THE EFFECTS OF LANGUAGE AND PRIMING ON THE RELATIVE ACCESSIBILITY OF THE PRIVATE SELF AND THE COLLECTIVE SELF

An experiment addressed some limitations and implications of previous findings obtained by Trafimow, Triandis, and Goto suggesting that priv ate and collective self-cognitions are stored in different cognitive l ocations. Consistent with expectations, priming the private self incre ased the retrieval of private self-cognitions, but priming the collect ive self increased the retrieval of collective self-cognitions. Furthe r, retrieval of private and collective self-cognitions was clustered b y type. The fact that such clustering was obtained with collectivist s ubjects in their native country, and even using their native language, supports the generality of the Trafimow et al. theory to both individ ualistic and collectivist cultures. In addition, however, the data ind icate that using a collectivist language can increase the cognitive ac cessibility of the collective self relative to when an individualistic language is used. Finally, we present some speculations about possibl e implications of this accessibility effect.