MODESTY BIAS IN SELF-RATINGS OF PERFORMANCE - A TEST OF THE CULTURAL RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS

Although self-ratings of performance are usually higher than ratings o btained from supervisors, Farh, Dobbins, and Cheng (1991) found that T aiwanese workers exhibited modesty bias (i.e., self-ratings that were lower than supervisory ratings). They explained their findings in term s of broad cultural differences between Taiwanese and Western workers. To test this cultural relativity hypothesis, we replicated their stud y using data from several organizations in mainland China. As is typic ally found in Western research, Chinese workers showed leniency in sel f-ratings (i.e., self-ratings that were higher than supervisor or peer ratings), which suggests that broad cultural factors do not explain t he modesty bias reported by Farh et al.