense of superiority are regressed against the social outcomes in this group setting, i.e., liking, perceived contribution to the group’s success, and perceptions of the self by the other group members on the eight, comprehensive dimensions of perceived personality used by Hong Kong people. This procedure will reveal which social outcomes are connected to which form of rater-derived regard, self-regard or regard for others. These results may be compared against those arising from using their difference score, as is currently used in the Taylor and Brown (1988) procedure to assess the impact of rater-derived self-enhancement. If self-regard and regard for others relate to different social outcomes, theorizing about social dynamics would require their analytic and operational separation. Separating out self-regard will enable us to connect literature from the self-enhancement paradigm to the literature on Chinese modesty and humility. Basing her assessment on observation of repeated exchanges, Wierzbicka (1996) has identified a modesty script as characteristic of Chinese social exchanges. She portrays this script as follows by using the simple terms of her lexical universals (Wierzbicka, 1993): I can’t say something like this to other people: I did something good I think something good about me It is good if people think that I don’t think good things about me. Wierzbicka, 1996, p. 337
This script has both a cognitive and a social component, mandating a low level of self-regard and a humble presentational style. Consistent with this script, Chinese respondents typically report fewer positive relative to negative self-statements on the Twenty Statements Test compared to Americans (Bond & Cheung, 1983), and this difference appears to derive from the Chinese reluctance to make as many positive self-statements as the Americans (Ip & Bond, 1995). More modest descriptions of one’s management styles have also been reported from Chinese as opposed to British managers (Goodstein, Stringfield, & Zevulun, n.d.). The Chinese also adopt a more self-effacing attributional style following success and a less defensive attributional style following failure (Crittendon, 1996). Such modest self-references are likely to result in the Chinese being perceived as depressed when evaluated by those using norms appropriate in cultures normatizing greater self-aggrandizement (see, e.g., Li-Repac, 1980).
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These private aspects of a modesty script revealed in self-ratings translate socially into greater liking for those who publicly make self-effacing attributions for their performance (e.g., Bond, Leung, & Wan, 1982). It would thus seem that a lower level of self-regard would result in a positive reputation for Chinese people, at least for the dimensions of personality perception which associate with likability, i.e., helpfulness and intellect (Lee & Bond, 1997; Wong & Bond, 1999). Regard for others is conceptually related to considerations of face giving, i.e., the tendency to communicate positive information about others either directly through verbal praise or indirectly through deploying respect markers to those others. Although there have been no cross-cultural comparisons, Chinese are widely regarded as especially vigilant about protecting other’s ‘‘faces’’ (Gao et al., 1996). They show a nuanced consideration of contextual considerations surrounding another’s potential face loss (Bond & Lee, 1981) and report greater levels of embarrassment over another’s loss of face than do Americans (Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, & Lai, 1999). It is therefore probable that those who give lower levels of regard for others will be disliked and perceived negatively across the communal dimensions of personality perception. Showing lower levels of regard for others probably has no relation, however, to the agentic dimensions of social perception and to one’s personal self-esteem (see Brown, 1986). In sum, this article proposes to examine the social correlates of self-regard and of regard for others separately. In previous literature these two measures have typically been combined by subtraction to yield a measure of selfenhancement. However, the two components of such a sense of superiority are probably associated with different social outcomes. If so, theoretical developments would be better served by considering these types of regard separately, linking them to the literature on modesty and saving face, respectively. METHOD Participants The present study was conducted in a realistic, academic group setting. Two hundred thirtyfive students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong participated in the study across 3 years (see Kwan, 1997; and Li, 1999) as partial fulfillment of their social psychology course requirements. Of these 235 students, 182 were female and 53 were male, with ages ranging from 19 to 22 years old. All participants grouped themselves with occasionally 3, generally 4, and occasionally 5 other students, yielding a total of 47 groups.
Experimental Design A round-robin design (Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979) was used in the present study. In this design, each participant was required to make personality judgments of all other group members in the group after they had worked together for 3 months, and each participant was
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also rated by all other group members (Kenny, 1994). Additionally, their self-ratings were collected for analysis. Of note, all participants were required to complete three group assignments with their group members. In addition to the regular class meeting, each group met at least an hour per week on average. This frequency of group interactions ensured that they all had adequate opportunities to observe one another.
Instruments Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) is a 10item measure of global, personal self-esteem. Responses were made on a 4-point scale with anchors of 1 (strongly disagree) and 4 (strongly agree). The α coefficient for this scale was .80. Sino-American Person Perception Scale. The Sino-American Person Perception Scale (SAPPS) (Yik & Bond, 1993) is composed of both indigenous and imported personality trait items: the indigenous items were derived from research on Chinese personality and its perception by Yang and Lee (1971) and by Lew (1985); the imported items were derived from instruments tapping the Big Five lexical markers provided by Goldberg and by McCrae. These two sets of measures were combined and administered to Hong Kong respondents. The result of this synthesis was an instrument consisting of 32 bipolar adjective scales comprehensively measuring the perceived dimensions of Chinese personality. All items are mixed randomly with half of the positive poles on right side and the remaining half on left side of the scale. There are eight dimensions in the SAPPS, i.e., Openness, Emotional Stability, Extroversion, Application, Intellect, Helpfulness, Restraint, and Assertiveness. The positive ends of these eight dimensions are the more favorable (Lai & Bond, 1997) and are rated as very favorable, so that an overall index of personality favorability may be produced by adding together the ratings across the eight dimensions of personality perception scored in the positive direction. These eight exceed the five typically found elsewhere (Saucier, Hampson, & Goldberg, in press) because Hong Kong people define the Conscientiousness and Culture factors more precisely than Americans. The 235 participants were asked to rate themselves and each group member in their group on the 32 7-point scales with anchors of 1 (very low) and 7 (very high). The α coefficients of the eight self-reported SAPPS dimensions showed acceptable levels of internal consistency for scales of only four items, with values ranging from .56 for Helpfulness to .85 for Openness. Individual group grade. All participants learned important information about their and other group members’ skills and shortcomings by completing their group assignments. Thus, each group designed its own evaluation form to evaluate each of their member’s contributions to the group assignments. The criteria and the weight of each criterion in the evaluation form were independently chosen by each group. The most frequently selected criteria were variants of participation, responsibility, creativity, attentiveness, and communication skills. All participants rated themselves and each member of their group based on those criteria. The averaged score from all members was used as each individual’s group grade and constituted 20% of each student’s course grade. Liking scale. A simple liking scale was designed to investigate to what extent the participants liked each member of their group. The participants were asked to rate each group member on a 7-point scale with anchors of 1 (really dislike) and 7 (really like). A liking score for each participant was computed by averaging the ratings that were given by all their group members.
Procedure The instruments were administered at two different time periods during the term. Participants were asked to fill out the self-report measures in the 1st week of the term before their
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group’s formation. All three member-reported measures were collected in the 12th week of the term. All member-reported ratings were made privately, and the confidentiality of all responses was guaranteed by the experimenter and the course teacher.
RESULTS First, we averaged the eight self-rated SAPPS dimension ratings scored in the favorable direction to obtain the self-regard measure. Second, we averaged across the eight SAPPS dimension ratings scored in the favorable direction that each participant gave to the three or four other group members to find his or her average level of general regard for others. These two scores were then subtracted to produce a sense of superiority score for each group member.1 As in Brown (1988), the self-regard and regard-for-others measures were not significantly correlated, r(233) ⫽ .09, ns. A participant’s level of selfregard is thus independent of his or her level of regard for others, suggesting that these may be functionally distinct personality processes with different social correlates. Interjudge Agreement of Observers James, Demaree, and Wolf (1984) proposed the within-group interrater reliability statistic (r wg ) ‘‘for assessing agreement among the judgements made by a single group of judges on a single variable in regard to a single target’’ (p. 85). SAPPS. For the eight dimensions of personality perception, r wg coefficients ranged from .84 (Emotional Stability and Assertiveness) to .93 (Intellect), again showing substantial social consensus among a group’s members on a given group member’s personality. Liking scale. The r wg was .77 for the liking scale. Social Impact To assess each group member’s social impact, we averaged the ratings on the eight SAPPS dimensions of personality that each participant received from his or her group members. In addition, the scores that each group member received on the liking scale were averaged to produce a liking score for that group member. His or her group performance score was taken from
1 In addition to the difference score, there is an alternative way to index self-enhancement by using residual scores (i.e., regressing self-regard on regard for other and saving the residual as the self-enhancement index). We thus computed the rater-derived self-enhancement index by using the residual method and correlated these two different ways to index self-enhancement. We found that the two different indices (i.e., the subtraction versus the residual) were highly correlated with each other, r ⫽ .82, p ⬍ .01. For the sake of simplicity we only report our findings based on the subtraction method.
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TABLE 1 Intercorrelations between Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement (Sense of Superiority), Regard for Others, Self-Regard, and Social Impact Indices
Social impact indices Openness Emotional Stability Extroversion Application Intellect Helpfulness Restraint Assertiveness Liking Group Performance
Rater-derived self-enhancement (Sense of superiority)
Regard for others
Self-regard
.26* .02 .20* ⫺.16 ⫺.03 ⫺.27** ⫺.22* .26* ⫺.25* .06
⫺.12 ⫺.04 ⫺.03 .13 .07 .24 .24* ⫺.13 .36* ⫺.06
.21* .05 .22* ⫺.09 .02 ⫺.16 ⫺.09 .21* ⫺.03 .03
Note. N ⫽ 235. * p ⬍ .01.
the average contribution ratings given that individual by his or her group members. Then, we correlated self-regard, regard for others, and the rater’s sense of superiority, i.e., rater-derived self-enhancement measure, with the above 10 indices of social impact (see Table 1). In order to reduce the probability of type 1 errors, we chose the more conservative α level of .01 in assessing statistical significance. By this criterion, the rater-derived self-enhancement index or sense of superiority was related to six of the social impact scores, five dimensions of other-perceived personality or reputation, i.e., Openness, Extroversion, Assertiveness, negative Helpfulness, and negative Restraint, and to negative liking. Self-regard was related to three of these dimensions of other-perceived personality or reputation, i.e., Openness, Extroversion, and Assertiveness; regard for others was related to Restraint and Helpfulness, along with liking. Thus, there was functional differentiation between selfregard and regard for others in predicting the indices of social impact, with a clear division of labor between the two predictors. Each participant’s Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem score was correlated with: his or her rater-derived self-enhancement score or sense of superiority, r(233) ⫽ .45, p ⬍ .001; self-regard score, r(233) ⫽ .55, p ⬍ .001; and regard for others score, r(233) ⫽ .02, ns. The finding that one’s sense of superiority correlated with a widely used measure of personal adjustment, self-esteem, replicates in a different culture the results obtained in research using the Taylor and Brown (1988) approach. That self-regard also correlated
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TABLE 2 Regressed Social Impact Indices on Self-Regard and Regard for Others Predictors Criterion variable
Self-regard
Regard for others
Total R 2
Member report Openness Emotional Stability Extroversion Application Intellect Helpfulness Restraint Assertiveness Liking Group Performance
.23* .05 .23* ⫺.11 .01 ⫺.19* ⫺.11 .23* ⫺.06 .04
⫺.14 .04 ⫺.05 .14 .06 .26* 25* ⫺.15 .37* ⫺.06
.07 .00 .05 .03 .00 .09 .07 .07 .13 .01
Note. N ⫽ 235. Coefficients are standardized beta weights. * p ⬍ .01.
strongly with self-esteem is hardly surprising, as they are alternative measures of the same construct, favorable self-assessment. The lack of correlation between regard for others and self-esteem, however, shows these two measures to be psychologically unrelated. The favorability of one’s overall assessment of oneself bears no relation to one’s overall assessment of similar other persons. Regression equations were run in order to compare the relative efficacy of the composite self-enhancement or sense of superiority measure against that provided by the self-regard and regard-for-others measures used separately in the same equation. Again, the .01 level was used to assess statistical significance (see Table 2). The pattern of significance for the beta weights generally parallels that of the correlations described above. DISCUSSION This research was focused on the social correlates of self-regard and regard for others, the two ratings constituting the self-enhancement or sense of superiority index derived from the person’s ratings in a group setting. This sense of superiority was a mixed blessing—those who self-enhanced were perceived by their co-workers as higher in the stereotypically masculine personality dimensions, but as lower in the stereotypically feminine personality dimensions. Also, they were less liked. However, these social outcomes were differentially associated with the two constituents of a sense of superiority, self-regard and regard for others. Higher self-regard predicted the masculine
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dimensions of perceived personality; higher regard for others predicted both the feminine dimensions of perceived personality and also greater liking. Given that self-regard and regard for others were themselves uncorrelated aspects of an individual’s personality, the results of this study suggest that the nomological networks surrounding self-regard and regard for others should be separately examined in future work. Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement or a Sense of Superiority The results from the present study replicate those arising from the Taylor and Brown (1988) operationalization of self-enhancement. That is, higher levels of rater-derived self-enhancement are associated with self-reported indicators of positive mental health, such as self-esteem. Indeed, in Kwan’s (1997) research, a host of self-rated (i.e., rater-derived) measures of adjustment were associated with such self-enhancement: higher levels of Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, and Broadnax’s (1994) collective self-esteem; higher conscientiousness, extroversion, openness to experience, and lower neuroticism, as measured by the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992); higher levels of individuation (Maslach & Stapp, 1985); and higher levels of interpersonal relationship harmony (Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997). Even in a collective cultural context, a sense of superiority is closely linked to positive psychological adjustment as assessed by the person him- or herself. Rater-derived self-enhancement has a warm, personal glow. These findings simply tell us that those with high levels of self-regard think positively about themselves in many dimensions. More consequential is the positive, social glow attached by others to those with a sense of superiority: they were perceived as more assertive, more open, and more extroverted. These are favorable, proactive qualities in Chinese culture, associated with another’s being ‘‘Westernized’’ (Yik & Bond, 1993), and are precisely those dimensions of personality characterizing the male stereotype (Lai & Bond, 1997). On the other hand, a cold, interpersonal side to rater-derived self-enhancement also emerges when some of its other social correlates are examined. After 3 months of working together, group members rate those with a high sense of superiority as less helpful and as less restrained. Both restraint and helpfulness are positive aspects of personality and are the two dimensions of personality characterizing the female stereotype in Chinese culture (Lai & Bond, 1997). These dimensions of one’s perceived personality or earned reputation are important integrative resources in a social setting, related to one’s attractiveness as a social partner (see, e.g., Lee & Bond, 1998; Wong & Bond, 1999). Thus, in the present group context, those who self-enhanced were perceived as less socially attractive than those who self-effaced. This outcome is consistent with the position of Colvin et al. (1995), who maintained that ‘‘A vicious cycle is generated whereby self-enhancement is rig-
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idly and frequently used to maintain positive self-regard but at a continual and cumulative cost of alienating one’s friends and discouraging new acquaintances’’ (p. 1161). Rater-Derived Self-Enhancement and the Rater’s ‘‘True’’ Worth As assessed with this procedure, self-enhancement is a measure confined within the rater. So, the rater’s sense of superiority or inferiority has a truth or validity for the rater, at least so far as the rater is revealing his or her true perceptions in this measurement context. This validity is evidenced by its correlates with the other, self-rated psychological qualities noted above. In addition, rater-derived self-enhancement evidences additional truth value with respect to its reliable social correlates noted above. By using a raterderived measure of self-enhancement, however, the social scientist allows that raters may be accorded a superiority over others or an inferiority with respect to others that may not be ‘‘deserved’’ with respect to the level of regard others accord to that person. One could attempt to measure the rater’s self-enhancement by using a measure of the rater’s worth as assessed by others, e.g., Colvin et al. (1995). By taking this ‘‘external’’ approach to assessing the rater’s worth, however, one confounds the social with the personal so that the relation between the social and the personal perspectives on the person can never be disentangled conceptually or statistically. The present approach to studying the person’s sense of superiority allows the social scientist to explore the relationship between these internal and external domains of reality. And, as described below, rater-derived measures of self-regard and of regard for others have different nomological networks both within the rater’s personal system and within the rater’s social system. Perhaps then, these two components of raterderived self-enhancement are better considered as separate constructs. Self-Regard The positive masculine qualities associated with a sense of superiority were contributed by one of its constituents, self-regard. Those who rated themselves more favorably across the whole range of lexical personality traits were seen as more assertive, more extroverted, and as more open by their co-workers. These dimensions of personality define the male stereotype in Hong Kong Chinese culture (Lai & Bond, 1997) and encompass the some of the potency and activity associated with the male role in most cultural groups (Williams & Best, 1982). Additionally, these three dimensions of personality are regarded by Hong Kong Chinese as characteristic of those Hong Kong Chinese persons higher in Westernization (Yik & Bond, 1993), further reinforcing its agentic associations with the technological prowess historically attached to the West (Bond & King, 1985). We speculate that a sense of favorable self-regard is necessary to unfreeze
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a person socially to act, to engage his or her self with the material and interpersonal world. However, a sense of favorable self-regard is not the same as a sense of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), which is more narrowly focussed upon a belief in one’s competence or effectance. A high sense of self-efficacy probably also helps unfreeze the person to act and is included in the Hong Kong Chinese sense of favorable self-regard under the dimensions of Application and Intellect. A sense of favorable self-regard, however, includes a wider range of personality resources that together generate proactive engagement and that then result in a person’s being perceived as socially active. This agentic profile is probably communicated to others through observable actions like greater talkativeness, verbal self-disclosure (Wong & Bond, 1999), playfulness, a dramatic communication style (Leung & Bond, in press), more frequent use of dominance markers in speech, volunteerism, and time spent with others. Research is currently being conducted in task group settings to ascertain how those high in self-regard behave toward others. Persons with higher levels of self-regard perceive themselves as the acme of psychological health, as the present study and those of others have consistently shown (e.g., Taylor & Brown, 1988). The present results, however, showed that those high in self-regard were not regarded by others in such broadly positive ways: they were seen as no more emotionally stable, as no more helpful, as no more intelligent, as no more restrained, and as no higher in application than those low in self-regard. In fact, those high in self-regard enjoyed a narrow reputational profile, focused on their social activity level. In some task contexts (see, e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991), these three dimensions of the typical male or Western profile may be relevant and rewarded, but in most contexts they will be only part of the required profile. And it is important to remind ourselves that it is one’s reputation or personality as perceived by others, not as perceived by oneself, that has the more decisive organizational and social consequences (Bass & Yammarino, 1991; Furnham & Stringfield, 1994; Lee, 1997). Given previous research, it should be noted that higher levels of selfregard were not associated with being liked by others. The only prior evidence showing that self-regard possibly leads to dislike was a study on attributions for performance by Bond et al. (1982). In that research those who made self-serving attributions publicly were less liked than those who made self-effacing attributions publicly. We speculate that all public attributions in Chinese culture are implicitly comparative, exalting the self-server over the audience or humbling the self-effacer in front of an audience. These attributions respectively demean or enhance the audience and so are manifestations of low or high regard for others, not of high or low self-regard. In Chinese culture, self-enhancing public claims contravene modesty norms and
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violate principles of interactional justice (Leung, 2000). Those making such claims are socially sanctioned. Regard for Others It is perhaps a reflection of cultural individualism (Sampson, 1981) that Western psychologists have devoted so much attention to self-esteem (see, e.g., the catalog by Wylie, 1974), but so little to other-esteem, i.e., regard for others. Recent work on Chinese social behavior puts focal attention onto regard for others as a key construct in understanding the communication processes of collectivists (Gao & Ting-Toomey, 1998). Self-regard seems to be a basic motivator of social activity, but regard for others seems to be a guarantor of social integration, knitting persons together. In this regard, it is worth noting that the only one of the self-rated measures associated with regard for others in Kwan’s (1997) earlier research was the Big Five personality dimension of agreeableness. Those who privately rate others more favorably are liked more and seen by group members who have worked closely with them as more helpful and as more restrained. It is probable that their profile of social behavior is different, with those high in regard for others engaging in greater frequencies of what Honeycutt and Patterson (1997) have labeled ‘‘affinity maintenance strategies.’’ In this regard, research by Leung and Bond (in press) on perceived communication style provides encouraging support. In task groups like those used in the present study, members’ perceived ways of characteristically communicating were assessed. Three independent factors emerged: Verbal Impact, involving the use of a direct, dramatic, open, and precise style of speaking; Feelings vs Silence, involving the use of feelings in one’s communications coupled with a dislike of silence; and Internal Focus, involving the use of inference about another’s feelings coupled with sensitivity to the other’s situation. A group member’s level of regard for others correlated strongly with being perceived by these same group members as high both in verbal impact and in internal focus. Additionally, those perceived as using more internal focus were liked more by these others. So, the personality disposition to regard others positively relates to being perceived as using positively construed methods of communicating with others. In contrast, there were no associations between a group member’s self-regard and his or her perceived use of any of the three communication styles. As discussed earlier in this article, making self-effacing rather than selfenhancing attributions publicly also seems to be an integrative social strategy. Other integrative actions probably include behaviors like praising others; inviting others to spend social time together; restraining one’s criticism of, and disagreement with, others, either directly or indirectly; inviting input
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from others; giving gifts; listening attentively and considerately to others, as in Leung and Bond’s (in press) perceived internal focus during communication; smiling; and so forth (see also Bales’, 1950, work on the verbal inputs of maintenance specialists). These social behaviors result in reputational consequences essential for the cohesiveness of groups and organizations. Such a reputation may be relatively more consequential within a collectivist cultural dynamic (Heine et al., 2000), but is probably universally important. This prosocial reputation develops out of attributions derived from the behavioral profile of those high in regard for others and this behavioral profile needs to be identified in future research to help develop a more social model of the perceptual/cognitive processes characterizing social life. CONCLUSION The present study replicated previous findings in the self-enhancement literature: (a) similar to Taylor and Brown (1988), we found an extensive range of positive personal characteristics associated with those who selfenhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority; (b) similar to Colvin et al. (1995) and John and Robins (1994), we found certain negative social perceptions and interpersonal attitudes attached to those who self-enhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority; (c) similar to Paulhus (1998), we also found certain positive social perceptions associated with those who self-enhance or who have a stronger sense of superiority. Going beyond these previous studies, we separated self-enhancement or a sense of superiority into its constituents: self-regard and regard for others. We found that those with higher levels of self-regard were seen as more stereotypically masculine, whereas those with higher levels of regard for others were seen as more stereotypically feminine and were liked more. The present findings thus furnish insight into the mixed blessings of self-enhancement or a sense of superiority by showing that its constituents of self-regard and regard for others have separate nomological networks. These networks appear to be driven by distinctive profiles of social behaviors characterizing those with higher levels of self-regard and of regard for others. These behavioral profiles must now be identified to ground these personality processes in interpersonal exchanges. REFERENCES Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Bales, R. F. (1950). Interaction process analysis: A method for the study of small groups. Cambridge, MA: Addison–Wesley. Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44,, 1–26. Bass, B. M., & Yammarino, F. J. (1991). Congruence of self and others’ leadership ratings
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