Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self

Kühnen, Ulrich; Kitayama, Shinobu Article — Published Version Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Kühnen, Ulrich; Kitayama, Shinobu (2024) : Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self, KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, ISSN 1861-891X, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, Wiesbaden, Vol. 76, Iss. 3, pp. 789-806, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-024-00935-5 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/315423 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ABHANDLUNGEN https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-024-00935-5 Köln Z Soziol (2024) 76:789–806 Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self Ulrich Kühnen · Shinobu Kitayama Received: 17 May 2023 / Accepted: 30 January 2024 / Published online: 19 March 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract In an ongoing cycle of mutual constitution, culture, the self, and associated psychological tendencies dynamically interact. Prior studies show that people from Western individualist cultures construe the self in independent terms (stressing their uniqueness and separation from others), promoting analytic, context-indepen- dent ways of thinking. In contrast, people from Eastern collectivist cultures emphasize their interdependence and connectedness with others, promoting more holistic, context-sensitive ways of thinking. Recently, this literature has been extended to study within-culture variations by socio-economic status (SES). This work has suggested that higher SES contexts foster the view of the self as an independent agent and analytic cognitive tendencies. By contrast, individuals from lower SES tend to emphasize interdependence with others while displaying more holistic cognitive tendencies. Of importance, these SES differences are embedded in larger socio-cultural contexts differing in individualism and collectivism. Hence, the relationship among SES, self-construal, and cognitive tendencies can sometimes vary dramatically between cultures. Keywords Social class · Self-construal · Independence–interdependence · Holistic vs analytic cognition · Mutual constitution of culture and the self U. Kühnen School of Business, Social and Decision Sciences, Constructor University Bremen Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] S. Kitayama Department of Psychology, University of Michigan 1004 East Hall, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA E-Mail: [email protected] K 790 U. Kühnen, S. Kitayama Kultur, soziale Schicht und die Dynamiken des Selbst Zusammenfassung In einem fortwährenden Wechselverhältnis konstituieren sich Kultur, das Selbst und die damit verbundenen psychologischen Tendenzen gegenseitig. Zahlreiche Studien zeigen, dass westliche, individualistische Kulturangehörige ihr Selbst durch independente (d.h. die eigene Einzigartigkeit und Unabhängigkeit betonende) Konzepte definieren, die generell analytisches und kontextunabhängiges Denken befördern. Demgegenüber betonen fernöstliche, kollektivistische Kulturangehörige ihre Interdependenz und Verbundenheit mit anderen, was eher holistisches, kontext-sensitives Denken befördert. In jüngerer Zeit sind diese Erkenntnisse auch auf den Vergleich von Personen mit unterschiedlichem sozio-ökonomischen Status (SES) innerhalb von Kulturen angewendet worden. So zeigen Personen mit höherem SES typischerweise eine eher independente Selbstsicht und tendieren zu analytischem Denken. Im Vergleich halten Personen mit niedrigerem SES eher interdependente Selbstkonzepte und zeigen tendenziell stärker holistisches Denken. Allerdings sind diese sozialen Schichtunterschiede ihrerseits wiederum eingebettet in den weiteren kulturellen Kontext individualistischer und kollektivistischer Gesellschaften. Daher kann die Beziehung zwischen SES, dem Selbstkonzept und den mit ihm verbundenen psychologischen Tendenzen stark zwischen Kulturen variieren. Schlüsselwörter Soziale Schicht · Selbst-Konzept · Independenz-Interdependenz des Selbst · Holistisches vs. analytisches Denken · Wechselseitige Bestimmung von Kultur und Selbst 1 Introduction Societal inequality is one of the most pressing social issues. It has accordingly been studied in various social science disciplines. A person’s social class is defined by their socio-economic status (SES), which refers to their access to affluence, education, and occupational prestige. In addition to such objective indicators, people subjectively perceive and interpret their position on the social ladder (Adler et al. 2000). In this paper, we review recent work addressing how social class shapes the social self and the associated cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes. In doing so, we regard social class as a specific kind of cultural context (Cohen and Varnum 2016; Kraus et al. 2011; Stephens et al. 2014). Culture adds meaning to our lives, favors certain norms and values, and gives rise to affordances, opportunities, as well as various constraints in daily situations. It also has consequences for how people conceive themselves, others, and the relationships between the two. As we shall show, the different ways of construing the self and the relationships with others are related closely to the differences in various psychological tendencies. Our review leads us to make two broader conclusions. First, reflecting the opportunities and challenges linked to their social class, people acquire different psychological tendencies or habitual modes of thinking, feeling, and action. These tendencies are thought to be adaptive in their social-class environments. Second, social class itself is embedded in a larger socio-cultural context. The “cultural imperatives” or K Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self 791 normative ideas about what it means to be a good person vary across societies, and the meaning and implication of social-class membership is partly informed by them. Therefore, in order to understand the impact of social class for their selves and relevant psychological tendencies, we must take a broad cross-cultural perspective. In this paper, we first describe evolutionary functions of the self and define the concepts of independence and interdependence, which permeate many forms of social relations and the self, including those linked to social class. Second, we discuss social class seen as a type of culture. Our review of the pertinent literature ranges from evidence for social-class differences in the self, over coinciding cognitive tendencies up to different patterns of neural activity. In the third section, we examine whether various psychological correlates of social class are similar or different across various national cultural contexts. 2 Independence and Interdependence of the Self The human brain evolved such that its mechanisms increase the probability that the body that it inhabits survives and passes on its genes to the next generation. In providing a framework for understanding human nature, Baumeister (2005)argued that many distinctively human traits are evolved as adaptations and serve as an important basis for culture as we know it today. Leading a cultural life in large groups of individuals is as such an evolutionary advantage as it allows the execution of large joint tasks (such as farming or hunting) and provides protection against predators. Yet, in order to function well in such highly complex social systems one must be able to outmaneuver others, which requires psychological mechanisms for regulating action that go far beyond what is needed for the simpler societies of other animals. Only those of our ancestors who gradually evolved the required mental capacities were able to benefit from life in larger collectives, bringing about the “social brain” (Dunbar 1998). In this regard the self plays a central role. According to Baumeister (2022), the self serves three evolved functions. First, there is reflexive consciousness—our ability to think about ourselves. Second, the self has an executive function. It allows us to become agents and make conscious choices for our actions. Third, the self is a member of groups and relationships. Hence, the third basic function of the self is to enable people to relate to others, thus becoming interpersonal beings. These three functions of the self can safely be considered universal adaptations of the human mind that enable cultural life. Socioecological psychology of the past three decades has suggested that our current cultures emerged during the last several thousand years, partly as adaptations to their ecological conditions including geography and climate (Diamond 1999; Kitayama et al. 2022;Oishi2014). One important exception to this rule is cultures that have immediate origins in the Modern West—a cultural zone that emerged in the Western corner of the Eurasian continent over the last 1000 years. The Modern West emerged as a result of numerous, often incidental historical factors, such as accumulating wealth, geographies that separated various political centers, and Church authority acting to weaken feudal ties (e.g., Schulz et al. 2019). Many of these factors may have encouraged a unique focus on the independence of the self, K 792 U. Kühnen, S. Kitayama which is in stark contrast to all or at least nearly all preceding civilizations and cultures that emphasized the interdependence of the self with others. The newly emerging cultures—commonly called Western cultures—are likely to have their common heritage in various cultures that prospered in adjacent regions preceding the Modern West. These cultures included Ancient Greek as typically emphasized in most cotemporary analyses. However, they may also include Latin and Arab cultures spread across the Mediterranean, South Asia, and even certain regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Each of these regions must have developed its own culture based on unique ecologies and geographies before the Modern West emerged, as this development can be traced back several thousand years. In support of this observation, close analogs of some of the behavioral traits highly common in contemporary Western cultures (e.g., emotional expression, self-enhancement, and analytic cognition) can be found in these non-Western cultural zones (Kitayama and Salvador 2024). During the period of several thousand years in which various civilizations emerged in the Mediterranean, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia seems to have been largely separated or not connected or mixed reproductively, according to the currently available DNA evidence (Reich 2018). Cultures in East Asia seem to have evolved over the same period of several thousand years, heavily influenced by its ecologies and geographies. One major factor was a particular crop suitable in the hot and humid climate of the region, i.e., rice. Originating several thousand years ago in the central regions of contemporary China, rice farming necessitated heavy, socially coordinated labor. Owing to the need to regulate water, irrigation systems soon emerged, which in turn necessitated a strong commitment to the communities regulating such systems. In turn, rice provided nutrition that supported the expanding population. A highly complex and hierarchical social structure encouraged by rice farming may have provided a basis for cultural collectivism that has continued to hold a strong sway over the region (Nisbett et al. 2001; Kitayama et al. 2022;Oishi 2014; Talhelm et al. 2014). Once societies have developed consistent ways of dealing with the given natural and ecological conditions, these shared patterns of behavior become “behavioral environments” (Hallowell 1955) that guide individual socialization. One of the most widely studied set of such practices of social life refers to the relation between individuals and the social groups to which they belong (Markus and Kitayama 1991,2010). How much emphasis is placed on the independence of the self from social context or on the self’s embeddedness in this context? How strongly do individuals conceive of themselves as autonomous versus socially connected and mutually dependent beings? This dimension has proved relevant when comparing different cultures, which is then often referred to as individualism versus collectivism (Hofstede 2001), but also when comparing different groups within a society such as different social classes (Kraus et al. 2011). Cultural contexts share certain basic and often implicit assumptions about what it means to be a good person and how to act appropriately. These assumptions guide and shape individual socialization and the formation of identity. Consequently, individuals acquire two different sets of answers to the question “Who am I?” One way of answering this question is to stress the autonomy and independence of the self, for instance, by defining the self in terms of abstract traits, K Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self 793 personal attitudes or particular personal competencies. Accordingly, this view of the self has been called the independent self-construal. The other kind of self-construal, the interdependent self-construal, relates the self to other people, for example, by using personal relationships or group memberships as self-definitions (Markus and Kitayama 1991,2010). This difference should not be mistaken as categorical in the sense that a given individual has either an independent or an interdependent self. People everywhere can think about the self in either way, but do so with different frequency and probability, partly depending on their cultural background. Scholars have used various methods to show the variation in self-construal (see Kitayama and Salvador 2024, for a review). First, there is a voluminous body of work using self-report indices of self-construal. One of the most frequently used instruments is Singelis’ self-construal scale, a battery of 24 statements about the self to which participants can indicate their level of agreement (Singelis 1994). Half of these statements are independent in content (e.g., “I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects”), the remaining ones are interdependent (e.g., “I will sacrifice my self-interest for the benefit of the group I am in”). Another and more fine-grained self-construal scale was designed by Vignoles et al. (2016). Based on numerous insights from previous studies it addresses seven different ways of being independent or interdependent respectively. For instance, independence (more than interdependence) not only entails being self-reliant but also being consistent across situations, and expressing the self directly. Although direct measures of independence–interdependence are valuable research tools, they are mainly based on what we know from comparisons between East Asians and Westerners, resulting in certain interpretive problems when applied to regions other than the East and West narrowly construed (Oyserman et al. 2002; Vignoles et al. 2016). Hence, the resulting patterns tend to be variable. Second, independent and interdependent construals are linked to culturally dominant values prioritizing either personal freedom and autonomy or embeddedness in social relations or social welfare (Hofstede 2001; Inglehart and Baker 2000; Sagiv and Schwartz 2022). Cultural variations in individualist versus collectivist values are well documented. Western societies are more individualistic (and thus independent), whereas most non-Western societies are relatively collectivistic (or interdependent). Third, there is an increasing body of evidence showing that implicit psychological tendencies are linked to independence and interdependence (Kitayama and Uskul 2011). For example, when asked to provide spontaneous self-descriptions, Westerners have been found to produce more independent than interdependent concepts, with this difference being reversed for East Asians (Rhee et al. 1995). Furthermore, when comparing East Asians and European Americans, East Asians (a putatively interdependent group) are cognitively more holistic (or less analytic) (Nisbett et al. 2001), socially engaging (versus disengaging) in emotion styles (Kitayama et al. 2006), and prosocial (or less selfpromotive) in motivation than Westerners (a putatively independent group) (Heine et al. 1999). Notably, however, there is increasing recognition that the meaning of these implicit psychological tendencies is culture dependent. Hence, outside of the East and West, the association of the respective implicit psychological tendencies and independence–interdependence could be variable (Kitayama et al. 2022). For example, although emotion moderation is typically seen as being linked to interde- K 794 U. Kühnen, S. Kitayama pendence in East Asia, it is emotional expression that is linked to interdependence in Latin America. Kitayama and Salvador (2024) argue that specific behaviors or psychological traits (e.g., emotional expression) must be interpreted and disambiguated within a broad cultural frame of independence or interdependence. Socioecological psychology investigates on the one hand how mind and behavior are shaped by their natural and cultural ecologies or habitats, and on the other hand how the resulting ways of behavior in turn shape those habitats (Oishi 2014). Individuals are not just passive products of social constitution and socialization, but rather socio-culturally shaped shapers of their environments (Markus and Kitayama 2010). This is to say that, depending on their current construal of the self, people think, feel, and act differently, all of which has an impact on their proximal as well as their distal social context(s). As a consequence, culture, and the self are made up in a dynamic cycle of mutual constitution. Thus, understanding the social dynamics of the self means addressing its mutual relationship with changing social systems varying in layers of complexity, including social class and culture. In the psychological literature, the independence–interdependence distinction emerged based on East–West cultural comparisons (Markus and Kitayama 1991). For example, early research showed that Westerners are likely to use abstract personality trait terms when describing the self (e.g., “I am ambitious”). They appear to define the self in a context-general fashion. By contrast, East Asians are more likely to use group memberships and social roles when defining the self (e.g., “I am a caring husband”), thus defining the self as being embedded in specific relational contexts. Interdependence with others therefore implies that core features of the self are at least partly dependent on the social context. The degree of independence or interdependence of the self has many consequences for thinking, feeling, and action. For example, if one conceives the self primarily as a set of internal, dispositional features independent of the surrounding, other people may be perceived in a similar fashion. In line with this proposition, many studies showed that when explaining observed behavior of others, Westerners tend to explain the others’ behaviors by their internal attributes or dispositions, such as their attitudes, preferences, and goals. Typically, situational factors (e.g., social pressure and role obligations) are discounted even when they can fully explain the behaviors. This so-called fundamental attribution error is typically considered universal and pancultural (Ross 1977). Indeed, Westerners often discount the external pressures even when they are fully aware of such pressures (Gilbert and Malone 1995). However, it has become increasingly clear that people in non-Western cultures, particularly East-Asians, typically stop showing this effect, especially when the external constraints are made quite clear (e.g., Masuda and Kitayama 2004; see Kitayama et al. 2022,forareview). Moreover, evidence exists that this cognitive difference extends to non-social perceptions as well. Independence fosters a general analytic way of thinking in which attention is focused on objects (or actors) irrespective of their surrounding contexts. Interdependence by contrast promotes a holistic way of thinking where objects (including actors) are perceived by relating them to their context. The initial evidence linking the independent versus the interdependent self to the analytic versus holistic cognition came from cross-cultural work (Nisbett et al. 2001, Kitayama et al. 2003). Easterners are more interdependent or less independent than Westerners, and K Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self 795 correspondingly, the former are cognitively more holistic or less analytic than the latter. However, the dynamic relationship between the self and cognition exists even within any given culture, as may be expected from the fact that every person can think about the self in independent and interdependent ways. Indeed, numerous studies show that subtle experimental factors can activate or prime the independent or interdependent self (Kühnen et al. 2001; Kühnen and Oyserman 2002). For instance, Kühnen et al. (2013) tested Western participants and found that they show a greater degree of dispositional explanation of another’s behavior when they are primed for independence. Thus, cultural differences are not fixed and stable, but dynamically flexible in nature. Moreover, it is clear that culture and the self shape not only what people think about but also how people think: their ways of thought. Although the distinction between the independent and interdependent construal of the self was used to understand East–West psychological differences, these concepts resonate well with a duality of sociality that social scientists in various fields have repeatedly proposed (Dumont 1977; Mead 1934; Triandis 1995). On the one hand social relations can be formed on the basis of instrumental interests of different individuals and their compatible goals in specific domains. This type of sociality has been called Gesellschaft, egocentric, individualist, or reciprocity based (Fiske et al. 1998; Shweder and Bourne 1984; Tönnies 1988). The other kind of sociality is based on close bonds between individuals who consider themselves to be inherently connected with others. The importance of this kind of social relationship for creating meaning in life goes much further than through sharing some selected interests that can jointly be reached. It is the interdependence with others that is the basis for experiencing one’s life as meaningful. This kind of sociality has been labeled Gemeinschaft, sociocentric, collectivistic, or communion-based. There are long-standing debates about the historical origins and societal factors contributing to the emergence of these two types of sociality. Some researchers stressed the importance of material, ecological, and economic factors, whereas others have emphasized the role of ideologies and world views, such as philosophy or religion. In this article, we aim to specify the consequences of these concepts for individual thinking, feeling, and action. In order to conceptualize these consequences, we stress the social dynamics of the self. As we already emphasized, independence versus interdependence of the self are not mutually exclusive. In their primitive forms, both independence and interdependence can be seen as basic biological requirements for all individuals to survive and reproduce. This is to say that individuals in all cultures can and do conceive the self to be both independent and interdependent. However, these two social functions may not be equally salient or accessible in all social contexts. On the contrary, all cultures include a great variety of contexts that require and hence foster either independence or interdependence. For example, agentic and assertive kinds of behavior (i.e., facets of independence) may be more appropriate and hence adaptive in workrelated or business contexts than in private, family life, where interdependence with others is fostered. By implication, both independent and interdependent facets of the self should be available to all individuals in all places regardless of culture, social class, and other demographic variables. Moreover, the relative emphasis on one construal of the self or the other may vary across broader cultures. Indeed, K 796 U. Kühnen, S. Kitayama this cultural variation by independence and interdependence may be due to various social and ecological factors over the course of human evolution (Henrich 2017). In particular, one may start explicating this variability by closely examining the most recent 10,000 years of human evolution—a period in which culture as we know it today emerged (Kitayama et al. 2022). Doing so reveals that interdependence with others is not a homogeneous concept across cultures. Kitayama et al. (2022) suggested that four cultural zones (East Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, and South Asia) are all interdependent, yet the way in which interdependence with others is achieved varies markedly. To give an example, maintaining harmony with others and adjusting to their expectations are important modes of interdependence in East Asia. At least partly rooted in the cultural narrative of the nomadic Bedouins, the psychological profile of interdependence in the Arab cultural zone rests on self-as- sertiveness. It is important to protect one’s ingroup, often by displaying power and strength. By doing so, the reputation of one’s family or tribe in the eyes of others (i.e., one’s honor) is maintained (Uskul and Over 2018). Furthermore, Kitayama and Salvador (2024) argue that specific behaviors or psychological traits (e.g., emotional expression) must be interpreted and disambiguated within a broad cultural frame of independence or interdependence. In Latin America, emotional expressiveness may be an important way in which interdependence with others is achieved, whereas it is typically linked to interdependence in East Asia. Thus, although interdependence with others is important in East Asia, the Arab zone, and Latin America the typical way in which it is achieved varies. By the same token, within one and the same culture certain groups of people may encounter contexts that foster one view of the self or the other with differing frequencies, paving the way for many recent studies that have applied the independence–interdependence distinction to social-class differences within cultures. In the current article, we review some of the important conclusions of this line of research. 3 Social Class as Culture In the current social science literature, social class is typically defined by a composite of a person’s access to affluence, education, and occupational prestige (Kraus et al. 2012). These three indicators correlate positively in that people with an academic (versus high school) degree often have jobs that are more prestigious and better paid. In operational terms, many studies rely on socio-economic status (SES) in order to compare individuals from different social-class backgrounds. Whether the sole reliance on this factor to measure social class is adequate or causes significant biases has yet to be determined, partly because social class has traditionally been seen as a categorical concept, whereas SES is continuous in nature. Yet, especially in North American contexts (where the bulk of work on the topic is conducted today), educational attainment (i.e., college versus high-school education) correlates highly with affluence, which, in turn, defines two contrasting sets of social and psychological syndromes (Stephens et al. 2014). Hence, in our review we primarily rely on this Anglo-Saxon understanding where the exclusive reliance on SES assessed with educational attainment is a reasonable proxy of social class. Needless to say, K Culture, Social Class and the Dynamics of the Self 803 References Adler, Nancy E., Elissa S. Epel, Grace Castellazzo and Jeannette R. Ickovics. 2000. 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Ulrich Kühnen 1968, Dr. phil., Professor of Psychology at Constructor University, Bremen, and spokesperson of the DFG Research Training Group “Social Dynamics of the Self”. Fields of research: Culture, self, and the meaning of choice; values and value change; learning and teaching in multicultural settings. Publications: Existential insecurity and trust during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Germany. Journal of Trust Research 2023 (with J. Delhey, L. C. Steckermeier, K. Boehnke, F. Deutsch, J. Eichhorn and C. Welzel). K 806 U. Kühnen, S. Kitayama Shinobu Kitayama 1957, PhD, Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Fields of research: Culture and self; social versus personal representations of cultural values; cultural neuroscience; cultural evolution. Publications: Varieties of interdependence and the emergence of the Modern West: Toward the globalizing of psychology. American Psychologist 2022 (with C. E. Salvador, K. Nanakdewa, A. Rossmaier, A. San Martin and K. Savani). K