Cultural influences on terror management ...

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1002–1011

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Cultural influences on terror management: Independent and interdependent self-esteem as anxiety buffers Hongfei Du a,b,⁎, Eva Jonas c, Johannes Klackl c, Dmitrij Agroskin c, Eadaoin K.P. Hui a, Lijun Ma d a

The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Wayne State University, USA University of Salzburg, Austria d Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China b c

H I G H L I G H T S • Culture influences the type of self-esteem serving a terror management function. • Interdependent self-esteem serves a terror management function among collectivists. • Independent self-esteem serves a terror management function among individualists.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 1 March 2012 Revised 16 April 2013 Available online 9 July 2013 Keywords: Culture Terror management Interdependent self-esteem Independent self-esteem

a b s t r a c t Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that self-esteem serves as a defense against the fear of death. Previous research has suggested that independent self-esteem is more salient in individualist cultures, whereas interdependent self-esteem is more salient in collectivist cultures. Thus, we hypothesized that in collectivist cultures, independent self-esteem would play a lesser role and interdependent self-esteem a greater role in terror management, compared to individualist cultures. The results support this prediction. In Study 1, personal self-esteem was negatively associated with death anxiety in samples from a Western (Austria) and Eastern (China) culture. However, both self-liking and self-competence were negatively associated with death anxiety among Austrian participants, but only self-liking (and not self-competence) was so among Chinese participants. Surprisingly, collective self-esteem was not significantly correlated with death anxiety. Yet, Study 2 showed that among Chinese participants, relational self-esteem was negatively associated with death anxiety. Study 3 examined the roles of relational versus personal self-esteem in moderating the effects of mortality salience on worldview defense. Among Chinese participants, relational rather than personal self-esteem increased the defense of worldviews centered on collectivist-Chinese values following mortality salience (Study 3a). In contrast, among Austrian participants, personal rather than relational self-esteem attenuated the effect of mortality salience on the defense of individualist-Austrian worldviews (Study 3b). Self-esteem serves a terror management function in both collectivist and individualist cultures; however, the differences between cultural worldviews determine the type of self-esteem that is more relevant to terror management processes. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Terror management theory (TMT) claims that self-esteem serves as a buffer against existential anxiety. Self-esteem is derived from adhering to social standards of what constitutes a valuable member of society (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). Cross-cultural differences in social standards might therefore lead to different views of what it

⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Pediatrics, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI 48201, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Du). 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.06.007

takes to be a valuable person, possibly leading to different expressions of self-esteem in different cultures. It has been proposed that in individualist cultures, self-esteem is mainly based on the ability to express oneself and to validate internal attributes, whereas in collectivist cultures, it is based on the ability to adjust to the needs of others and to maintain harmony within the social context (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Yet, studies supporting the anxiety-buffer hypothesis of self-esteem have been conducted primarily in North America, Western Europe, and Israel and have focused on independent self-esteem (for a review, see Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004). Given the cultural differences in the construal of self-esteem, we reasoned that interdependent self-esteem, which is more salient in collectivist cultures (e.g., China, Japan), might alleviate East Asians' existential anxiety

H. Du et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (2013) 1002–1011

more effectively than independent self-esteem, which is more salient in individualist cultures.

TMT and culture TMT claims that human beings use cultural worldviews and selfesteem to protect themselves from deeply rooted anxiety (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). Numerous studies support this claim: For example, studies have found that mortality salience leads to positive evaluations of people who praise one's cultural worldview and negative evaluations of people who criticize it (Greenberg et al., 1990). Mortality salience has also been found to lead to harsher punishment recommendations for moral transgressors (Florian & Mikulincer, 1997) and increased striving for self-esteem (Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Chatel, 1992). Most of these studies were conducted in individualist Western cultures such as those in North America and Europe. But what about non-Western societies? Researchers have recently begun to test the cross-cultural validity of TMT by investigating responses to mortality salience in collectivist East Asian societies. Heine, Harihara, and Niiya (2002) examined the function of worldview defense as an anxiety buffer in Japan and found that Japanese participants indeed responded more negatively toward an anti-Japan writer following mortality salience. Other studies in Japan showed that mortality salience decreased the endorsement of individualist worldviews (Kashima, Halloran, Yuki, & Kashima, 2004) but increased the endorsement of modesty norms, which are cherished in East Asian cultures (Wakimoto, 2006). A similar pattern of responses has also been found in Chinese culture. When exposed to mortality reminders, Hong Kong Chinese showed increased ingroup bias (Tam, Chiu, & Lau, 2007), and mainland Chinese displayed an increased preference for a pro-China writer (Fu, 2010). In addition, mortality reminders led to increased nationalism (Routledge, Juhl, Vess, Cathey, & Liao, 2012) and decreased derogation of moral transgressors among Asians (Ma-Kellams & Blascovich, 2011). In Ke's (2009) study, Chinese undergraduates expressed a stronger desire to choose the products they liked and a weaker desire to seek other products or brands when exposed to news about death. In a Taiwanese sample, the orientation of resignation to fate, which determines death according to Confucianism and Taoism, was found to increase after mortality salience (Yen, 2012; Yen & Cheng, 2010, Study 4). Investigating the anxiety-protective function of offspring, Zhou, Lei, Marley, and Chen (2009) and Zhou, Liu, Chen, and Yu (2008) showed that pictures of newborn animals decreased the accessibility of death-related thoughts among Chinese participants. Together, these findings suggest that some of the effects typically found in response to mortality salience in Western cultures can also be obtained in East Asian cultures. However, not all studies provided supportive evidence for TMT. For example, among Taiwanese participants, mortality salience failed to induce more obedience among a military personnel sample (Chen, 2009) and failed to increase worldview defense (Yen & Cheng, 2010, Studies 1 and 2). Research examining cultural differences in death attitudes has shown that levels of death anxiety vary across cultures: Indian college students have been found to exhibit lower death anxiety than Australian and Canadian college students (McMordie & Kumar, 1984); Malaysian students have also reported lower death anxiety than Australian students (Schumaker, Barraclough, & Vagg, 1988), whereas Japanese students have been shown to have higher death anxiety than their Australian counterparts (Schumaker, Warren, & Groth-Marnat, 1991). Why Asians showed different levels of death anxiety from Westerners has not been determined. TMT proposes that people who hold a strong anxiety buffer will have low death anxiety. Therefore, this cultural difference in death anxiety may be partly due to a difference in the general availability of anxiety buffers between Asians and Westerners. However, it may also result from cultural-specific responses to mortality reminders.

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TMT and self-esteem According to TMT, high self-esteem should reduce the effects of mortality salience. In line with this, research has shown that experimentally enhanced self-esteem and dispositional self-esteem buffer mortality salience effects. For example, self-esteem boosts have been shown to eliminate the effect of mortality salience on self-reported anxiety (Greenberg, Solomon, et al., 1992), denial of vulnerability to early death (Greenberg et al., 1993), worldview defense, and death-thought accessibility (Arndt & Greenberg, 1999; Harmon-Jones et al., 1997). Moreover, Harmon-Jones et al. (1997, Study 2) revealed that dispositionally high self-esteem led to lower levels of worldview defense and death-thought accessibility after mortality was made salient. In East Asian cultures, however, little research on the anxietybuffering function of self-esteem exists. Zhang, Guo, and Tian (2005) found that Chinese participants who were high in personal self-esteem reported lower anxiety in response to mortality reminders than those low in personal self-esteem. Kashima et al. (2004) found that mortality salience led Japanese with low personal self-esteem to decrease their endorsement of individualist worldviews. Although these findings are generally in agreement with results from individualist cultures, the picture is still incomplete, because these latter studies (Kashima et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2005) looked at only the role of independent selfesteem, as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). If self-esteem is built on living up to social norms within culturespecific worldviews, as TMT proposes, collectivist cultures should tend to rely on interdependent self-esteem more than independent selfesteem, whereas individualist cultures should tend to rely more on independent self-esteem to buffer death anxiety. Thus, the general aim of our research was to examine both interdependent and independent self-esteem as anxiety buffers in collectivist and individualist societies.

Cross-cultural differences in the construal of personal, collective and relational self-esteem Self-esteem can be derived from a variety of sources via various identities, and individuals differ greatly in the contingencies on which self-esteem is based (Breckler & Greenwald, 1986; Crocker, 2002). Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986) distinguished between social and personal identity and posited that people can maintain a positive social identity, by identifying with specific groups (i.e., collective self-esteem), in addition to their positive personal identity (i.e., personal self-esteem). Personal or global selfesteem refers to how individuals perceive themselves and their personal attributes, such as competence and talent, whereas collective selfesteem refers to how individuals perceive themselves with respect to their social group. Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) found that collective self-esteem as a trait is distinct from personal self-esteem, and that the correlation between personal and collective self-esteem is only moderate (Crocker & Major, 1989; Porter & Washington, 1979). In a related vein, Brewer and Gardner (1996) differentiated three levels of self-construal: the personal self at the individual level, the relational self at the interpersonal level, and the collective self at the group level. The relational self refers to the self-concept derived from one's connections and role relationships with close others, such as parents and friends, and has been recognized as a significant facet of the self (Andersen & Chen, 2002; Brewer & Chen, 2007; Chen, Boucher, & Tapias, 2006). The relational self is linked to a tendency to maintain interpersonal relatedness, intimacy, and interdependence (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). It is also connected to distinct social motivations and has implications for self-esteem (Breckler & Greenwald, 1986; Triandis, 1989). Collectivists maintain a positive self-view through accomplishing tasks that are associated with significant others, whereas individualists achieve high self-esteem through internal attributes and via a selfserving bias (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

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Personal self-esteem is the self-evaluation of a personal identity, whereas both collective and relational self-esteem are self-evaluations of a social identity. Collective self-esteem is the evaluation linked to the impersonal bonds derived from common identification with specific social groups (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), whereas relational selfesteem is the evaluation linked to the personalized bonds of attachment with significant others (Brewer & Gardner, 1996).

Cross-cultural differences related to self-liking and self-competence Yet looking specifically at personal or global self-esteem may reveal culture-specific differences in the personal attributes from which people derive a positive view of themselves. Global self-esteem has been argued to consist of two components: self-liking and self-competence (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995, 2001). Self-liking refers to the evaluative experience of oneself as a good or bad person, which is founded on others' appraisals of one's own personal worth. Hence, self-liking is a more social or outer dimension of self-esteem and can be derived from moral character, attractiveness, and other social aspects. In contrast, selfcompetence is defined as “the valuative experience of oneself as a causal agent, an intentional being with efficacy and power” (Tafarodi & Milne, 2002, p. 444), which is founded on a personal history of successful goal-directed behavior. Thus, self-competence is a more autonomous or inner dimension of self-esteem. Building on the framework of the two dimensions of self-esteem, Tafarodi and his colleagues (Tafarodi, Lang, & Smith, 1999; Tafarodi & Swann, 1996) connected them with individualist and collectivist cultures. They argued that collectivist cultures are conducive to developing self-liking but not conducive to self-competence, whereas individualist cultures shape self-esteem in the opposite direction. In a collectivist culture, people receive strong social support and positive feedback from others, and this can be internalized as part of their evaluative experience of self-liking. However, people in collectivist cultures lose the opportunity to develop their abilities or skills because they tend to put others before themselves when their personal goals are inconsistent with the needs of others. Individualist cultures, in contrast, emphasize competition and personal achievement and accelerate the development of ability and the consolidation of the feeling of self-competence, but they provoke social conflict, which often deters others from giving positive feedback. Empirical studies have supported the self-competence argument. That is, individuals in collectivist cultures reported lower selfcompetence than individuals in individualist cultures (Tafarodi & Swann, 1996; Tafarodi & Walters, 1999; Tafarodi et al., 1999). Cai, Brown, Deng, and Oakes (2007) found that Chinese undergraduates scored lower on the dimension of self-competence than American undergraduates. However, contrary to Tafarodi et al.'s (1999) prediction on self-liking, Chinese and American undergraduates scored comparably on the self-liking dimension (Cai et al., 2007). In virtue of efficacy and power being at its core, self-competence is a dimension of self-esteem with individualist characteristics. But selfliking might bear both collectivist and individualist characteristics, because it relies on both external and internal evaluative experience. People in individualist cultures might not receive as many positive responses from others as people in collectivist cultures, but their internal positive self-views might counterbalance this. For example, Westerners have been found to think of themselves as better than others in terms of desirability and controllability (Alicke, 1985), morality (Van Lange, 1991), and conformity to desirable social norms (Codol, 1975). These self-serving biases might lead Westerners to view themselves as good people. In contrast, such self-serving biases are not common in collectivist cultures (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999), and people in collectivist cultures develop selfliking primarily by means of social support and positive feedback from others.

The present research In summary, cross-cultural research comparing North American and East Asian cultures has demonstrated that self-esteem in individualist cultures is defined through unique traits and personal achievement; self-esteem in collectivist cultures is defined through social roles and interpersonal self-evaluation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). TMT claims that personal self-worth serves to buffer anxiety related to one's inevitable mortality, but interdependent self-esteem has been entirely ignored in the TMT literature. We propose that culture determines the style of self-esteem striving and its anxiety-buffering function because the salience of a type of self-esteem depends on the characteristics of a specific culture. We hypothesize that independent self-esteem, such as personal selfesteem and self-competence, serves as a terror management mechanism relatively more in individualist cultures, whereas interdependent self-esteem, such as collective and relational self-esteem, functions relatively more in collectivist cultures. Self-liking has both individualist and collectivist characteristics so that it may work in both cultures. To address these hypotheses, we conducted four studies in which we examined the correlations and causal relationships between death anxiety and different types of interdependent self-esteem, as well as independent self-esteem. Study 1 examined the correlations between death anxiety and personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem, selfliking, and self-competence in Chinese and Austrian cultural contexts. Study 2 examined the correlation between relational self-esteem and death anxiety in the Chinese cultural context. Studies 3a and 3b investigated the moderating effects of personal versus relational self-esteem on mortality salience and worldview defense among Chinese and Austrian participants, respectively. The general goal of the present research was to test the hypothesis that people in collectivist cultures use interdependent self-esteem as a buffer against mortality concerns, whereas people in individualist cultures favor independent self-esteem. Study 1 We expected trait self-esteem to be negatively associated with trait death anxiety in Chinese and Austrian participants (see Amenta & Weiner, 1981; Davis, Bremer, Anderson, & Tramill, 1983; Gailliot, Schmeichel, & Baumeister, 2006, Studies 1A–C and 4; Stephen, Martin, Wilee, & James, 1978). We expected a strong negative relationship between collective self-esteem and death anxiety and a weaker relationship between personal self-esteem and death anxiety for the Chinese participants, whereas for Austrian participants, we expected personal self-esteem to be especially predictive of low death anxiety. In addition, we wanted to investigate if self-competence and self-liking function as buffers against mortality concerns among the Chinese and Austrian participants and if a cultural difference underlies the varying levels of death anxiety across cultures. We predicted that the Chinese participants would rely on mainly self-liking rather than self-competence to buffer mortality terror, whereas the Austrian students would rely on both self-competence and self-liking. Method Participants Participants were 140 Chinese undergraduates (57 males, 83 females) and 105 Austrian undergraduates (25 males, 80 females). The Chinese students were given a small gift for their participation and the Austrian students participated to fulfill a psychology course requirement. The average age of the Chinese participants was significantly lower (M = 19 years, SD = 1.08) than that of the Austrians (M = 21 years, SD = 2.12), t = − 5.39, df = 144.38, p b .001. None of the analyses revealed a significant effect of age, and age is not discussed further here.


Questionnaire The questionnaire was composed of four measures. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) measures the evaluation of personal self-worth with a 4-point Likert scale. The Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) consists of four subscales measuring membership self-esteem, private collective self-esteem, public collective self-esteem, and importance to identity, respectively (e.g., “I am a worthy member of the social groups I belong to”). The responses for this scale were made using a 7-point rating scale. The Self-Liking/ Self-Competence Scale—Reversed Version (Tafarodi & Swann, 2001) includes two subscales measuring self-competence (e.g., “I am highly effective at the things I do”) and self-liking (e.g., “I am secure in my sense of self-worth”) with a 5-point rating scale. Participants also completed the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970), which assessed attitudes and behaviors toward a wide range of life experiences related to death (e.g., “It doesn't make me nervous when people talk about death”). Participants were asked to make “true” or “false” responses.1 Total scores could range from 0 to 15, with higher scores indicating higher levels of death anxiety (Aday, 2006; Hintze, Templer, Cappelletty, & Frederick, 1993; Rasmussen & Brems, 1996; Rasmussen & Johnson, 1994). The end of the questionnaire contained demographic questions about participants' age, gender, and ethnocultural background. All scales were originally developed in English and then translated into Chinese and German. Back-translation and sequent rectification through consultation were done to ensure the equivalence of the three versions. Procedure The order in which the scales were administered was as mentioned above. Participants worked through these scales at their own pace. Results Correlations Table 1 contains the means, standard deviations, and reliabilities of the measures for the Chinese and Austrian samples. Table 2 shows the intercorrelations among the measures, separately for each culture. All measures showed acceptable reliabilities. Personal self-esteem was negatively related to death anxiety in both groups. Surprisingly, collective self-esteem did not show any significant correlation within either the Chinese sample or the Austrian sample. However and in line with our predictions, both self-liking and self-competence were negatively associated with death anxiety for the Austrians, but only self-liking showed a negative correlation with death anxiety among the Chinese participants. Personal self-esteem and collective self-esteem. Replicating the findings of prior research in which East Asians exhibited lower personal selfesteem with self-report measures than Westerners (Heine et al., 1999), Chinese participants scored lower than Austrian participants in personal self-esteem, t(243) = − 3.55, p b .05. However, no significant difference in collective self-esteem was found between the Chinese and Austrian samples, t(243) = 1.60, p = .11. Self-liking and self-competence. To examine the interplay between culture and the two dimensions of personal self-esteem, we submitted the data to a 2 (Culture) × 2 (Dimension: self-liking vs. self-competence) 1 Recent research suggests that the Death Anxiety Scale has good criterion validity; see, e.g., Gailliot et al. (2006), who found that self-control correlated negatively not only with Templer's (1970) Death Anxiety Scale but also with the number of word fragments completed with death-related words and the number of death thoughts listed with regard to ambiguous images. In addition, self-reported death anxiety has been found to increase following a mortality prime among individuals who lack perceptions of meaning in life (Routledge & Juhl, 2010).

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Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and Cronbach's alpha reliabilities for the Chinese and Austrian samples. Variable

Personal self-esteem Collective self-esteem Self-liking Self-competence Death anxiety

Chinese sample (n = 140)

Austrian sample (n = 105)

M

SD

α

M

SD

α

29.56 84.18 27.23 21.84 8.42

3.65 11.20 6.02 4.00 2.93

.78 .83 .83 .64 .70

31.69 81.82 26.93 25.53 7.05

5.28 11.70 7.00 5.28 2.99

.86 .84 .90 .81 .69

analysis of variance, with the latter factor as a repeated measure. This yielded significant main effects of dimension, F(1, 243) = 97.72, p b .001, with participants showing higher self-liking (M = 27.10, SD = 6.45) than self-competence (M = 23.42, SD = 4.93), and of culture, F(1, 243) = 7.15, p b .05, with the Chinese participants reporting lower self-esteem than the Austrian participants, which was consistent with the results for personal self-esteem. However, these main effects were qualified by the predicted two-way interaction between culture and dimension, F(1, 243) = 33.76, p b .001, which is consistent with previous research (Cai et al., 2007). Simple effects showed that the Chinese participants reported lower self-competence than the Austrian participants, t(243) = 38.95, p b .001, but there was no significant effect of self-liking, t(243) = 0.13, p = .72. The impact of culture, personal self-esteem, and collective self-esteem on death anxiety To test the interactive effects of culture and the two kinds of selfesteem, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis, regressing death anxiety on culture (China = 1, Austria = 0), personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem, and all two-way interactions. Personal self-esteem and collective self-esteem were centered on their respective means. Gender was also entered in the first step as a covariate (dummy coded 0 = female; 1 = male). See Table 3 for the standardized regression weights (βs) and their significance levels. The analysis revealed two significant main effects, of gender and culture. The former effect indicates that females scored higher on death anxiety than males. There was a marginally significant interaction effect of Culture × Collective Self-esteem. The pattern of that interaction suggests that the Chinese participants with higher collective selfesteem reported higher death anxiety than the Austrian participants with higher collective self-esteem, β = .34, t(237) = 3.51, p b .001, but the Chinese participants with lower collective self-esteem had comparable death anxiety to that of the Austrian participants with lower collective self-esteem, β = .07, t(237) = 0.78, p = 0.44 (see Fig. 1). The impact of culture, self-liking, and self-competence on death anxiety The Chinese participants reported higher death anxiety than the Austrian participants, and we tested whether this difference was mediated by self-competence and self-liking. To explore this hypothesis, we conducted mediational analyses following Baron and Kenny's (1986) procedure. If self-competence or self-liking mediated the relationship between culture and death anxiety, (a) culture (the independent variable) must predict death anxiety (the dependent variable); (b) culture must predict self-competence or self-liking (the mediator); and (c) the relationship between culture and death anxiety must be reduced, and self-competence or self-liking must predict death anxiety when the independent variable and mediator are simultaneously used to predict the dependent measure. First, culture was coded as China = 1 and Austria = 0 and was used to predict death anxiety. The results suggest a reliable correlation, β = .23, t(243) = 3.60, p b .001. For the second step, culture predicted self-competence, β = −.37, t(243) = −6.24, p b .001, but not self-liking, β = .02, t(243) = 0.35, p = .72. Given this result, we

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Table 2 Correlations among personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem, self-liking, self-competence, and death anxiety for the Chinese and Austrian samples. Variable

Chinese sample

Personal self-esteem (PSE) Collective self-esteem (CSE) Self-liking (SL) Self-competence (SC) Death anxiety (DA)

Austrian sample

CSE

SL

SC

DA

CSE

SL

SC

DA

.51⁎⁎⁎

.75⁎⁎⁎ .57⁎⁎⁎

.53⁎⁎⁎ .38⁎⁎⁎ .67⁎⁎⁎

−.20⁎

.48⁎⁎

.86⁎⁎ .39⁎⁎

.48⁎⁎ .32⁎⁎ .51⁎⁎

−.21⁎ −.12 −.24⁎ −.25⁎

.09 −.22⁎⁎ −.17

⁎ p b .05. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001.

tested only the mediating effect of self-competence. When death anxiety was regressed on both culture and self-competence, selfcompetence predicted death anxiety, β = −.22, t(242) = −3.25, p b .01, as did culture, β = .15, t(242) = 2.20, p b .05. A follow-up Sobel (1982) test revealed that the predictive value of culture significantly decreased when self-competence was added as a predictor, Sobel test statistic = 2.86, p b .01. Thus, self-competence mediated the relationship between culture and death anxiety. Discussion In Study 1, Chinese participants with higher collective self-esteem reported higher death anxiety than Austrian participants with higher collective self-esteem. This suggests that collective self-esteem was not an anxiety buffer specifically for the Chinese participants, which did not support our hypothesis. However, the result of Study 1 supports our prediction that selfcompetence, one dimension of global self-esteem, mediates cultural differences in death anxiety between the Chinese and Austrian participants. The Chinese participants reported higher death anxiety than the Austrian participants. At the same time, the Chinese participants scored lower than the Austrian participants on self-competence but scored comparably on self-liking. The mediation effect of selfcompetence indicates that the different levels of death anxiety between Chinese and Austrian samples may be due to their different levels of self-competence. Self-competence might serve an anxietybuffering function mainly in individualist cultures, which encourage people to be proud of their talent, skill, and ability, and people in individualist cultures (e.g., Austrians) can manage death-related concerns through self-competence. This might explain the lower levels of death anxiety, relative to people in collectivist cultures (e.g., Chinese). Given that self-liking showed a negative correlation with death anxiety in both cultures and did not mediate cultural differences in death anxiety, self-liking may function to assuage anxiety associated with awareness of death for people in both individualist and collectivist cultures.

Cross-cultural researchers have argued that the collective self may not be salient even for individuals in collectivist cultures and have argued that the relational self is more strongly emphasized than the collective self (Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Yuki, 2003). Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982) posits that a positive social identity can be achieved by means of identifying with specific groups. For East Asians, membership in their family and in a group of friends is more important than membership in larger-scale social groups. For example, Xiao (filial piety) is considered one of the most important virtues taught in the Confucian ideals: respect for parents. It is a widely held belief that filial piety is superior to all acts of kindness. Correspondingly, East Asians might place a greater emphasis on the evaluation of the relational self than on the evaluation of the collective self (Zheng, 2001). Thus, it is reasonable to assume that they employ relational self-esteem, rather than collective self-esteem, as an anxiety-buffer against mortality concerns. Study 2 The findings of Study 1 suggest that collective self-esteem may not serve as an anxiety buffer for Chinese. Study 2 aimed at testing the correlation between personal self-esteem, relational self-esteem, and death anxiety in a collectivist culture. We hypothesized that relational self-esteem, that is, self-evaluation involving significant others (e.g., parents, best friends), would be more negatively associated with death anxiety than personal self-esteem would be among the Chinese participants.

Table 3 Regression analyses assessing the effects of gender, culture, personal self-esteem, collective self-esteem, and their interactions on death anxiety. Predictor

Gender Culture (C) Personal self-esteem (PSE) Collective self-esteem (CSE) C × PSE C × CSE PSE × CSE Notes. N = 245. ⁎ p = .056. ⁎⁎ p b .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p b .001.

Step 1

Step 2

β

t(240)

β

t(237)

−.25 .21 −.23 .08

−4.10⁎⁎⁎ 3.24⁎⁎ −3.31⁎⁎

−.25 .20 −.14 −.07 −.15 .20 −.04

−4.11⁎⁎⁎ 3.18⁎⁎ −1.55 −0.65 −1.72 1.92⁎ −0.57

1.10

Fig. 1. Estimates of death anxiety for participants with higher collective self-esteem (CSE + 1SD) and lower collective self-esteem (CSE-1SD) in China and Austria. Higher and lower are defined as 1 standard deviation (SD) above and below the mean, respectively.


Method Participants Participants were 161 Chinese college students (52 males and 109 females) aged 17–32 years (M = 22, SD = 2.27). The data of five participants were excluded from the analyses because their scores on personal and relational self-esteem were more than three standard deviations away from the means (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Questionnaire and procedure The questionnaire was composed of four parts. Personal self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Relational self-esteem was measured with the eight-item Relational Self-Esteem Scale (Du, King, & Chi, 2012). The Relational Self-Esteem Scale assesses how individuals value themselves in their group of family or friends (e.g., “I am a worthy member of my circle of friends”) and how they value their own relational group of family or friends (e.g., “I am proud of my family”). Participants answered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Relational Self-Esteem Scale on a 4-point rating scale, with higher scores indicating higher self-esteem. In addition, participants answered true or false to eight questions that were taken from the Death Anxiety Scale (Templer, 1970). Next, participants' demographic information was collected. The participants were debriefed upon completion of the measures. Results Table 4 presents the reliabilities of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Relational Self-Esteem Scale, and the Death Anxiety Scale. Regarding the structure of the Relational Self-Esteem Scale, a confirmatory factor analysis revealed a one-factor model for this scale (χ2 = 29.73, df = 19, p = .06, the Comparative Fit Index = .94, the Tucker–Lewis Index = .92, the Root Mean Square of Approximation = .06), which indicates that relational self-esteem is a unidimensional construct (see also Du et al., 2012). To test our hypothesis that relational self-esteem would be uniquely negatively associated with death anxiety, contrary to personal self-esteem, we conducted a multiple regression analysis. Gender was coded as female = 0, male = 1 and entered as a control variable. Two predictors were personal self-esteem and relational selfesteem. See Table 5 for the standardized regression weights (βs) and their significance levels. The analysis revealed a significant main effect of gender, which is consistent with that observed in Study 1. Most importantly, there was also a significant partial effect of relational self-esteem, whereas there was no significant partial effect of personal self-esteem. Discussion Study 2 shows that for Chinese participants, relational self-esteem was negatively correlated with death anxiety. Moreover, relational self-esteem had a unique association with death anxiety, contrary to

Table 4 Correlations, means, standard deviations (SDs), and reliabilities of the measures used in Study 2. Statistics

Correlation with death anxiety Correlation with personal self-esteem M SD Cronbach's α ⁎ p b .01.

4.63 2.04 .66

Table 5 Regression analyses assessing the effects of personal self-esteem and relational selfesteem on death anxiety. Predictor

β

t(152)

Gender Personal self-esteem Relational self-esteem

−.18 −.07 −.19

−2.28⁎ −0.68 −2.00⁎

Note. N = 156. ⁎ p b .05.

personal self-esteem. These results suggest that in collectivist cultures relational self-esteem rather than personal self-esteem may serve a terror management function. However, according to TMT, mortality concern is an unconscious concern and motivates defenses relevant to worldview and selfesteem at an unconscious level (Arndt, Cook, & Routledge, 2004). Yet, in Studies 1 and 2 we measured the association between various types of self-esteem and death anxiety on a conscious level. Thus, to examine whether relational self-esteem mitigates the unconscious mortality concerns of East Asians, we next employed an experimental design that used the standard mortality salience paradigm to test whether relational self-esteem moderates the effects of mortality salience on worldview defense. We expected in our sample of Chinese participants that relational self-esteem rather than personal selfesteem would moderate mortality salience effects.

Study 3a To test if dispositional self-esteem (personal vs. relational) moderates the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense, we built on the research by Harmon-Jones et al. (1997, Experiment 2), who showed that high self-esteem reduced mortality salience effects on worldview defense. However, research also showed that when selfesteem is related to aspects of one's worldviews, high self-esteem increases the mortality salience effect on worldview defense (Arndt & Greenberg, 1999). According to TMT, self-esteem is attained by living up to social standards prescribed by worldviews so that in a given culture, culture-specific self-esteem would be highly relevant to cultural worldviews and social standards. Therefore, we predicted that culturespecific self-esteem would increase the effects of mortality salience on defense of the specific worldview that is highly relevant to the culture-specific self-esteem. Study 3a aimed to examine the function of personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem as terror management mechanisms in the Chinese cultural context. Specifically, Study 3a tested whether these two types of self-esteem moderate the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense. Based on previous literature and the findings of Study 2, we predicted that relational self-esteem, but not personal self-esteem, would display a moderating influence on the mortality salience effect, such that mortality salience would motivate Chinese participants higher in relational self-esteem to show stronger defense of their worldviews that address relationships with significant others than those lower in relational self-esteem.

Method

Measure Death anxiety

1007

Personal self-esteem

Relational self-esteem

−.22⁎

−.23⁎ .60⁎

29.07 3.27 .73

24.08 2.69 .69

Participants Participants were 44 Chinese college students (10 males and 34 females) aged 19–31 years (M = 23, SD = 3.74). They were randomly assigned to one of the conditions (mortality salience: salience vs. control). Four participants were excluded from the analyses because they failed to answer the self-esteem scale or worldview defense measure.

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Materials and procedure Participants were asked to complete the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and a relational self-esteem scale in a counterbalanced order. The relational self-esteem scale was the same as the one used in Study 2, except that two formerly reversed items were changed into nonreversed items to reduce response bias (Schmitt & Allik, 2005). Next, mortality salience was manipulated, whereby participants answered two open-ended questions. In the mortality salience condition, the two questions were (a) describe the feelings that the thought of your own death arouses in you, and (b) describe what you think will happen to you physically as you die and once you are dead. Two questions about television (TV) were used as the control condition (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997). Then, as a filler questionnaire, a Chinese version of the 20-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule was administered (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988; Ye, 2008). Participants next read two essays, after which they filled out an evaluation form (Greenberg, Simon, et al., 1992). The pro-China essay was favorable to the Chinese people and warmly praised filial piety and respect for parents. The essay contained examples of Chinese people attaching great importance to family and kinship, such as parents receiving expressions of filial piety from a son or daughter. Family is the most basic and significant unit in Chinese culture, and this is central to the Chinese worldview on relationships with significant others. We expected this essay to be more closely associated with relational than with personal self-esteem. In contrast, the anti-China essay heavily criticized the Chinese people for selfishness and hypocrisy. This essay accused Chinese people of caring only about personal interests and of trying by any means to achieve their purpose. Self-interest, an individualist characteristic, is not popular and welcomed in China. We expected this essay to be more relevant to personal than to relational self-esteem. The different types of worldviews in the two essays were used to eliminate biases regarding the relevance of worldview defense to self-esteem. The order of essay presentation was counterbalanced. Finally, the participants' demographic information was collected. Participants were debriefed and thanked.

Results Worldview defense To create a measure of pro-China preference as worldview defense, we subtracted the mean of the items for the anti-China essay (α = .89) from the mean of the items for the pro-China essay (α = .84). Higher scores indicated a stronger pro-China bias.2 We conducted a two-step hierarchical regression analysis for worldview defense. Mortality salience (dummy coded: Death = 1, TV = 0), personal self-esteem (α = .84), and relational self-esteem (α = .74) were entered in Step 1. Three cross-product terms representing the interactions between the three variables were entered in Step 2. Table 6 shows the standardized regression weights (βs) and their significance levels. The analysis revealed one main effect of relational self-esteem, which indicated that worldview defense scores tended to be higher for those with high relational self-esteem. Worldview defense was not significantly stronger in the mortality salience condition (M = 8.85, SD = 7.03) than in the control condition (M = 4.50, SD = 3.75). However, as predicted, the interaction effect of Mortality Salience × Relational Self-esteem was significant. Fig. 2 illustrates worldview defense scores for those with lower relational self-esteem (1 SD below the mean) and those with higher relational self-esteem (1 SD above the mean) under mortality salience and control conditions. Simple

2

We compared mortality salience and control conditions in terms of both positive and negative affect in Studies 3a and 3b and found no significant difference (ps N .12). The results suggested that mortality salience effects were not related to mood effects.

Table 6 Regression analyses assessing the effects of mortality salience, personal self-esteem, relational self-esteem, and their interactions on worldview defense. Predictor

Mortality salience (MS) Personal self-esteem (PSE) Relational self-esteem (RSE) MS × PSE MS × RSE PSE × RSE

Step 1

Step 2

β

t(36)

β

t(33)

.15 −.15 .50

0.89 −0.79 2.48⁎

.06 .10 .03 −.15 .74 −.35

0.33 0.35 0.09 −0.49 2.36⁎ −1.32

Note. N = 40. ⁎ p b .05.

slope tests revealed that following mortality salience, the higher relational self-esteem group showed increased pro-China preference, β = .61, t(33) = 2.29, p b .05, whereas the lower relational self-esteem group showed marginally decreased pro-China preference, β = −.49, t(33) = −1.51, p = .14. Discussion The results of Study 3a support our hypothesis that relational self-esteem moderates the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense, contrary to personal self-esteem. This result is consistent with the findings in Study 2 indicating that relational self-esteem was more associated with death concerns than was personal self-esteem for the Chinese participants. As predicted, when exposed to death reminders, individuals higher in relational self-esteem were strongly motivated to defend their worldview. In contrast, lower relational self-esteem reversed the effects of mortality salience on worldview defense. This pattern of responses has been reported previously (e.g., Baldwin & Wesley, 1996). The finding that self-esteem positively predicted worldview defense seems to contradict TMT, which posits that high self-esteem can eliminate the effects of mortality salience and thereby lead to a less defensive manner than low self-esteem. However, as mentioned above, the moderating effect of self-esteem on the effect of mortality salience depends on whether the defensive response (dependent measure) is relevant to self-esteem. In response to mortality salience, self-esteem decreases defensiveness when defensiveness is irrelevant to self-esteem but

Fig. 2. Estimates of worldview defense for participants with higher relational selfesteem (RSE + 1SD) and lower relational self-esteem (RSE-1SD). TV = control condition; MS = mortality salience condition; higher and lower are defined as 1 standard deviation (SD) above and below the mean, respectively.


increases defensiveness when it is relevant (Arndt & Greenberg, 1999). Relational self-esteem is strongly salient in Chinese culture and closely associated with cultural worldviews and social standards. Accordingly, our worldview defense measure in Study 3a addressed the importance of the filial piety parents receive from their children, and so mortality salience led people higher in relational self-esteem to show greater identification with and acceptance of cultural values. Study 3b Although relational self-esteem was found to be a more influential buffer than personal self-esteem for Chinese people in Study 3a, it is unclear what would be the case with Westerners. According to the hypothesis that Westerners would rely on independent self-esteem more than on interdependent self-esteem in response to death concerns, we expected to observe that personal self-esteem, rather than relational self-esteem, would moderate worldview defense in an Austrian sample. Study 3b aimed at examining this assumption and used the same design as in Study 3a except that the worldview-threatening essays were tailored to threaten the Austrian individualist cultural worldview. These essays defended or attacked Austrian culture-specific values but were not particularly relevant to personal or relational self-esteem. Therefore, we expected that the results would be consistent with TMT's original prediction that only participants with lower personal self-esteem would show worldview defense following mortality salience. Method Participants Participants were Austrian college students. They were recruited via a university mailing list and were randomly assigned to one of the conditions (mortality salience: salience vs. control). To preserve high data quality, only participants who were unaware of the true intent of the study, had not participated in a similar study before, did not take breaks or do other activities (e.g., writing emails, chatting) during the online questionnaire completion, and explicitly agreed with the use of their data were included in the sample, which contained 60 participants. Participants' mean age was 27.1 years (SD = 8.73; range: 18–55). Materials and procedure After reading the instructions, participants completed a short survey on demographic information including nationality, educational status, gender, and age. Then, participants were asked to answer personal self-esteem and relational self-esteem scales, two questions on mortality or TV salience, and positive and negative affect scales. All scales were identical to those used in Study 3a.3 The reliabilities of the self-esteem scales were good again (personal self-esteem: 11 items, α = .94; relational self-esteem: 8 items, α = .86). The measure on worldview defense followed, which included two versions of appraisals of Austrians and the evaluation forms with five questions. Participants were told that two German students had answered a question about how they perceived Austrians compared to Germans and Austria compared to Germany. One version of the appraisal was positive with regard to Austrians, as Austrians were described as “sociable, cozy, relaxed, friendly, open-minded, and helpful.” The other version of the appraisal was negative, as Austrians were depicted as “xenophobic, conservative, smart-alec, rude, and arrogant.”4 After reading each appraisal, participants evaluated the appraisal by answering five questions that were the same as the evaluation forms in Study 3a. Finally, participants were debriefed and thanked.

3 The sole difference was that the personal self-esteem measure included the item “I have high self-esteem” (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001) in addition to the 10 classic items from Rosenberg (1965), for the purpose of additional validity. 4 These appraisals were obtained through a separate pretest, which showed that there are German students in Austria who really perceive Austrians in this way.

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Table 7 Regression analyses assessing the effects of mortality salience, personal self-esteem, relational self-esteem, and their interactions on worldview defense. Predictor

Mortality salience (MS) Personal self-esteem (PSE) Relational self-esteem (RSE) MS × PSE MS × RSE PSE × RSE

Step 1

Step 2

β

t(56)

β

t(53)

.03 −.003 .21

0.24 −0.02 1.20

.03 −.12 .30 −.36 .12 .02

0.21 −0.69 1.39 −2.09⁎ 0.64 0.20

Note. N = 60. ⁎ p b .05.

Results Worldview defense A composite measure of pro-Austria preferences as worldview defense was created by subtracting the mean of the items for the negative appraisal from the mean of the items for the positive appraisal of Austrians. Higher scores indicate a stronger pro-Austria bias. To test the hypothesis that the tendency of Austrians to defend their worldview following mortality salience may be moderated by personal but not relational self-esteem, we performed moderated regression analyses. Specifically, we entered the manipulation (coded as Death = 1, TV = 0), personal self-esteem, relational self-esteem, and the interactions between mortality salience and personal self-esteem, mortality salience and relational self-esteem, and both self-esteem scales as predictors, as well as worldview defense as dependent variable. As predicted, solely the interaction between mortality salience and personal self-esteem reached significance, β = −.36, t(53) = −2.09, p = .04. Table 7 shows the standardized regression weights (βs) and their significance levels. Simple slope analyses revealed that mortality salience marginally increased worldview defense under conditions of lower self-esteem (SD = −1), β = .38, t(53) = 1.84, p = .066, but not higher self-esteem (SD = 1), β = −.33, t(53) = −1.57, p = .117.5 In contrast, the interaction between mortality salience and relational self-esteem was not significant, β = .12, t(53) = 0.64, p = .52. Thus, our hypotheses concerning the moderation of mortality salience effects on worldview defense by personal (but not relational) self-esteem for Austrians were supported. Discussion The results of Study 3b support the hypothesis that personal rather than relational self-esteem moderates the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense among Westerners. Moreover, as we expected because the worldview defense measure was unrelated to people's selfesteem, people with lower self-esteem showed increased worldview defense following mortality salience. This finding is in line with TMT's original prediction for self-esteem as an anxiety buffer (Pyszczynski et al., 2004) as well as many studies (e.g., Harmon-Jones et al., 1997). Taken together with Study 3a, the findings indicate that in individualist cultures (e.g., Austria), people tend to use personal self-esteem as a buffer against mortality, whereas in collectivist cultures (e.g., China), people tend to exert relational self-esteem to buffer death concerns. Interestingly, the pattern of worldview defense in this study is opposite to that in Study 3a, which highlights the importance of the measure of worldview defense and its relation to self-esteem. These two studies

5 Note that analyzing personal self-esteem at SD = ±1.5 resulted in a significant increase of mortality-salience-induced worldview defense under conditions of low selfesteem (SD = −1.5), β = .56, t(53) = 1.99, p = .047, but not high self-esteem (SD = 1.5), β = −.51, t(53) = 1.78, p = .074.

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offer supportive evidence that when the values in the worldview measure are relevant to self-esteem, higher self-esteem increases worldview defense, whereas when the values are irrelevant to self-esteem, lower self-esteem increases worldview defense (Arndt & Greenberg, 1999). However, in future cross-cultural studies it would be interesting to more systematically distinguish between relational vs. personal selfesteem and self-esteem related versus unrelated to worldview defense. General discussion The results of the three studies suggest that interdependent self-esteem plays a crucial role in terror management processes in the Chinese cultural context. Study 1 found that Chinese participants reported higher death anxiety and lower self-competence than their Austrian counterparts. Cultural differences in death anxiety were due to cultural differences in self-competence. Furthermore, among Chinese participants relational self-esteem showed a stronger negative association with death anxiety than with personal self-esteem (Study 2), and relational self-esteem strengthened worldview defense following mortality salience (Study 3a). Study 3b indicated that among Austrian participants personal but not relational selfesteem served as an anxiety buffer. This research supports TMT's claim that self-esteem is a key variable in understanding how human beings cope with deeply rooted anxiety. However, our results also indicate that individuals from different cultural backgrounds maintain and employ different types of self-esteem for terror management. Given that both self-esteem and worldviews are culturally based constructions and fundamental anxiety buffers, integrating the cultural aspects of self-esteem and worldviews into current theorizing can maximize the generalization of TMT. Previous research used primarily Western individualist samples and identified personal self-esteem as an important buffer against existential anxiety. In the present studies, however, interdependent self-esteem (e.g., relational self-esteem) played a prominent role as an anxiety buffer for East Asians. These differences are likely to stem from different worldviews prescribed by individualist and collectivist cultures (Kashima, 2010). Interestingly, relational self-esteem, rather than collective selfesteem, was found to buffer anxiety in Chinese participants. Both kinds of self-esteem are based on social extensions of the self, that is, the relational self and the collective self. However, the social connections shared in the relational self are personalized bonds of attachment, including relationships such as parent–child, lovers, and friendships, whereas the social connections in the collective self are impersonal bonds relating to common identification with some symbolic group or social category (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). East Asians place more value on the relational self than the collective self (Heine, 2001), and the self-evaluation derived from relational identity is more substantial than that from collective identity. Hence, personal mortality concerns might be assuaged more strongly by relational self-esteem. Study 1 indicated that both self-competence and self-liking negatively predicted death anxiety among Austrian participants, whereas in the Chinese participants, only self-liking was negatively associated with death anxiety. We argue that this is because Western individualist cultures might develop both self-liking and self-competence to mitigate the threat of mortality. On the other hand, East Asians in collectivist cultures seem to rely more on self-liking and less on self-competence in developing shields against mortality concerns. This does not preclude that East Asians might get anxiety relief from self-competence. However, considering that self-liking is relatively more important and salient in East Asian cultures, people most likely rely on self-liking more than on self-competence in the terror management process. The current research has a number of limitations. In Studies 1 and 2, fears of death assessed through self-reported scales reflected death concerns at a conscious level. Individuals may suppress death concerns when thinking about their mortality so that the self-reported

death anxiety may be distinct from unconscious mortality concerns (Greenberg et al., 1995). Hence, caution is needed in comparing the current results with studies aimed at unconscious death concerns. In addition, although Study 3a suggests that relational self-esteem has a terror management function for Chinese people by moderating the effects of mortality salience on worldview defense, it did not directly test the assumption that relational self-esteem reduces death anxiety. Future research should directly test this assertion. TMT posits that the anxiety-buffering function of self-esteem relies on its cultural meaning. People achieve a sense of self-worth and thereby alleviate mortality concerns through complying with social norms and endorsing cultural beliefs. The rich diversity of culture makes it possible for people to endorse different values and pursue different kinds of self-esteem as their anxiety buffers. Our research provides direct evidence for this assumption and highlights personal versus relational self-esteem in terror management processes of individualists and collectivists. Acknowledgments This research was supported by funding to Hongfei Du from the Eurasia-Pacific Uninet Scholarships and to Dmitrij Agroskin from the Doctoral College “Imaging the Mind” of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF-W1233). References Aday, R. H. (2006). Aging prisoners' concerns toward dying in prison. OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, 52, 199–216. Alicke, M. D. (1985). Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1621–1630. Amenta, M. M., & Weiner, A. W. (1981). Death anxiety and purpose in life in hospice workers. Psychological Reports, 49, 920. Andersen, S. M., & Chen, S. (2002). The relational self: An interpersonal social-cognitive theory. Psychological Review, 109, 619–644. Arndt, J., Cook, A., & Routledge, C. (2004). The blueprint of terror management: Understanding the cognitive architecture of psychological defense against the awareness of death. In J. Greenberg, S. L. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp. 35–53). New York, NY: Guilford. Arndt, J., & Greenberg, J. (1999). The effects of a self-esteem boost and mortality salience on responses to boost relevant and irrelevant worldview threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1331–1341. Baldwin, M. W., & Wesley, R. (1996). Effects of existential anxiety and self-esteem on the perception of others. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18, 75–95. Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529. Breckler, S. J., & Greenwald, A. G. (1986). Motivational facets of the self. In R. M. Sorrentino, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition, Vol. 1. (pp. 145–164). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Brewer, M. B., & Chen, Y. (2007). Where (who) are collectives in collectivism: Toward conceptual clarification of individualism and collectivism. Psychological Review, 114, 133–151. Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83–93. Cai, H., Brown, J. D., Deng, C., & Oakes, M. A. (2007). Self-esteem and culture: Differences in cognitive self-evaluations or affective self-regard. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 162–170. Chen, Y. C. (2009). The effect of mortality salience on obedience: Moderation of charismatic leadership and mandate property (in Chinese). Fu Hsing Kang Academic Journal, 95, 53–80. Chen, S., Boucher, H. C., & Tapias, M. P. (2006). The relational self revealed: Integrative conceptualization and implications for interpersonal life. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 151–179. Codol, J. P. (1975). On the so called ‘superior conformity of the self’ behavior: Twenty experimental investigations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 457–501. Crocker, J. (2002). Contingencies of self-worth: Implications for self-regulation and psychological vulnerability. Self and Identity, 1, 143–149. Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608–630. Davis, S. F., Bremer, S. A., Anderson, B. J., & Tramill, J. L. (1983). The interrelationships of ego strength, self-esteem, death anxiety, and gender in undergraduate college students. The Journal of General Psychology, 108, 55–59. Du, H., King, R. B., & Chi, P. (2012). The development and validation of the Relational Self-esteem Scale. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 258–264.

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