Cultural differences in self-verification: The role of naive dialecticism

This research presents the first evidence of cultural differences in self-verification and the role of naive dialecticism in mediating these differences. Chinese, Asian-American. and non-Asian American students completed a series of personality tests, and were presented with bogus feedback that was either self-consistent or self-discrepant, and either positive or negative. Whereas non-Asians self-verified (i.e., tended to exhibit resistance), mainland Chinese and Asian-American participants tended to adjust their self-views when they received (either positive or negative) feedback that contradicted their prevailing self-conceptions. Mediated moderation analyses showed that naive dialecticism, mediated cultural differences in self-verification. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.