A longitudinal-experimental test of the panculturality of self-enhancement: Self-enhancement promotes psychological well-being both in the west and the east

Intensely debated is whether the self-enhancement motive is culturally relative or universal. The universalist perspective predicts that satisfaction of the motive panculturally promotes psychological wellbeing. The relativistic perspective predicts that such promotive effects are restricted to Western culture. A longitudinal-randomized-experiment conducted in China and the US tested the competing predictions. Participants completed measures of psychological well-being in an initial session. A week later participants listed a personally important attribute, described (via random assignment) how that attribute is more (self-enhancement) or less (self-effacement) descriptive of self than others, and again reported their psychological well-being. Consistent with the universalist perspective, self-enhancement significantly increased psychological well-being from baseline in the US and China; self-effacement yielded no change in psychological well-being in either culture. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.