Cross-Situational Self-Consistency in Nine Cultures: The Importance of Separating Influences of Social Norms and Distinctive Dispositions

• Main Authors: Locke, Kenneth D., Church, A. Timothy, Mastor, Khairul A., Curtis, Guy J., Sadler, Pamela, McDonald, Kelly, Vargas-Flores, José De Jesus, Ibáñez-Reyes, Joselina, Morio, Hiroaki, Reyes, Jose Alberto S., Cabrera, Helena F., Mazuera Arias, Rina, Rincon, Brigida Carolina, Albornoz Arias, Neida Coromoto, Muñoz, Arturo, Ortiz, Fernando A.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/699; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/faculty_research/article/1698/type/native/viewcontent
• Institution: De La Salle University

© 2017, © 2017 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. We assessed self-consistency (expressing similar traits in different situations) by having undergraduates in the United States (n = 230), Australia (n = 220), Canada (n = 240), Ecuador (n = 101), Mexico (n = 209), Venezuela (n = 209), Japan (n = 178), Malaysia (n = 254), and the Philippines (n = 241) report the traits they expressed in four different social situations. Self-consistency was positively associated with age, well-being, living in Latin America, and not living in Japan; however, each of these variables showed a unique pattern of associations with various psychologically distinct sources of raw self-consistency, including cross-situationally consistent social norms and injunctions. For example, low consistency between injunctive norms and trait expressions fully explained the low self-consistency in Japan. In accord with trait theory, after removing normative and injunctive sources of consistency, there remained robust distinctive noninjunctive self-consistency (reflecting individuating personality dispositions) in every country, including Japan. The results highlight how clarifying the determinants and implications of self-consistency requires differentiating its distinctive, injunctive, and noninjunctive components.