An Investigation of Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities Between Asian-Americans and European-Americans Based on a New Multidimensional Model of Esteem

96 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.The goal of this study was to examine a new multidimensional model of virtue esteem. More specifically, I compared cross-cultural differences and similarities in esteem between Asian Americans (AA) and European Americans (EA). AA and EA college students completed questionnaires measuring esteem, subjective well-being, and ill-being. In addition, participants obtained peer ratings of their mood. The model of virtue esteem appears to be sensitive to cross-cultural differences between groups. AA had higher group-related interdependent esteem than EA, whereas EA had higher independent esteem than A.A. These results indicate that AA can and do experience higher esteem than EA---but only when the esteem facet is relevant to AA. In addition, culture was found to moderate the relationship between esteem and an index of subjective well-being, joy. More specifically, low interdependent esteem was associated with low joy for AA but not for EA, whereas low independent esteem was associated with low joy for EA but not for AA. Overall, the results of this study provide preliminary evidence that virtue esteem is a multidimensional construct that is both etic and emic. In addition, the results of this study provide evidence for the value of attending to specific independent and interdependent virtue esteem rather than to global independent and interdependent esteem. The results of this study also indicate that distinguishing the self and the ingroup as targets of evaluation is important in measuring esteem. Finally, self-construal was found to be a weak mediator of the relationship between culture and group differences in levels of esteem.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD