Michail D. Kokkoris

“Express the Real You” Cultural Differences in the Perception of Self-Expression as Authenticity

Prior research shows that people feel authentic when they express themselves. In this research, we examined how people from different cultures make inferences about a target person’s authenticity based on information about that person’s self-expression. Our cultural-fit hypothesis proposes that acts of self-expression enhance perceptions of authenticity when they are congruent with the culturally prevalent self-expression norms. In an experiment with Germans and Chinese reading scenarios and making inferences about a hypothetical person, we found that authenticity judgments were the highest, when the target person’s self-expression matched the culturally valued self-expression style—that is, expressing both likes and dislikes in Germany, and expressing only likes but no dislikes in China. Moreover, we found that the interactive effect of self-expression and culture had downstream effects on information processing, such that in the case of counter-cultural self-expression practices participants were more likely to seek information that would compensate for this cultural incongruence.

Choice and dissonance in a European cultural context: The case of Western and Eastern Europeans

Prior research demonstrates that members of collectivistic cultures are less likely to reduce cognitive dissonance after making a choice, compared to members of individualistic cultures. This difference has been attributed to different conceptualizations of choice that derive from different self-construals across cultures. In individualistic cultures, choice leads to stronger commitment to the chosen option compared to collectivistic cultures, because it implicates core aspects of the independent self, such as personal preferences. However, this cultural variation in postchoice dissonance has thus far been studied exclusively by comparing East Asians and North Americans. Building on the assumption that this difference is due to different construals of the self, we conducted an experiment with movie choices using the classic free-choice paradigm to examine differences in dissonance reduction between Western and Eastern Europeans, two populations known to differ with respect to interdependence. The results show that Eastern Europeans are less likely than Western Europeans to reduce postchoice dissonance by spreading their alternatives. Our findings speak to the generalizability of the hypothesis that in cultures differing in independence or interdependence people also differ in the way they construe choice, as well as in the way the act of choosing affects their self-concept.

Likes, Dislikes, and the Perception of Choice as Self-Expression across Cultures

Abstract Self-expressive functions of choice, routinely found in individualistic cultures, have also been evidenced in collectivistic cultures, when choice involves culturally relevant aspects of the self. In this research, we focus on the perception of choice by others, and set off to determine which culture-specific contexts make a choice self-expressive, according to the disjoint and the conjoint model of agency. We predict that choice reflecting exclusive preferences, with clear boundaries between likes and dislikes, will be perceived as more diagnostic of the self for Westerners than choice reflecting inclusive preferences, with broadened likes, but no dislikes. However, choice reflecting inclusive preferences will be perceived as more self-expressive for Easterners than for Westerners. Results from a study comparing how Germans and South/Southeast Asians make inferences about choice, confirm our hypothesis. Perceptions of exclusive preferences as extrovert by Germans, but as introvert by South/Southeast Asians, mediate the effect of culture on choice diagnosticity, suggesting that choice can be self-expressive in both the West and the East, if it corresponds to basic premises about agency held in a given culture.

Do consumer choices augment narcissism? The role of self-referent processing

Abstract Drawing on the choice and self-referent processing literatures, we hypothesized that the act of making consumer choices will augment narcissism, because it directs attention to the self (i.e., increases self-referencing). Results of three experiments provided support for the proposed path from choice to narcissism via self-referencing (indirect effect), but not for the path from choice to narcissism (total effect). This pattern, first reported in Experiment 1, held only for agentic choices (e.g., products for personal use), which prompt thoughts about the self, and not for communal choices (e.g., charitable organizations), which prompt thoughts about others (Experiment 2). Also, this pattern generalized across agentic choices of public and private products (Experiment 3). We consider theoretical and practical implications.