Impact of Culture on Self-Presentation

I have to say that so far, I’ve been mostly unimpressed about the generalizations about culture. I think that they are such sweeping generalizations that they are not useful to students and arguably even perpetuate stereotypes about non-Western cultures. On page 178, the authors cite a study by Kanagawa and colleagues from 2001 that argues “communication of self-critical, self-effacing statements in these cultures improves the speaker’s self-image because the individual is admitting to those present that he or she is aware of a socially shared ideal of excellence that he or she cannot possibly achieve.” Although this may have been the ideal at one time (likely during Confucius’ time!), more realistically, acts of self-deprecation and humility are part of a cultural ritual that does not actually involve the unattainable aspiration of achieving shared ideal of excellence. They are considered a strategy for being accepted and well received by others because people tend to like people who are humble, rather than people who are arrogant.