What is the Relation between Culture and Desirable Responding?

The literature in cross-cultural psychology suggests that col-lectivists are more likely to engage in deception in order to save face and maintain harmonious relationships with others. In contrast, individualists are portrayed as candid and sincere because individu-alism encourages people to “be yourself. ” For example, Trilling (1972) argues that people in individualist cultures are more likely to seek sincerity and authenticity, whereas people in collectivist cultures de-emphasize authenticity. Similarly, Triandis (1995) pro-poses that honesty in interactions with strangers is a characteristic that is more highly valued by individualists than collectivists. We argue that people with both types of cultural orientations engage in desirable responding, albeit in distinct ways. Given that individualists exhibit considerable biases in the form of possessing overly positive and unrealistic views of the self, enhancing the positivity of the self-view, and actively seeking information tha