ABSTRACT
Imagine someone asking the following question: “Would you describe yourself as unique or harmonious?” Regardless of which part of the globe the reader is from, the most likely answer to this question would probably be, “I am neither that unique nor that harmonious.” Or one may respond, “I am kind of a harmonious (or unique) person.” This propensity to view oneself as a mixture of both unique and harmonious, regardless of one’s cultural background, may be somewhat surprising to a casual reader of cross-cultural psychology. Previous research provides extensive evidence of Eastern-Western cultural differences. For example, East Asians tend to value harmony, which is a core concept of collectivism, and North Americans tend to value uniqueness, a core concept of individualism (e.g., Kim & Markus, 1999).
