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JUDIT NAGY
SELF-CONSTRUALS
Min-sun Kims concept of independent and interdependent self-construals
(2002) is an attempt at grasping cultural differences between Koreans and
North Americans. Ihis approach perceives the self as "a mediating variable
between culture and individual behavior." Forming "the most general and
overarching self-schemata in an individuals self-system," self-construals
pertain to "how people define themselves and their relationships with
other people," and they exert a marked influence on cognition, emotion
and motivation." According to this theory, the main difference between the
independent (Western) and the interdependent (Eastern) types of personality
is in how the self is related to others. It is important to point out that
independent and interdependent self-construals are not mutually exclusive.
In one aspect, a person can be one kind, in another, another kind, the two may
also apply together (biculturality), or neither can apply (marginality) along the
high and low degree of the two variables, independence and interdependence.®
This is exactly why the concept of the two types of self-construal is conducive
to the analysis of characters of mixed cultural background.
In six points, I will sum up the most important differences between the two
construal types, focusing on the features which will be used in my analysis of
Ann K. Choi’s novel that will follow.
Self-disclosure
To start with the features relating to self-disclosure, independent self-construal
stresses individual achievement, uniqueness and individuated preferences
(i.e. making one’s own choices),’? draws fixed boundaries between the self
and the other", regards dependence and unassertiveness as a weakness," and
understands Eastern self-criticism as self-deprecation.’* Due to the “higher
priority on maintaining independence and asserting individual needs and goals,
[...] communicative actions tend to be more self-focused and self-expressive.”!?
On the other hand, interdependent self-construal focuses on relationality (i.e.
Triandis, H.C., The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts, Psychological
Review, 96 (1989), 507.
5 Kim, Non-Western Perspectives on Human Communication, 16.
6 Ibid., 26.
7 Ibid. 16.
8 Ibid. 170.
9 Ibid., 121-129.
This separation is based on Cartesian philosophy: the goal of existence is to objectify the
self, to separate the individual from his/her context.
Kim, Non-Western Perspectives on Human Communication, 103.
2 Ibid. 129.
13 Tbid., 63.
* 160 +