Comparing the facets of the big two in global evaluation of self versus other people

The Big Two of agency and communion can be divided into the facets of agency-assertiveness, agency-competence, communion-morality, and communion-warmth. The present research studies how these facets are related to global evaluation of self versus others. In five studies we tested whether self-evaluation is reliably related to agency-assertiveness (H1), and evaluation of others to communion-morality (H2). Participants had to describe themselves (or a specific other person) on the facets and later to rate their self-evaluation (or other-evaluation). Supporting hypotheses, Studies 1, 3, and 4 showed that agency-assertiveness was reliably related to self-evaluation (Study 4: also agency-competence). Studies 2-5 showed that communion-morality was reliably related to evaluation of an acquaintance, but agency-competence (Studies 3 and 5) and communion-warmth (Study 2) were also important. We conclude that supporting H1, agency-assertiveness is particularly important for self-evaluation, whereas partly supporting H2, evaluation of others is associated with communion-morality, but also agency-competence and communion-warmth.