Running Head: Independent Self Bias

Independent Self Bias

Timothy R S Leuers
Institute of Foreign Language Education, Kurume University
Fukuoka, Japan

Naoko Sonoda
Faculty of Literature, Kurume University
Fukuoka, Japan

Abstract
	This paper reinterprets Markus and Kitayama's (1991) distinction between the "independent" and "interdependent" self as two philosophies of self which can be applied across cultures at different levels. Concentrating on application of an interdependent model to the Western (Canadian) self, evidence is provided to show that while Westerners see themselves as being independent, they are, in fact, no less interdependent than Japanese and that the "independent self" is interpreted to exist only as an illusion. The paper then explores two factors related to the illusion of independence among Westerners namely: the self-enhancement bias and a monologic (concealed dialogic) self-reference. The results show that self-enhancement is related to indicators of illusory independence and that the Japanese self-statements are more dialogic than those of the Westerners.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (from The Gospel of Saint John 1, The Bible).

A crying lonely boy went up to heaven to meet the goddess of the mirror, who was dressed in male attire and standing up to her knees in mud by the side of a shallow well (from a paraphrase of the myth of Susanowo and Amaterasu, The Record of Ancient Matters; see Leuers, 1996).

While comparisons between the Japanese and Western psyche have become increasing popular in the field of cross-cultural psychology, the vast majority of studies have tended to place these cultures on an axis between "Individualism" and "Collectivism." The celebrated paper by Markus and Kitayama (1991), for example, discussed the social dependence and absence of an individual sense of self of the Japanese under the rubric of the "independent self" of Westerners vs. the "interdependent self" of the Japanese. While we feel that this paper correctly described Asian and Western views of the human condition, we retain a number of reservations about this work. Firstly, it can be argued that the dichotomy between "independence" and "interdependence" only serves to reinforce (predominantly Western) stereotypes while in fact individualism - and with it, presumably, an independent construal of self - is also present, if not more pronounced, in Japanese culture (Takano & Osaka, 1997). The notion of an "interdependent self," furthermore, runs the risk of being an oxymoron even in Japanese since, as in English, "self" (onore, jiko, ga and even jibun) has meaning only in its opposition to "other." We suggest that the self entails a belief in an entity which is one's own and not dependent upon others. If so, to say that the Japanese self is entirely "interdependent" is to suggest that the Japanese do not possess a self at all.
So, while retaining both Asian notions asserting the intrinsic interconnectedness of humans and the assumption that some form of an individual, independent self-concept is held by the Japanese as well, this paper attempts to redefine the self in line with Asian philosophy as a form of illusion. Translated into social psychological terms, this is to suggest, along with Heine (1996), Greenwald (1980), Grossman (1982) and others, that the independent self exists in a similar way to the "fundamental attribution error" (Ross, 1977) or the "self-enhancement bias" (Greenwald, 1980). In this way we wish to universalise the theories of self or person, pinpointed by Markus and Kitayama (1991), to apply to both cultures but at different levels. At a basic level of reality there is no (independent) self - humans are fundamentally interdependent - but at the level of illusion humans do also universally possess the conception of independent selfhood, albeit in a culturally determined way. Herein follows a brief theoretical justification for this view and an examination of its implications.
The paradoxical nature of the self has been explored since William James (1890/1950) within the Western psychological tradition (see Model, 1993, for a review). James struggled to come to terms with the apparent division within the self, made up of the continuously fluctuating, environmentally dependent stream of consciousness and the invariant self persistent over time, as the core of identity. Following James, Mead (1934) reiterated the division of the self into the I, the self as knower, and the me, the self as known object of conception. Theoretical separations of the self into two in this way are methodologically convenient, and it is the latter side of the self, the me, that has become the preferred object of psychological research. Understanding the "self" as "What one takes oneself to be" (Sullivan, 1940), "a theory about oneself" (Epstein, 1973), and "self knowledge conceptualised as a self digest" (Higgins, 1996), Western psychologists have seen conceptions of the self or the self-concept as "that which is the very essence of one's individuality" (Fein & Spencer, 1997, p. 31). On the other hand, the experiential actuality of consciousness, introduced by James and emphasised by Asian philosophy (notably Taoism and Buddhism), cannot be denied (see Nishida, 1911/1992, for a Western philosophical formulation). Since we do not conceive ourselves as a plurality, the paradox of the self remains; in order for the self to be an object of consciousness, it must be split from consciousness and, furthermore, this split must be concealed. It is proposed, therefore, that the self is marked by - and will be found at the place where one also finds - a concealed split or covert, internal two-ness. The following research attempts to investigate the mechanisms by which this concealed split and the illusion of self are achieved and maintained from a cross cultural psychological viewpoint.
Specifically, we will examine the following research questions. Firstly, by repeating the experimental method of Cousins (1989), we will consider arguments  asserting some form of Western "independent self." Secondly, by analysing these data in a new way, we will examine whether this "independent self" can be considered to be an illusion. We will then address the third and fourth questions pertaining to two possible factors which may contribute to such an illusion being maintained: whether an illusory independent self is linked to self-enhancement and whether it is linked to evidence of a "covert split." 

Method
Participants
  Ninety-seven university students of European descent from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and 108 university students of a similar age group from Kurume University, Southern Japan, participated in the research.

Materials and Procedure
  The Twenty Statements Test (TST; after Kuhn & McPartland, 1954, and Cousins, 1989) was administered. This test elicits 20 free response self-statements using the following instructions.
       In the twenty blanks below please make twenty different statements in response to the simple question (addressed to yourself) "Who am I?" Answer as if you are giving your answers to yourself, not to somebody else. Write your answers in the order that they occur to you. Do not worry about logic or importance. Go along fairly fast. 
A blank sheet of paper containing only the words "I am" on 20 separate lines followed the instructions.
The instructions of the Japanese TST were re-translated by the Japanese author and then back translated by the English author. The sentence starters were modified to include the original device of allowing the Japanese subjects to select the first pronoun from atashi, jibun, ore and boku, the common first person pronouns used in modern Japanese (after a suggestion from Kashima, 1996).

Results and Discussion
An Analysis of Statement Categories- To Reconfirm the "Independent Self"
In order to reconfirm the assertion of a Western "independent self," whether this be real or illusory, the statements were classified by both authors according to the categories used by Sonoda and Leuers (1996), following Cousins (1979), with the addition of the categories N, E and C6. The total set of categories are as follows:
A) Physical attributes. These included attributes and appearances that are externally visible and not dependent upon any external social context. Examples are: "I have brown eyes," "I am attractive," and "I am plump." These attributes may contain subjective evaluations, but they must be more or less objectively verifiable by viewing the person.
N) Nominal personal attributes. These are attributes which are not purely physical but are nominal characteristics referring only to the individual rather than the individual's involvement within a group, e.g., a person's name, hometown, gender and height or weight if given in figures.
B) Social group affiliations, social roles and other social positions. These include self-statements that refer to the participant's involvement in groups and other human relationships, such as "member of the baseball club," "one of two brothers,"  "X's boyfriend," "student" and other more subjective descriptions of social status, such as "poor."
C) Statements referring to the respondent's personality, way of thinking, feeling and behaving. These are further classified into six groups.
C1) Expressing preferences, e.g., "I am fond of cream buns," and "I am a Giants fan."
C2) Statements expressing hopes, wishes and aspirations, e.g., "I am planning to become a doctor."
C3) Statements of behaviour, e.g., "I am a jogger."
C4) Conditional statements of personality, including those which refer to social contexts, e.g., "I am industrious when I am with my boss;" those which refer to temporal contexts, e.g., "I am lazy in the mornings; " and those which refer to spatial locations, e.g., "I am diligent in class."
C5) Unconditional statements expressing personality attributes, e.g., "generous," "honest," "procrastinating," "quick-tempered" and "wild."
C6) Statements referring to the participant's general psychological state and not limited to the time of statement. Examples are: "I am frustrated with my life" and "I am under a lot of stress."
D) Universal attributes that are sufficiently vague to be attributable to any individual and, consequently, give little information about the respondent. These are subdivided into D1 and D2.
D1) Ontological statements referring to the individual's existence qua existence, such as "I am myself."
D2) Statements referring to universal categories, such as "I am human," "I am alive" and "I am a mammal."
E) Statements referring to the respondent's possessions, e.g., "I am in possession of a car."
F) Others, mainly consisting of metaphors, such as "I am a grain of sand in the desert;" statements referring to the respondent at the time of writing the questionnaire, such as "I am writing this questionnaire;" and plain nonsense, such as "I am a penguin."
 As with previous research results, a lower proportion of social self-statements (B)  (CAN 8.71%, JPN 12.65%) and substantially more C5 psychological characteristic statements were observed in the Canadian data (CAN 57.8%, JPN 22.2%). Table 1 shows the number and proportion of statements in each category for the Canadian and Japanese respondents.
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  The results of Chi squared tests upon the numbers of statements showed significant culture x category effects (χ2(12, N = 4025) = 745.46, p<.0001). In order to assess which of the cells in Table 1 produced the differences indicated by the Chi squared test, a residual analysis was performed upon the table (See Tanaka & Yamagiwa, 1989, pp. 262-265). The results of the residual analysis showed that the categories: N (p<.01 with residuals of CAN -4.09, JAP 4.09), B (p<.01, residuals = -4.02, 4.02), C1 (p<.01, residuals = -15.41, 15.41), C2 (p<.01, residuals = -11.00, 11.00), C3 (p<.01, residuals = -5.85, 5.85), C4 (p<.05, residuals = 2.42, -2.42), C5 (p<.01, residuals = 22.5, -22,5), D2 (p<.01, residuals = -5.02, 5.02) and F (p<.01, residuals = -2.14, 2.14) present statistically significant differences across cultures. The significantly higher proportion of social statements (B) can, following previous research, be interpreted to show that Japanese view themselves in social contexts. It should also be noted that, as with Cousins' results, there are significantly greater proportions of statements referring to: nominal attributes (N), preferences (C), aspirations (C2) and actions (C3) given by the Japanese respondents. All of these categories are associated with characteristics that are independent of the social group and refer to the individual in isolation. The significance of these results will be dealt with below.
Most importantly, we agree with Cousins (1989) and Markus and Kitayama (1991) that the significantly higher proportion (by a factor of over 2.5) of psychological trait statements (C5) by Canadians can be interpreted as representing some form of "independent self." This interpretation is justified by Markus and Kitayama, summarising Cousins' observations, in the following way.
American students, in contrast to their Japanese counterparts, were more at home with the original TST because this test elicits the type of abstract, situation-free, descriptions that form the core of the American, independent 	self-concept. Such abstract or global characteristics, according to Cousins (1989), reflect a claim of being a separate individual whose nature is not bound by a specific situation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p.233, our emphasis).
It is relevant to note that these researchers state that the higher proportion of psychological trait statements (C5) only represents a claim of being a separate individual. The reader is left to assume, however, that this claim is justified; that is,  Americans show a greater knowledge of themselves as individuals and an awareness of some context-independent psychological core, thus having a higher degree of genuine independence. It is to an examination of this implicit assumption that we will now turn.

Comparison of Statement Overlap - To test whether the "Independent Self" is Real or Illusory
In order to test the validity of the above "claim of independence" and to judge whether Canadians are genuinely independent or whether they are merely describing themselves as though the are, we performed a new, original analysis of statement overlap upon the complete set of statements from each cultural group. When all the statements from each cultural group were collected together, it was found that the overlap shown by the Canadian statement set was in fact greater than that found in the Japanese set. Tables 2 and 3 show the 20 most common statements of Canadian and Japanese subjects, the category, the valence (positive, negative or neutral), the percentage of the total statements (% of all), the percentage of research participants giving each statement, assuming no in-subject repetition (% of S), and the running total percentage for 20 statements.
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While the Japanese gave seemingly un-individuated social trait type statements, e.g., "I am a student," and Canadians described themselves as "individuals," the proportion of the total statements falling in the most common 20 statements was 27.18% for Canadians and 26.96% for Japanese. Figure 1 shows the percentage of the total statements for each of the most common 20 statements (shown in Tables 1 and 2). From this we can see that after the first three most common statements, the Canadian statements show a greater degree of overlap and lack of individuality. Turning to the psychological trait (C5) statements, which might be raised as evidence for genuine Canadian independence, the percentage of statements falling into the top twenty most common C5 statements was found to be 38.8% for Canadians vs. 29.66% for Japanese. The percentage of respondents giving each of these most common C5 statements is shown in Figure 2. Four times as many Canadian respondents gave the most common C5 statement, and even the twentieth most popular statement was given by the same proportion of Canadian respondents as Japanese respondents gave the second most popular Japanese statement. In other words, both the Canadians' self-statements in general and their psychological self-descriptions in particular were more homogeneous than those of the Japanese.
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Our impression suggests that there is a possibility that there are more psychological trait terms in the Japanese language than in the English language, partly due to the presence of onomatopoeic phrases in Japanese that express the same meaning as more formal trait terms. This, if true, could be argued to reduce the overlap of Japanese self-statements. In view of the facts, however, that we grouped some Japanese expressions of similar meaning together (such as nemui, "sleepy" and tsukareteiru, "tired") and that psychological trait terms fall fairly low on the list of Japanese self-statements, we believe that this effect is minimal. An analysis of the frequency of trait terms in English and Japanese is, while valuable, beyond the scope of the present research. In any event, Canadian self-statements were extremely homogeneous, and so we argue that the Canadian "independent self" should be viewed as an illusion of independence which conceals a high degree of social dependence in their self-construals and a lack of genuine autonomy.

Comparison of Self-Enhancement - To test whether Independent Selfhood is related to Self-enhancement
In order to test the hypothesis that self-enhancement is a factor contributing to the maintenance of an illusory independent self we examined: (a) the degree of positivity of descriptions from each cultural group and (b) the correlation between positivity and psychological trait statements which are thought to be indicative of the illusory "independent self."
The Canadian data would seem to exhibit a considerable self-enhancement bias. Since the respondents were not directly asked to make statements in comparison with their peers or the population as a whole, the self-enhancement bias cannot be unquestionably inferred. Even if it is possible that 61.7% of Canadian respondents were in fact "intelligent" and 48.9% "fun," at the very least we can see that the Canadians are exhibiting a strong selective tendency to give self-statements of a positive, self-enhancing kind. The proportions of positive, negative and neutral statements are shown in Figure 3.
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The Canadians were found to give 57.19% positive, 17.47% negative and 24.24% neutral statements - more than three times positive than negative and more than double positive than neutral - while the Japanese gave 47.48% neutral with a slight tendency to mention more negative traits (28.32%) than positive traits (24.21%).  These trends are consistent with previous research as indicated in a review by Heine and Lehman (1997).
The relationship between the valence (positive, negative or neutral) and the category of statements is shown for social (N,B) and psychological categories in Table 4. The breakdown of valence percentages for social statements was very similar across cultures with significantly more neutral statements being found in both groups (Canada  χ2（2，N= 1639）=263.8, p<.001; Japanχ2(2，Ｎ=1734)=512.2，p<.001). This is understandable since the majority of social statements, such as "I am Japanese," are inherently neutral or at least difficult to categorise in any other way. The psychological statements of Japanese were evenly distributed among positive, negative and neutral (χ2=0.42, ns). Canadian psychological statements, however, were significantly positive (χ2(2，N=1402)=856.0, p<.001) with the percentage of positive statements increasing from 57.19% among all statements to 70% among psychological statements. 
From these data we can see that while the valence of Japanese self-statements in general appeared unbiased, Canadians were significantly more likely to give positive, self-enhancing statements especially when giving psychological statements characteristic of the "independent self."
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Our first three analyses indicate that the "independent self" of the Western subject demonstrates conformity to a culturally sanctioned, self-enhancing script shared by Canadians in general. We argue that while Canadians were being asked to describe themselves, they were under the illusion that they possess a cultural ideal of self  and were unaware that they were representing a culturally sanctioned "possible self" (Markus & Nurius, 1986). We do not mean to suggest by this that Canadians literally possess a culturally determined "self script," but that there is some mechanism by which they are encouraged to represent themselves in a way which is culturally sanctioned or generally approved. We will now turn to an investigation of how this illusion of self or "independent self bias" is maintained.

Discourse Analysis of Self-statements - To test for the Presence of a "Covert Split" supporting the Illusion of an "Independent Self"
Here we perform an analysis of the degree to which the self-statements are manifestly dialogic - the extent to which they can be seen to be part of an imagined dialogue - to test for evidence of a "covert split" which supports the "independent self" illusion. The rationale for this is as follows. On the one hand, we believe that the explanation of why Japanese statements are unbiased and resemble those of every day discourse, while Western statements do not, is that the former are addressed to, and thus form part of a natural discourse with, an imagined other. On the other hand, we suggest that the Canadian statements show what we term a "covert-split" which maintains the illusion of self.
This assertion rests on the writings of the critical theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1929/1973) (see Kristeva, 1981/1980, and Morison and Emerson, 1990, for psychological interpretations). He has argued that language is essentially "dialogic;" that is to say that it is essentially part of a discourse with a real or imagined other. The notion of the dialogism of self-statements has been used by Hermans, Kempen and van Loon (1992) to present a theory of a "dialogic self" as a social construction using the metaphor of a polyphonic narrative. This application, however, ignores Bakhtin's central assertion that there exists a particular form of discourse found in the Western tradition which, by concealing the essential presence of another in discourse, can be called "monologic." This discourse masquerades as a monologue while concealing an internalised "superaddresee." We claim that it is only the latter form of hidden dialogue or covert discourse which enables the subject of the narrative to be taken as self rather than as a discordant "polyphony" of representations of self to others.
We hypothesised that the crucial difference between Japanese and Canadian self-statements lies in the fact that the former is dialogic (in that the statements were made in the awareness of the dialogic nature of linguistic responses) while the latter conceals the discursive nature of language and the implied addressee. To investigate this proposition we analysed the statements for markers that indicate a recognition of the subject's statements as dialogue with an imagined existential other(s). The markers that we considered to show this attitude were:
Statements in the form of a question "I am... who am I?"
Statements which use famous lines from songs, films and other mass media, indicating that the subject is speaking from the standpoint of an imagined other;
Statements which are the reports of the speech of others, e.g., "I am told I am clever;"
       Statements which are unsure "I am probably clever;"
Statements which include the second person pronoun "I am not you;"
Statements which give the reasons for making that statement (This was included on the rationale that justifications of opinion are only needed in the presence of another, e.g.,  "I am clever because I often do well in tests.");
Statements which include opposites as if the subject were being opposed in argument, e.g., "I am clever but sometimes I am stupid;" and
Statements which are linked to those preceding or following them in the form of an ongoing narrative, e.g., as the pair "I am clever " and "I am also stupid sometimes."
Our impressions were that Japanese statements were addressed to some imagined other, and the above markers were chosen as those that gave this impression; however, no clear-cut judgement can be made. The proportion of each of these markers is shown in Table 5. The incidence of these dialogic discourse markers was found to be 15 times greater in the Japanese statements (8.57%) than in the Canadian statements (0.51%) suggesting a far greater awareness of the presence of an audience or addressee in the former case.
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While the above categories were generated by the authors, it is well known that verb forms and first person pronouns in the Japanese language reflect a discursive context. The verb endings of Japanese change depending on the formality of the situation. In informal situations, such as in conversation among college friends, the dictionary form of verbs and adjectives and the copula da is used. Varieties of other verb endings exist which are used depending on the formality of the situation. The -masu verb ending and the desu form of the copula represent the lowest level of formality, which is commonly used among peers in public situations. The first person pronoun, of which there are many, also expresses formality as well as relating to the gender, age and sex of the speaker. In informal situations males, especially younger males, often use the pronouns boku and ore, and young women may use the pronoun atashi. In more formal situations the pronoun watashi is likely to be used by men and women. Men, and more rarely women, may also use the reflexive pronoun jibun (which may also mean "myself") as a first person pronoun in more formal situations.
In order to investigate whether participants varied the use of language as if speaking to a real other, an analysis of the verb endings and the first person pronouns used against the category of TST statement was performed. It was found that the content of the statements changed with the first person pronoun and the type of verb ending used. Table 6 shows the category of statements for each of the first person pronouns and Table 7 for formal and informal verb endings.
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It was found that more social and fewer psychological traits were given with more formal (public) verb endings and more formal (public) first person pronouns. From this analysis we can see that the statements of Japanese subjects were conditioned by their presentations in certain contexts of discourse, i.e., to a certain imagined other or group of others. It is a facet of the Japanese language that the addressee of statements can be expressed, but it is notable that Japanese subjects chose to use this form of Japanese even in self-statements1. It is our contention that the statements of the Canadian subjects were not dialogic in the above sense and were instead addressed to a form of general internalised other or concealed "superaddressee."

Conclusion
We have argued that in order for one to be conscious of self, it must be objectified, but that objectification of self cannot be the self as true subject or agent. We have also maintained that the notion of a conscious self as subject or agent entails a paradox, but that humans do nonetheless identify with a self-representation and, in so doing, create the illusion of self. We believe that this was demonstrated by the way in which Westerners seem to make claims of individuality which are contradicted by their homogeneous conformity to social norms. We suggested, furthermore, that the independent self as illusion is either narcissistically motivated or that the internal dissonance it causes is alleviated by an idealised, self-enhanced self-representation.  The relationship between the "independent self" and self-enhancement is corroborated by the high correlation between pointers to illusory "independent selfhood" and the self-enhancement bias.
 At this stage in the research, however, we have not gone very far in explaining how these cultural differences come about. While the Canadian self-statements appeared to be self-enhancing stereotypes, the Japanese self-statements appeared similar to the sort of self-introduction or informative description found in everyday language. Not only do Japanese self-statements lack self-enhancement biases, they also explain more about the respondents. The Japanese statements reflect variety, in contrast to those of the Canadians, which with a high proportion of culturally conforming psychological traits show us that "this is another Canadian," if anything at all. It seems clear to us that Canadian statements should not be confused with the expression of psychological self-knowledge, which one might surmise is available to the subject placed in a privileged position with regard to himself or herself. Rather, they reflect a greater propensity to self-aggrandisement in line with a culturally determined basket of desirable psychological attributes. That Japanese statements should differ from these rather bizarre self-misconceptions shared by Canadians did not suggest to us any novel form of "interdependent self." The moot question is not "What does this say about the Japanese self?" but rather "How are Canadians, and not Japanese, able to delude themselves in this way?" Correspondingly, we have suggested that the greater proportion of social trait statements by Japanese is not due to any "interdependent self" since the statements contain a greater proportion of individual nominal (N), preference (C1), aspiration (C2) and action (C3) type statements as well. Rather, the Japanese self-statements are simply a synoptic, generally accurate, and informative description of the respondent as a whole. The balance of Japanese self-statements shows an even spread of the percentages of statements. In respect of there being more social self-statements, it can also be pointed out that descriptions of selves in everyday language often take this form2. In sum, therefore, we believe that although Japanese self-statements are different from those of Canadians, this does not demonstrate any special social interdependence.  Rather, the Japanese self-statements are informative, rather than misinformative, and self-descriptive, rather than self-enhancing, as one would expect to be found in everyday language discourse.
To explain the observed differences we have returned to the theoretical model of the self and argued that in order to identify with a self-representation or an objectified self, it is necessary to internalise or model the viewpoint of another, another who is internal to, and thus must be hidden within, the psyche. To support this contention we went on to demonstrate that those who make independent self-statements make these statements as if directed to no one, concealing the addressee that Bakhtin argues is a prerequisite for language. We feel that this has to some extent been achieved by the analyses presented in the previous section. From these results we suggest that a crucial mechanism enabling Canadians to identify with their self-enhancing, linguistic self-narratives lies in the fact that they have internalised and concealed some form of linguistic other.
 In presenting this research we do not wish to reject the "independent self" altogether but rather to stress its existence as some form of bias or illusion. We wish to emphasise that while the "independent self" is illusory and culturally determined, as evidenced by the way in which Canadians make numerous unqualified abstract psychological trait descriptions, it does not appear to lack reality for the subject. So, while it may be true that to take the "independent self" as an entity is to commit the "psychologist's fallacy," our assertion is that this fallacy is not something limited to psychologists. To mistake theories, conceptions, and construals of self is a fundamental inclination of humankind; the self is founded on fallacy, illusion or error. 
We have attempted to show that, as far as the TST can illuminate, Canadians are, at base, no less interdependent than Japanese but that their appearance of independence, born of the ability to identify with the hero of an autobiographical novel of their own writing, is illusory. We believe, therefore, that it may only be at the level of fiction, illusion or bias that Canadians are more independent. Still, this level of illusion is of paramount importance in understanding the self.
Although the above analysis makes no reference to any Japanese illusion of self, this does not suggest that we believe that it is entirely absent. On the contrary, it is our opinion that the independent self as illusion can and will be found in Japanese culture as well. Our ongoing research proposes that the mechanisms outlined above - whereby identification with a self-enhanced self-representation is facilitated by the internalisation of a generalised other - are shared by the Japanese but exist in the visual rather than the linguistic domain. From the results of our initial tests we predict that the investigation into pictorial self-representation will show that the Japanese exhibit self-enhancement biases and indicate identification with an imaginary representation of self and the internalisation of another as generalised gaze (seken no me).
Footnotes
1Arimasa Mori (see Sasaki, 1981) has developed a similar theory from theoretical considerations of the way in which Japanese language encourages speech acts to be placed in the context of a dialogue with another such that "I" has meaning only as a "you for you."
2From a brief analysis of responses to the question "who?" in six English and four Japanese modern novels it was found that the social trait type responses make up 53% of the total while psychological traits make up only 3%.
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Nishida, K. (1992). An Inquiry into the Good (Abe, M. and Ives, C. Trans). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Original work published in 1911)
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-200). NewYork: Academic Press.
Takano, Y and Osaka, E.. (1997). "Japanese Collectivism" and "American Individualism": Re-examining the Dominant View. The Japanese Journal of Psychology, 64, (5) , 312-327. (In Japanese)
Sasaki, T. (1981). Aisuru koto to Aisaseru koto (To Love and Let Love - Authors' Trans.). Tokyo: Koubundou. (In Japanese)
Sonoda, N. and Leuers, T.R.S. (1996). The Contextual Self from a Cross Cultural Perspective. The Journal of Kurume University Faculty Letters (Human Sciences Edition), Vol. 9- 10 , 74-86. (In Japanese)
Sullivan, H.S. (1940). Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry. New York: Norton.

		Table 1
		Number and Percentage of Statements in Each Category

	Canada	Japan	
	number of
statements	proportion %	number of
statements	proportion %	
A	　 　83	4.35	　 100	4.72	
N	　 　71	3.73	　 140**	6.61	
B	 　166	8.71	　 268**	12.65	
C1	  　20	1.05	　 302**	14.25	
C2	 　　24	1.26	　 193**	9.11	
C3	　 101	5.30	　 218**	10.29	
C4	　 　47*	2.47	　　30	1.42	
C5	 　1084**	56.87	　 472	22.27	
C6	　 126	6.61	　 111	5.24	
D1	　　 34	1.78	　　34	1.60	
D2	　　 12	0.63	　　57**	2.69	
E	　　　6	0.31	　　11	0.52	
F	　 130	6.82	　 183*	8.64	
Total	 1906	100	 2119	100	
　　　　
　** p<.01
*p<.05	

Table 2 
The Most Common 20 Statements by Canadians

		Category	Valence	% of all	%of Ss	Running Total　%	
1	intelligent (smart 30, genius 1, bright 1)	C5	+	3.04 	61.70 	3.04 	
2	fun (funny, humorous, witty)	C5	+	2.41 	48.94 	5.46 	
3	happy (content)	C5	+	1.99 	40.43 	7.45 	
4	friendly, (amiable, cordial,  a good -)	C5	+	1.84 	37.23 	9.29 	
5	nice (kind 14)	C5	+	1.73 	35.11 	11.02 	
6	gender (female 20, male 11)	N	0	1.63 	32.98 	12.64 	
7	height (tall 18, numeric 3, short/small 7)	A/N	0	1.57 	31.91 	14.22 	
8	attractive (beautiful 6, good looking 3, pretty 4,)	A	+	1.26 	25.53 	15.48 	
9	age (young 9, 18,19, 20 4, 22, 25, 26)	N	0	1.21 	24.47 	16.68 	
10	honest (NOT including trustworthy 9)	C5	+	1.21 	24.47 	17.89 	
11	athletic (a good athlete 1, sporty 1, )	C5	+	1.15 	23.40 	19.05 	
12	caring	C5	+	1.10 	22.34 	20.15 	
13	tired	F	-	1.10 	22.34 	21.25 	
14	hard worker (studious 5)	C5	+	1.05 	21.28 	22.30 	
15	student	B	0	1.00 	20.21 	23.29 	
16	creative	C5	+	0.89 	18.09 	24.19 	
17	generous	C5	+	0.84 	17.02 	25.03 	
18	cool headed	C5	+	0.73 	14.89 	25.76 	
19	shy	C5	-	0.73 	14.89 	26.50 	
20	course (biologist etc.)	B	0	0.68 	13.83 	27.18 	

Table 3 
The Most Common 20 Statements by Japanese

		Category	Valence	% of all	%of Ss	Running Total　%	
1	student(of K.U ,grade,　faculty)	Ｂ	0	4.08 	81.65 	4.08 	
2	gender	N	0	2.84 	56.88 	6.92 	
3	family (size, 1st brother/sister)	Ｂ	0	2.06 	41.28 	8.99 	
4	age, date of birth	N	0	1.83 	36.70 	10.82 	
5	human	Ｄ２	0	1.51 	30.28 	12.34 	
6	myself, me	Ｄ１	0	1.33 	26.61 	13.67 	
7	place of home	N	0	1.28 	25.69 	14.95 	
8	name 	N	0	1.19 	23.85 	16.14 	
9	place of birth	N	0	1.19 	23.85 	17.34 	
10	sleepy, tired	F	-	1.10 	22.02 	18.44 	
11	circle	Ｂ	0	1.06 	21.10 	19.49 	
12	part time job	Ｃ３	0	1.01 	20.18 	20.50 	
13	living alone or with family	Ｂ	0	0.92 	18.35 	21.42 	
14	living	Ｄ２	0	0.92 	18.35 	22.34 	
15	like reading books 	Ｃ１	+	0.78 	15.60 	23.12 	
16	height (tall or small)	A	0	0.73 	14.68 	23.85 	
17	like music	Ｃ１	+	0.73 	14.68 	24.58 	
18	apt to feel lonely (sabishigariya) 	Ｃ５	-	0.73 	14.68 	25.32 	
19	have boy(girl)friend	Ｂ	+	0.69 	13.76 	26.01 	
20	have  (a  good/many) friend(s)	Ｂ	+	0.69 	13.76 	26.69 	

		Table 4
		Valence of Social and Psychological Statements

Canada	Pos	Neg	Neu	Total	
social(N,B)	15%	3%	82%	100%	
psychological(C)	70%	17%	12%	100%	
					
JAPAN					
social(N,B)	10%	4%	86%	100%　　　 	
psychological (C)	34%	34%	33%	100%　	

		Table 5
		Number and Percentage of Dialogic Discourse Markers

Dialogic Discourse Markers			
	Japanese	Canadian	
Questions	14	0	
Famous lines	26	0	
"I am told that I am"	7	0	
Mitigation (perhaps)	29	2	
"....,I think"	23	0	
Second person pronoun	4	0	
Explanations of reasons	3	0	
Contrasting opposites	13	2	
Linked by conjunctions	68	6	
Total dialogic discourse markers	187 (8.57%)	10
(0.51%)	
Formal verb endings	873	-	
Total responses	2180	1940	

	Table 6
	Statement Categories for Japanese First Person Pronouns (%)

	Total	atashi	ore	watasi	ｊibun	boku	
A	4.72	4.94	4.30	4.17	4.50	5.08	
N	6.61	10.23	6.25	12.50	8.81	6.44	
B	12.65	15.52	5.86	14.06	13.83	7.46	
C1	14.25	16.75	12.89	15.36	9.00	17.29	
C2	9.11	8.99	11.33	5.21	8.36	8.14	
C3	10.29	11.46	10.55	10.68	9.65	7.46	
C4	1.42	1.23	0.78	1.82	2.89	1.02	
C5	22.27	18.17	21.48	21.88	26.05	29.83	
C6	5.24	3.17	6.25	3.65	6.43	5.76	
D1	1.60	0.71	2.73	2.08	2.57	1.02	
D2	2.69	1.59	2.34	3.13	4.18	2.71	
E	0.52	0.71	0.00	1.30	0.00	0.00	
F	8.64	6.53	15.23	7.29	8.04	10.17	
Total %	100	100	100	100	100	100	
Number	2180	567	256	384	318	295	

		Table 7
		Statement Categories According to Level of Formality in Japanese

	formal	informal	
A	4.12%	4.90%	
N	13.86%	6.05%	
B	17.75%	8.65%	
C1	16.84%	11.87%	
C2	4.81%	11.56%	
C3	13.17%	7.89%	
C4	1.37%	1.38%	
C5	16.15%	25.34%	
C6	3.32%	6.28%	
D1	0.69%	2.14%	
D2	2.29%	2.83%	
E	0.80%	0.31%	
F	4.81%	10.80%	
Total　Number	873	1306	

Figure 1

Percentage of the Total Statements for Each of the Most Common 20 Statements

Figure 2.  
Percentage of Respondents Giving Each of the Most Common C5 Statements.

Figure 3 
Valence of TST Statements from Japanese and Canadian Respondents

Biography

Timothy Leuers was born in London in 1965 and grew up in the central London borough of Chelsea.  He studied Electronic Engineering at the University of Bath and worked briefly as a computer engineer upon graduation. In 1988 he returned to university taking first philosophy, then Japanese culture and religion at Edinburgh, and on placement at Okayama, Universities and graduated with an MA in 1993.  After living for a brief period in Northern France, he was awarded a Japanese Education Department scholarship to study for a Ph.D. researching the structure and psychology of Japanese mythology at Kurume University. Finishing the Ph.D. course in 1997, he took up his present employment as an English lecturer at The Institute of Foreign Language Education, Kurume University.  He is single and lives in what was the priest's residence of a Shinto shrine on a mountain overlooking his place of work. 
Address correspondence to Timothy Leuers, Kurume University, 1635 Mii-Machi, Kurume-shi, Fukuoka-ken, Japan, 836-08.  E-mail: leuers@cec.mii.kurume-u.ac.jp

Naoko Sonoda was born in Fukuoka City in 1957.  After studying developmental cognitive psychology to Ph.D. level at Kyushu University, she took up her present position in the Department of Human Sciences, Kurume University.  Her research, in the fields of developmental and social psychology, focuses on time perspective and gender.  She has been co-operating in Leuers' cross-cultural psychological research on the self since 1996.