Independent and Interdependent Conceptions of Self: An Investigation of Age, Gender, and Culture Differences in Importance and Satisfaction Ratings

Measures of the importance of and self-satisfaction with the independent and interdependent self were used to test age, gender, and culture differences in the nature of self-conception. The participants were 903 first or second-year college undergraduates and 936 middle-class adults from four countries differing markedly in religious, political, and cultural dimensions: Hong Kong, Iran, Russia, and the United States. In both college and adult samples from all four countries, the Interdependent self was rated more important and a greater source of satisfaction than the Independent self. Analyses of variance indicated substantial main effects for age Cross-Cultural Research, Vol. 34 No. 2, May 2000 113-134 and country but a very modest gender effect. However, the interaction effects were also substantial. The data were interpreted as casting doubt on explanations of the nature of self-conception in terms of a single cultural dimension, such as Individualism-Collectivism or gender. The danger of generalizing about a country from a single group, such as college students, was also evident, as within-country differences were consistently found for the adult and student samples.