INDEPENDENT AND INTERDEPENDENT CONSTRUAL OF THE SELF - THE CULTURAL-INFLUENCE AND THE RELATIONS TO PERSONALITY-TRAITS

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the independent an d interdependent construal of the self in relation to the cultural dif ference and personality traits. A scale developed by Kiuchi (1995) to measure the person on the dimension of independent versus interdepende nt, the SII was administered to three groups of students. They were: ( 1) 81 college students who once lived in Europe or America, (2) 99 stu dents of a college of music, and (3) 296 undergraduates of other major s and backgrouds. Mean SII scores clearly showed that the first group gave the highest priority to independent construal of the self, the se cond music college group follows them, and the last group of regular u ndergraduates gave the highest priority to interdependent construal of the self In addition, SII scores were shown to have significant corre lations with social anxiety, self-monitoring, sex identity, and self-e steem. Implication of these results are discussed.