Independent and interdependent construal of the self: The cultural influence and the relations to personality traits

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the independent and interdependent construal of the self in relation to the cultural difference and personality traits. A scale developed by Kiuchi (1995) to measure the person on the dimension of independent versus interdependent, the SII was administered to three groups of students. They were: (1) 81 college students who once lived in Europe or America, (2) 99 students of a college of music, and (3) 296 undergraduates of other majors and backgrouds. Mean SII scores clearly showed that the first group gave the highest priority to independent construal of the self, the second music college group follows them, and the last group of regular undergraduates gave the highest priority to interdependent construal of the self In addition, SII scores were shown to have significant correlations with social anxiety, self-monitoring, sex identity, and self-esteem. Implication of these results are discussed.