Culture and perceptions of self-other similarity

In testing possible cultural effects of the use of the self as an habitual reference point to which others are compared, we expected that: (a) individ ualistic participants (i.e., those who give priority to personal goals) wou ld rate self-other similarity higher when asked "How similar is X to you?'' than when asked "How similar are you to X?", whereas nondirectional simila rity judgements ("How similar are these two people?'') would resemble the f ormer directional comparison; (b) collectivistic participants (i.e., those who give priority to in-group goals) would show a weaker or, possibly, reve rsed pattern, especially using in-group comparison others. Neither hypothes is was upheld. However, the individualists perceived the in-group to be rel atively more similar to themselves as compared to the collectivists. This d ifference cannot be explained by response bias, status asymmetry, or role d ifferentiation. We propose an explanation in terms of the differential rela tionship between self and other representations for people from collectivis t versus individualist cultures.