ABSTRACT
One assumption that is central in the current social psychological literature concerns the significance of self-esteem. Conceptualized as positive appraisal of the self (Rosenberg, 1965), self-esteem is assumed to mediate many psychological processes including self-perception and self-regulation. Thus, evidence suggests that individuals are motivated to maintain high self-esteem and, moreover, that this motivation influences friend choice (Tesser, 1988), self-perception and evaluation (Taylor & Brown, 1988), and causal attribution of success and failure (Miller & Ross, 1975). Indeed, this motivation is so strong that positive views of the self that are attained are often described as illusory (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Moreover, self-esteem and its close correlates such as autonomy, control, and efficacy are strongly implicated in subjective well-being and social adjustment (Diener & Diener, 1995). Yet, one major limitation of this impressive array of evidence used to support the assumed centrality of self-esteem is that almost all of it comes from European-American middleclass cultures. In fact, as I shall discuss below, the validity of this assumption may be severely compromised in many other cultures. In making this argument, I will rely especially on our own cross-cultural studies involving North Americans and Japanese.
