The Culturally Situated Self

The impact of culture on the self, the most fundamental unit of psychological inquiry, has captivated scholarly interest for decades. In this chapter, the authors review strands from this prolific body of cross-cultural research, sampled along several lines. They plot a rough trajectory from the early discussions of cultural forms of self-construal to emergent research in online presentation and consumer selfhood. They then illustrate culture’s profound effects on the cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of the self by reviewing cultural variations in individuals’ self-concept, self-regard, and self-presentation. This cultural divergence notwithstanding, they argue for the universality of basic self-processes. Specifically, the authors claim that the need for positive self-regard and the motivation for self-enhancement exist in all cultural contexts, even as their cultural manifestations radically differ. The chapter concludes with an exploration of self-psychology in the current globalizing age, where cultures around the world are reformatted as consumer cultures.