The Cultural Construction of Self-Enhancement:
An Examination of Group-Serving Biases

Steven J. Heine and Darrin R. Lehman
University of British Columbia

Please address correspondence to:
Steven J. Heine or Darrin R. Lehman
Department of Psychology
2136 West Mall
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C.  Canada V6T 1Z4
E-mail: sheine@unixg.ubc.ca or dlehman@cortex.psych.ubc.ca

In press: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: ASC

Running Head: CULTURE AND GROUP-SERVING BIASES

Abstract
Self-serving biases, found routinely with Western samples, have not been observed with Asian samples.  Yet given the orientation toward individualism and collectivism in these 2 cultures, respectively, it is imperative to examine whether or not parallel differences emerge when the target of evaluation is the group.  It may be that Asians show a group-serving bias parallel to the Western self-serving bias.  In two studies, group-serving biases were compared across European-Canadians, Asian-Canadians, and Japanese.  Study 1 revealed that Japanese evaluated a family member less positively than did both groups of Canadians.  Study 2 replicated this pattern with students’ evaluations of their universities.  The data suggest that cultural differences in enhancement biases are robust, generalizing to individuals’ evaluations of their groups.

The Cultural Construction of Self-Enhancement:
An Examination of Group-Serving Biases
	Research in cultural psychology has underscored the notion that many psychological processes are not universal, that is, that culture plays an important role in influencing the ways that people think, feel, and view themselves.  However, interpreting cultural differences obtained in psychological experiments is a nontrivial task.  The favored interpretation of cultural psychologists is that the psychological process under study is shaped by the culture and hence varies across cultures (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991b; Shweder & Bourne, 1984).  Competing with this cultural view is a more prosaic interpretation: That is, the methodology of the experiment was more meaningful and relevant to one of the cultures, thereby indicating superficial and misleading cultural differences (Berry, 1969; Hui & Triandis, 1985; Triandis, 1978).  Given that many social psychological paradigms have emerged within Western, “individualistic” cultures, we may indeed have stacked the deck against finding comparable results when studying individual-based psychological processes in Eastern, “collectivistic” cultures.  Perhaps some failures to replicate common Western findings are attributable to the “imposed etic” of our individually-based methodologies (Berry, 1969).  
	One way of reducing this cultural bias in our Western methodologies is to explore targets of evaluation that are more meaningful within Eastern cultures.  In contrast to the individualistic view of self common in Western cultures, Eastern cultures are characterized by a view of self that encompasses the important groups to which people belong (Markus & Kitayama, 1991b; Triandis, 1989).  Accordingly, employing individuals’ groups as targets is a significant step in moving beyond the limitations inherent in individual-centered methodologies.
Cultural differences in self-enhancement
	One domain of cross-cultural research that may be particularly susceptible to the potential imposed-etic effects of an individual-based methodology is self-enhancement.  Self-enhancement research typically examines how individuals view themselves as individuals in unrealistically positive terms.  The results of such research have revealed the various ways in which North Americans distort their views of themselves such that they appear, for example, overly competent and optimistic, and more in control (for reviews, see Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Greenwald, 1980; Taylor & Brown, 1988).  As is the case in the bulk of research on the self, self-enhancement research has focused almost exclusively on Westerners.
    	Research in cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology, however, has demonstrated that such unrealistically positive views of the self are not common in Eastern cultures, particularly in Japan.  For example, Markus and Kitayama (1991a) found that Japanese do not demonstrate a false-uniqueness bias (i.e., the tendency to see oneself as uniquely talented or better than most people on a given dimension), although this effect has consistently been observed among North Americans (e.g., Campbell, 1986; Marks, 1984).  Moreover, Japanese do not show this effect even when evaluating themselves on attributes which they view as most important to succeeding in their culture (Heine & Lehman, 1996c).  A number of studies have demonstrated that Japanese fail to show self-serving attributional biases (for a review, see Kitayama, Takagi, & Matsumoto, 1995).  This is despite the marked tendencies of North Americans to attribute success to internal factors and failure to external factors (for a review, see Zuckerman, 1979).  In contrast to the robust unrealistic optimism effects found with North Americans (e.g., Perloff & Fetzer, 1986; Weinstein, 1980), Japanese do not show much evidence for optimism biases, and in some situations are actually unrealistically pessimistic (Heine & Lehman, 1995a).  Furthermore, Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, and Norasakkunkit (in press) demonstrated that whereas Americans view everyday life in terms of opportunities for self-enhancement, Japanese view it in terms of opportunities for self-criticism.  We know of no studies that have demonstrated consistent self-serving biases with Japanese, or, for that matter, with people from any Eastern culture.
Two Interpretations
	One interpretation of these cultural differences in self-serving biases is that they reflect differences in motivations to view oneself as especially positive or competent (Heine & Lehman, 1995a, 1996a; Heine, Lehman, Kitayama, & Markus, 1996;  Kitayama, Markus, & Lieberman, 1995; Markus, Kitayama, & Heiman, in press).  Heine et al. (1996) argue that these cultural differences in self-enhancement are observed because Western (particularly North American) culture encourages people to think positively about themselves as a means to approach the culturally-defined ideals of independence and autonomy.  They maintain that the construction of the typical North American’s identity as a meaningful cultural entity hinges on the identification and confirmation of positive internal attributes of the self.  The elaboration of positive self-attributes and the denial or neglect of negative attributes are thus rewarded in North America by a cultural validation of the individual.  Hence, enhancing one’s self-assessments enables North Americans to maintain the subjective feeling of being authenticated by their culture (cf., Greenwald, 1980; Taylor & Brown, 1988).
	In contrast, Eastern (particularly, Japanese) culture encourages people to strive to fit in with their groups.  The Japanese self is defined as a relational entity that is made meaningful in reference to the pertinent social relationships to which the self is part (Hamaguchi, 1985; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b; Nakamura, 1964).  Therefore the construction of the typical Japanese individual’s identity as a meaningful cultural entity involves the validation of the individual’s social relationships by constantly seeking to identify and confirm shared expectations and norms.  The identification of positive internal attributes of the self does not aid individuals in gaining a sense of belongingness.  Possessing, let alone enhancing, a positive evaluation of the individual self ought not be a primary concern for Japanese.  Hence, this cultural explanation argues that the very process of self-enhancement is not as meaningful to Japanese as North Americans.
	A very different interpretation of the cultural differences in self-enhancement is that they result from a methodological artifact.  Given that cross-cultural studies of self-enhancement typically employ a target of evaluation that is theoretically more meaningful to those from Western cultures (i.e., the individual self), it is reasonable to be concerned that studies demonstrating an absence of self-enhancing tendencies among Japanese are due to their evaluation of a target that is inconsequential to them.  Perhaps people from both Western and Eastern cultures have similar tendencies to enhance themselves, yet they enhance the view of self most meaningful to them.  That is, individualistic North Americans may be motivated to enhance their individual selves, whereas Japanese may be motivated to enhance their collective selves.  This view suggests that past cultural differences in self-enhancement might reflect differences in content (the target of the evaluation) rather than differences in process (the motivation to see the self, or one’s group, in a positive light; Greenfield, in press; Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1996).  If this is the case, Japanese should exhibit group-serving biases at a comparable level to North Americans’ self-serving  biases.
	Perspectives reflecting the “differences in content” position have emerged in the psychoanalytic literature of the Japanese.  For example, Roland (1988) maintains that there is a parallel between Americans being concerned with their “I-self regard” and Japanese being concerned with their “we-self regard.”   Similarly, Johnson (1993) argues that Japanese are socialized to transform their feelings of personal narcissism and vanity into a sense of group-pride and collective narcissism.  And De Vos (1973) contends that Japanese aspire towards succeeding as a group in contrast to Americans’ aspirations to succeed as individuals.  These perspectives suggest fundamental similarities in underlying psychological processes between Japanese and North Americans, yet differences in the nature of the self that these processes sustain.
Culture and Group-Serving Biases
	These two opposing views of the nature of previously detected cultural differences in self-serving biases make opposite predictions regarding cultural differences in group-serving biases.  The “differences in process” view assumes that North American culture places greater importance on viewing oneself positively than does Japanese culture (Heine et al., 1996; Kitayama et al., in press).  To the extent that one’s groups reflect upon the individual, this view predicts that North Americans would exhibit group-serving biases to a greater extent than Japanese.  That considerable research conducted in the West shows that feelings of self-worth are promoted by positive evaluations of individuals’ groups (e.g., Brown, Collins, & Schmidt, 1988; Lemyre & Smith, 1985; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) suggests that group-serving biases may indeed serve to enhance the individual self as well.
	In contrast, the “differences in content” view assumes the existence of similar motivations for self-enhancement across cultures.  An implication of this view is that self-serving biases should be most prominent when individuals evaluate their most meaningful view of self.  Given the collectivist, group-oriented nature of the Japanese (Hamaguchi, 1985; Kondo, 1987; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b), switching the target from the individual to the individual’s group should yield a view of self more meaningful to Japanese than to North Americans.  To the extent that motivations to enhance the self are similar across cultures, Japanese should show more pronounced group-serving biases than North Americans.
Past research on group-serving biases
	A review of studies of group-serving biases with Asian (albeit primarily non-Japanese) and North American participants is more in line with the “differences in process” view.  Group-serving bias studies with Asian participants have yielded inconsistent results (Fletcher & Ward, 1988).  We located three studies that found evidence for group-serving biases in people from Asian cultures.  Taylor and Jaggi (1974) found that Hindus made internal attributions for other Hindus who performed socially desirable acts and external attributions for those who acted in socially undesirable ways.  In contrast, when Hindus made attributions for the behavior of Muslims the reverse pattern was found.  This study is problematic, however, because Muslims are a minority group of lower status than Hindus, and the reciprocal attributions from this group had not been solicited (Hewstone & Ward, 1985).
	Hewstone, Bond, and Wan (1983) reported that Chinese students from two universities in Hong Kong made group-serving attributions favoring their respective universities.  In a later study, somewhat limited evidence of group-serving biases in terms of sex-typed behaviors was found for Hong Kong Chinese students (Bond, Hewstone, Wan, & Chiu, 1985).  However, the robustness of group-serving effects with Chinese participants is challenged.  Bond et al. (1985) discovered that American students displayed a more pronounced group-serving bias for sex-typed behaviors than did Chinese, and a study of Chinese in Singapore by Hewstone and Ward (1985) found no evidence for group-serving biases at all.  Hence, studies of group-serving biases with Chinese have not presented a clear picture.    
	Two recent studies with Japanese participants have failed to demonstrate group-serving biases.  Kitayama, Palm, Masuda, Karasawa, and Carroll (1996) measured perceptions of vulnerability to earthquakes in two high-risk cities both in Japan and in the United States.  Results showed that Americans from both cities demonstrated group-serving tendencies by stating that the other city was slightly less prepared for earthquakes than their own.  In contrast, Japanese participants from both cities reported that their own city was significantly less prepared than the other.  That is, Japanese showed unrealistic pessimism towards their own city.
	Heine and Lehman (1995a) presented Japanese and Canadians with a list of possible negative future life events that specifically threatened the individual’s interpersonal network.  They found that Japanese demonstrated even less unrealistic optimism (or more unrealistic pessimism) for these events than they did for events that simply threatened the individual.  This pattern was not obtained for the Canadian participants.  At least for studies exploring perceived risk, then, Japanese have not been found to exhibit group-serving biases.  Japanese feel that their groups are at least as threatened, if not more so, than other people’s groups.  Taken together, the past evidence for group-enhancing biases among Asians is not compelling.
	In contrast, there is considerable evidence that North Americans do exhibit group-serving biases.  North American research has shown that attributional biases, whereby individuals take credit for successes and explain away failures (see Zuckerman, 1979), generalize to the group level: For example, players and coaches of baseball and football teams make more attributional biases regarding their wins and losses than do sportswriters (Lau & Russell, 1980); individuals are at least as, if not more, self-serving when they interpret their spouses’ outcomes as when they interpret their own outcomes (Fincham, Beach, & Baucom, 1987); and people make group-serving attributions when their group succeeds and jointly absolve each other of responsibility when their group fails (Forsyth & Schlenker, 1977).  Other self-serving biases have been shown to generalize from oneself to one’s friends.  For example, individuals view positive personality traits to be more characteristic of their close friends than they are for others (Brown, 1986), and people believe that future negative life events are more likely to happen to the average other than to their close friends (Perloff & Fetzer, 1986).
	A study by Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, and Ingerman (1987, Study 2) demonstrated group-serving biases among sorority members.  They found that members of sororities evaluated rival sororities more negatively than their own, particularly when the participants were members of low-status sororities themselves.  Brown et al. (1988) investigated group-serving biases in a minimal-groups paradigm.  They demonstrated that individuals tended to evaluate products made by their in-groups more positively than those made by out-groups and that this effect was more pronounced after participants received negative feedback.  Cialdini and Richardson (1980) found that students viewed their university more positively than a rival university, particularly following failure feedback.    	Cialdini et al. (1976) demonstrated that individuals affiliate themselves more with successful than unsuccessful groups.  They argued that individuals feel good about themselves when they are associated with positively-viewed groups because they are able to bask in the reflected glory of the group’s success.  Conversely, when their groups are viewed negatively, individuals are motivated to distance themselves from this reflected failure (e.g., Cialdini et al., 1976; Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986; Taylor & Mettee, 1971).  
	For North Americans, affiliating themselves with positively-viewed groups and holding unrealistically positive views of their groups appear to enhance their self-evaluations (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).  Group memberships, even for “independently-oriented” North Americans, form an important part of their individual self-concepts (e.g., James, 1950/1890), thereby suggesting that individual self-evaluations are served by enhancing one’s group-evaluations.  Research (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) showing that collective self-esteem (i.e., the extent to which one views one’s social groups positively) is correlated positively with global self-esteem corroborates this relation.  Moreover, that some of the aforementioned group-enhancement studies (e.g., Brown et al., 1988; Cialdini et al., 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980; Crocker et al., 1987) demonstrated increased group-serving tendencies when participants were confronted with threats to the self underscores the self-enhancing role that they play.
Present Research
	We sought to pit the “differences in process” view and the “differences in content” view against each other by investigating how individuals evaluate the people to whom they are connected and the groups to which they belong.  In the first study, we measured how Canadians and Japanese evaluated a close family member relative to others and how they evaluated themselves relative to others.  In the second study, we compared how Canadian and Japanese students evaluated their own and a rival university.  In both studies we assessed collective self-esteem as another means to investigate how positively people evaluate their groups.
	Because the Canadian data were collected in Vancouver, a city with a large Asian community, we partitioned the Canadian data for both studies into those of European and Asian ancestry.  This third cultural group, “Asian-Canadians,” although heterogeneous in terms of country of origin and length of time/number of generations in Canada, falls between the groups of European-Canadians and Japanese in terms of exposure to Western cultural values (Heine & Lehman, 1996b).  To the extent that culture mediates evaluations of one’s groups, we anticipated that Asian-Canadians would exhibit group-serving biases intermediate to those of European-Canadians and Japanese.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants
	The Japanese sample consisted of students from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto who completed the questionnaire packet 1 month before leaving Japan for a 7-month study-abroad program in Canada.  Of the 93 students in the program, 82 (55 females and 27 males) agreed to participate in the study.  It deserves mention that these students, in choosing to live abroad for an academic year, may be more “Western-oriented” than the average Japanese.  If anything, however, this should reduce the likelihood of observing cross-cultural differences.
	The Canadian sample consisted of 151 students enrolled in introductory psychology classes at the University of British Columbia (UBC).  This sample was separated by ethnic background to further examine cultural differences.  Forty-four (28 females and 16 males) declared themselves to be of Asian heritage and formed what we term the Asian-Canadian sample.  Seventy-five (57 females and 18 males) declared themselves to be of European heritage and formed what we term the European-Canadian sample.  The remaining 32 students were of varied ethnic backgrounds (e.g., mixed-ethnicities, Latin-American descent, African descent, etc.) and were not included in the analyses.
Materials
	All data were collected by questionnaire.  Following some demographic questions, participants were asked to write down the name of, and their relation to, the member of their family to whom they felt closest.  They were then asked to indicate how close they were to this family member on a scale from 1 (not at all close) to 10 (extremely close).  Next, they were asked to complete a section of the questionnaire to assess their degree of family-member serving biases: They were asked to estimate the percentage of the population of the same age and sex as their chosen family member that was better than this family member with respect to 10 traits.  Five of these traits were chosen to be particularly meaningful to the independent view of self (attractive, interesting, independent, confident, and intelligent) and five traits were chosen to be particularly meaningful to the interdependent view of self (cooperative, loyal, considerate, hard-working, and dependable; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b).
	Subsequently, participants were asked to complete a section of the questionnaire that assessed their degree of self-serving biases: They were asked to estimate the percentage of the population of the same age and sex as themselves that was better than them with respect to the same 10 traits.  Last, participants completed Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item Global Self-Esteem Scale and Luhtanen and Crocker’s (1992) Collective Self-Esteem (CSE) Scale.  The CSE Scale is composed of four 4-item subscales: membership, private, public, and identity.  Membership CSE refers to the extent to which individuals feel that they are worthy members of their social groups.  Private CSE indicates how satisfied one is about being a member of her or his social group.  Public CSE assesses how individuals feel that others view their social groups.  Finally, Identity CSE measures the importance of an individual’s social group to her or his self-concept.  Both Rosenberg’s and Luhtanen and Crocker’s self-esteem scales were completed using 5-point Likert scales from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).
	The materials were originally produced in English and then translated into Japanese.  Then, after an independent translator back-translated the Japanese version into English, three translators discussed and resolved any inconsistencies between the versions.
Results and Discussion
Comparability of the Samples
	There was a significant difference in the average ages of the three samples, F(2, 198) = 5.44, p < .01, with post-hoc comparisons (Tukey’s HSD for unequal ns for all post-hoc comparisons in Studies 1) revealing that the European-Canadian sample (M = 21.2 years) was significantly older than either the Asian-Canadian sample (M = 19.9 years) or the Japanese sample (M = 20.0 years).  However, given that correlational analyses revealed that age did not significantly relate to any of the dependent variables (all rs between -.10 and .03, ns), it is unlikely that this age difference confounded the cultural comparisons.  Each of the samples was predominantly female; 67% of Japanese, 64% of Asian-Canadians, and 76% of European-Canadians were female.  Sex was included as a factor in all analyses; however, for the sake of brevity, main effects for sex, and sex  culture interactions, are reported only when they reached conventional levels of significance.
Self-Serving and Family-Serving Biases
	Self-serving biases (SSBs) and family-serving biases (FSBs) were operationalized  as the discrepancy between participants’ overall estimates and what would be expected if participants answered accurately.  It is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain precisely what entails “accurate” responding by individuals.  If we can assume a normal distribution of the population, and that our samples are not substantially different from the general population at large with respect to the traits, then, on average, there should be approximately 50% of the population better than the research participants and their family members.  We realize that these assumptions are debatable.  Samples consisting of university students may reasonably be argued to be “better than average” on certain traits.  However, lacking more objective criteria, we adopted the 50% benchmark as the touchstone from which to describe the magnitude of enhancement biases.  This operationalization of “bias” exists simply for illustrative purposes.  Our primary concern is with the cultural differences in the magnitude of self-enhancing biases, not the absolute magnitude of the biases per se.  The lack of precision of the comparative benchmark does not compromise the cultural comparisons.  Employing this 50% benchmark, SSBs and FSBs were calculated by subtracting each of the participant’s population estimates for the 10 traits from 50%.  Any estimate that was significantly less than 50% across the entire sample was termed an enhancement bias.
	The 5 interdependent and the 5 independent traits were analyzed separately to assess whether participants responded to them differently.  Reliability tests for each set of 5 traits were conducted for both measures of SSBs and FSBs.  Cronbach’s alphas were .81 and .79 for interdependent and independent FSB traits, and .84 and .86 for interdependent and independent SSB traits, respectively.  This indicates that, within each set of traits, participants tended to estimate that roughly the same percentage of people were better than either them or their family member regardless of the traits under consideration.  Therefore, the 5 traits were averaged for both sets of independent and interdependent traits for both measures of SSBs and FSBs to give an overall estimate of the degree of bias.
Self-Serving Biases.  First, examining the independent traits for the SSB measure, a significant Sex  Culture interaction emerged, F(2, 193) = 3.29, p < .04.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that Japanese women estimated that significantly more people were better than them (52.5%) than did Japanese men (42.1%; F[1, 79] = 8.09, p < .01).  Japanese women did not show evidence of SSBs for the independent traits as their estimates were not significantly different from 50%, t < 1.  In contrast, Japanese men showed a significant overall SSB, t(25) = 2.33, p < .05.  No sex differences emerged for either Asian-Canadians, F < 1, or European-Canadians, F(1, 73) = 2.97, p < .09, and thus males and females were examined together (see Table 1).  Both Asian- and European-Canadians’ self-estimates were significantly less than 50%, t(42) = 5.80 and t(74) = 13.12, respectively, both ps < .001, across the 5 traits, thereby exhibiting a pronounced overall SSB for the independent traits.
	A highly significant main effect for culture emerged, F(2, 193) = 27.65, p < .001, which post-hoc comparisons revealed was the result of both Asian- and European-Canadians demonstrating a more pronounced self-serving bias than Japanese, and Asian-Canadians falling squarely between.  Hence, a clear relation between SSBs and culture was observed for the independent traits.
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	Next, an examination of the interdependent traits for the SSB measure again revealed a significant Sex  Culture interaction, F(2, 191) = 4.45, p < .02.  Simple-effects analyses revealed a similar pattern to the independent traits in that Japanese women estimated that significantly more people were better than them with respect to the interdependent traits (47.6%) than did Japanese men (40.3%; F[1, 78] = 5.31, p < .03).  Japanese women did not show evidence of SSBs for the interdependent traits as their estimates were not significantly different from 50%,  t(53) = 1.37, ns, whereas Japanese men again showed significant SSBs, t(25) = 3.37, p < .01.  These analyses did not reveal any sex differences for either Asian-Canadians, F(1, 40) = 2.13, ns, or European-Canadians, F(1, 73) = 1.07, ns, for the interdependent traits and thus males and females were again examined together.  Replicating the pattern for the independent traits, both Asian- and European-Canadians’ self-estimates showed pronounced SSBs, t(41) = 11.28 and t(74) = 19.61, respectively, both ps < .001, across the 5 interdependent traits.
	The analysis with the interdependent traits also revealed a highly significant main effect for culture, F(2, 191) = 43.32, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons demonstrated that both Asian- and European-Canadians showed a more pronounced self-serving bias than did Japanese.  The magnitude of the bias for Asian-Canadians was between that of European-Canadians and Japanese, as we anticipated, although it did not differ significantly from the European-Canadians.  
	The final set of analyses conducted on the SSBs were comparisons of the magnitude of the bias between the independent and interdependent traits.  Repeated measures analyses revealed that Japanese, F(1, 78) = 3.16, p < .08, Asian-Canadians, F(1, 40) = 18.77, p < .001, and European-Canadians, F(1, 73) = 4.91, p < .03, each showed more pronounced biases for the interdependent traits than for the independent traits.  Interdependent traits, then, appear to lend themselves more to self-enhancement irrespective of culture.
Family-Serving Biases.  Next, participants’ evaluations of their family members were assessed for group-serving tendencies.  Analyses of FSBs for the independent traits revealed no effects for sex nor a sex by culture interaction.  A highly significant main effect for culture again emerged, F(2, 190) = 18.49, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons revealed that both Asian- and European-Canadians reported that a significantly smaller percentage of the population was better than their family member, compared to Japanese.  Again, the population estimates of Asian-Canadians fell between European-Canadians and Japanese in terms of the magnitude of the bias, although the difference with European-Canadians was not significant.  All samples showed significant FSBs as their estimates were less than 50%, t(78) = 7.00, t(41) = 8.82, and t(74) = 17.95, all ps < .001, for Japanese, Asian-Canadian, and European-Canadians, respectively, yet the tendency was more pronounced for both samples of Canadians.  Moreover, the magnitude of FSBs was significantly larger than the magnitude of SSBs for the independent traits within each sample, F(1, 76) = 15.37, F(1, 40) = 11.04, and F(1, 73) = 5.34, all ps < .03, for Japanese, Asian-Canadians, and European-Canadians, respectively.
	Next, an examination of the FSBs for interdependent traits revealed a similar pattern.  The only significant effect was a main effect for culture, F(2, 190) = 12.84, p < .001, which post-hoc comparisons revealed was again the result of Japanese estimating that a significantly greater percentage of the population was better than their family member, compared to both Asian- and European-Canadians.  The population estimates of Asian-Canadians again were intermediate to those of European-Canadians and Japanese, although they were not significantly different from those of European-Canadians.  Significant FSBs for the interdependent traits were demonstrated by all cultural groups, t(78) = 11.98, t(41) = 11.77, and t(74) = 20.99, all ps < .001, for Japanese, Asian-, and European-Canadians, respectively.  As was the case for the independent traits, the magnitude of FSBs was significantly larger than the magnitude of SSBs for the interdependent traits within each cultural group, F(1, 76) = 43.83, F(1, 40) = 8.92, and F(1, 73) = 8.46, all ps < .005, for Japanese, Asian-Canadians, and European-Canadians, respectively.
	Last, repeated measures analyses for the FSBs were conducted between the independent and interdependent traits.  Significant effects emerged for each cultural group (Japanese, F[1, 77] = 16.86, p < .001, Asian-Canadian, F[1, 40] = 12.32, p < .002, and European-Canadian, F[1, 73] = 11.42, p < .002), again with the interdependent traits having larger biases than the independent traits.  Regardless of whether participants made estimates for their family members or for themselves, and across the cultural groups, more pronounced biases were evident for the interdependent traits than for the independent traits.  This result may be owing to the possibilities that the interdependent traits are less concrete, and that participants have had less experience being evaluated on them.  As research (e.g., Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989; Felson, 1981) on self-enhancement in North America has shown, the more intangible the characteristic, the more likely people are to demonstrate a bias.
Summary.  Reinforcing past cross-cultural studies of self-serving biases (Heine & Lehman, 1995a, 1996c; Kitayama et al., in press; Markus & Kitayama, 1991a), we found that, when evaluating themselves, Japanese estimates did not deviate much from the 50% benchmark (although the self-serving effect was evident for Japanese men).  Typically in the literature, however, North Americans exhibit pronounced self-serving biases (for reviews, see Greenwald, 1980; Taylor & Brown, 1988), and likewise, in Study 1, both Asian- and European-Canadians’ estimates deviated substantially from the 50% benchmark, significantly more than did the Japanese estimates, for both independent and interdependent traits.  That Asian-Canadians exhibited results between the two more homogeneous cultures further corroborates the notion that self-serving biases are more pronounced in Western cultures.
	In the present study we were primarily interested in examining positive evaluations towards one’s group.  When evaluating a close member of their family, Japanese demonstrated a family-serving bias in that their population estimates were less than the 50% benchmark and were significantly more biased than were their self-evaluations for both sets of traits.  By itself, this trend could be seen as support for the “differences in content” view—that is, “group-oriented” Japanese showed more pronounced group-serving biases than they did self-serving biases (as assessed by the 50% benchmark).  However, both Asian- and European-Canadians also demonstrated significantly more pronounced biases when evaluating their family members than when evaluating themselves, and importantly, these biases were significantly more pronounced than they were for Japanese.  So although people from each of the cultural groups exhibited FSBs, both samples of Canadians did so significantly more than did Japanese.  That Asian-Canadians exhibited results that were between European-Canadians and Japanese underscores the relation between Western culture and positively-biased views about one’s family.  We suggest that this cross-cultural pattern of results supports the “differences in process” view.
	One artifactual possibility for why members of both cultures enhanced more for their family members than for themselves deserves comment.  Given that participants chose the family member that they felt closest to, it is plausible that this individual may have been selected, in part, because he or she was deemed to possess several positive characteristics.  Perhaps one reason that participants rated their family members more positively relative to others, than they did for themselves, is that they selected their “best” family member—someone who may be, in their eyes, “better than average.”  This issue suggests that perhaps the 50% benchmark may not be the most appropriate point from which to assess FSBs.  This potential artifact, however, does not reduce the importance of the finding that both groups of Canadians rated their family member more positively than did Japanese.
Cultural Differences on the Self-Esteem Scales
	Replicating past research (Bond & Cheung, 1983; Campbell, Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavallee, & Lehman, 1996; Mahler, 1976), a significant difference emerged between the cultural groups in terms of global self-esteem, F(2, 194) = 11.38, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons revealed that European-Canadians had significantly higher global self-esteem scores than Japanese.  Again, Asian-Canadians fell in the intermediate range, but they were not significantly different from either of the other two samples.
	Significant main effects for culture emerged on 2 of the 4 subscales of Luhtanen and Crocker’s CSE measure.  A significant ANOVA, F(2, 194) = 8.10, p < .001, followed by post-hoc comparisons, revealed that European-Canadians had significantly higher membership CSE scores than Japanese.  Asian-Canadians fell between the other two samples, but did not differ significantly from either sample.  European-Canadians, then, viewed themselves to be more worthy members of their social groups than did Japanese.  As this subscale consistently correlates highly with global self-esteem (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) and the items are similar to global self-esteem items in terms of evaluating an individual’s self-worth, this cultural difference may reflect the tendencies of North Americans to think more highly of themselves as individuals than Japanese (Heine et al., 1996).
	A similar main effect for culture emerged for public CSE,1 F(2, 193) = 6.03, p < .01.  Again, European-Canadians endorsed the items in this measure significantly more than did Japanese, and Asian-Canadians fell nonsignificantly between the two.  Thus, European-Canadians felt that others evaluated their social groups more positively than did Japanese.  Reflecting the obtained cultural difference in the magnitude of FSBs, this is evidence that European-Canadians have more positive views of their groups than do Japanese.  The intermediate results of Asian-Canadians adds further support to this notion.
	Cultural differences did not emerge for either the private or identity subscales of the CSE Scale, both Fs < 1.  None of the three cultural groups differed in their satisfaction with their memberships in their social groups, nor with the importance they ascribed to their social groups in influencing their identity.
Correlations Between FSBs and Other Dependent Measures
	An examination of the correlations between the magnitude of the FSBs for both independent and interdependent traits and the other dependent measures suggests how family-member enhancement is related to self-enhancement for Canadians.  First, both Asian- and European-Canadians exhibited highly significant positive correlations between the percentage of people they viewed as better than themselves and the percentage they viewed as better than their close family members for both independent and interdependent traits (see Table 2).  The more likely individuals were to see themselves in a positive manner relative to others the more likely they were to view their family members in such a way.  Self-enhancement, then, is closely tied to family-member enhancement for both groups of Canadians.  Japanese exhibited significant positive correlations between their SSBs for independent traits and both types of FSBs, but not between their SSBs for interdependent traits and FSBs.  Hence, they too displayed some tendencies (albeit inconsistent) to think better of their family-members, relative to others, if they thought well of themselves.  However, with the exception of the correlation between SSBs for independent traits and FSBs for interdependent traits, both the Asian-Canadian and the European-Canadian correlations were significantly or marginally significantly larger than the Japanese correlations (the ps on these other 3 correlations ranged from .001 to .08), suggesting that the relation between self-enhancement and family-member enhancement is less pronounced for Japanese than it is for both groups of Canadians.
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	Second, European-Canadians exhibited significant negative correlations between how close they reported being to their family member and the percentage of people they estimated being better than that family member for both independent and interdependent traits, ps < .002.   That is, the closer European-Canadians felt to their family member, the better they thought their family member was relative to others.  This suggests that European-Canadians enhance themselves indirectly when they rate their family member positively.  In contrast, Japanese did not exhibit significant correlations between their reported closeness to their family member and their estimates of the percentage of the population better than this person for either set of traits, both n.s.  The European-Canadian correlations were marginally greater in magnitude than those of the Japanese, both ps < .10.  Japanese did not evaluate their family members more positively when they felt closer to them, and thus FSBs do not appear to be an indirect form of self-enhancement for Japanese.  The same correlations for Asian-Canadians fell between the European-Canadians and Japanese, but did not reach significance, both n.s.   There was no difference in the magnitude of the correlations between Asian-Canadians and either of the other two cultural groups, both n.s.
	 Third, European-Canadians exhibited a significant negative correlation between their global self-esteem score and the percentage of people they estimated being better than their family member for both types of traits (both ps < .03).  Viewing one’s family member in positive terms was thus related to how European-Canadians evaluated themselves.  For Japanese and Asian-Canadians there was no relation between these two variables, all n.s.  Last, there were no consistent patterns of correlations between FSBs and the subscales of the CSE scale.  
	European-Canadians’ tendencies to display family-serving biases, then, seem to reflect their own positive feelings about themselves.  For European-Canadians it appears that thinking positively about their family members is one way of thinking positively about themselves, although the direction of this causal relation is not clear.  They appear to bask in the reflected glory of their family members (Cialdini et al., 1976).  Aside from the correlations between SSBs for independent traits and the two sets of FSBs, the Japanese results do not indicate that thinking positively about their family members serves to enhance themselves.  The relations between FSBs and positive self-feelings were inconsistent for the Asian-Canadians.  It is important to note that, given that the standard deviations for all the variables were comparable across the cultural groups, the attenuated correlations for Japanese do not appear to be a function of a restricted range, or of Japanese demonstrating moderacy response styles (see Chen, Lee, & Stevenson, 1995).
	Taken together, Study 1 demonstrates that Japanese exhibit some tendencies to enhance their family members, but that these tendencies are not as strong as they are for European-Canadians, nor are they as strongly linked to their self-evaluations.  In addition, Japanese exhibited significantly lower public CSE than European-Canadians indicating that they felt that others evaluated their groups less positively.  That the results of Asian-Canadians were, for the most part, between these two cultural groups increases our confidence that positive views of one’s group are more pronounced for people from Western compared to Eastern cultures.

STUDY 2
	One limitation of Study 1 is that the target of evaluation for the FSBs, although not the self, is still an individual.  Perhaps the obtained cultural difference in FSBs reflects a relative hesitation by Japanese to view any individual in unrealistically positive terms.  A positively biased evaluation of an individual might highlight how that individual is different from others—something which may have negative psychological consequences for Japanese (Markus & Kitayama, 1991b).  Study 2 thus focused specifically on cultural differences in evaluating the groups to which one belongs, in this case participants’ universities.
Method
Universities
	Two universities were selected from both Japan and Canada.  Care was taken to select universities that would be comparable across the two cultures.  For the Japanese sample, Doshisha University and Ritsumeikan University were selected.  Both universities are located in Kyoto, Japan, a city of approximately 1.3 million.  Doshisha and Ritsumeikan are both private schools of similar size, and although there are a number of other universities in and around Kyoto, these two universities have had a historical rivalry.  The rankings of Japanese schools are well-publicized and change little from year to year.  Doshisha and Ritsumeikan are commonly known as the 3rd and 4th best private schools in Western Japan, respectively.  The academic standards necessary for entry are slightly higher for Doshisha than for Ritsumeikan.
	The University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University (SFU) were selected for the Canadian sample.  Both of these universities are located in greater Vancouver, Canada, which has a population of approximately 1.8 million.  The two are both public schools and being the only universities in the Vancouver area, they too have had a rivalry.  Although the ranking of Canadian schools is not particularly clear-cut, both schools are typically viewed quite positively.  A recent national survey showed that UBC and SFU were rated as having the 2nd and 4th best overall reputations in Canada, respectively (Maclean’s, November 14, 1994).  The academic standards necessary for entry are slightly higher for UBC than for SFU.
Participants
	Eighty-six introductory psychology students (57 females, 27 males, and 2 who did not report their sex) formed the sample from Doshisha.  The Ritsumeikan sample consisted of 141 students (63 females and 78 males) from an urban studies course.  All Japanese participants had Japanese parents, and all but one were born in Japan.
	The UBC sample comprised 191 introductory psychology students, and the SFU sample comprised 178 introductory psychology or research methods students.  As in Study 1, we separated these Canadian samples in terms of their ethnic background.  Fifty-eight (37 females, 21 males) students from UBC and 47 (33 females, 14 males) students from SFU declared themselves to be of Asian ancestry and were termed “Asian-Canadians.”  One hundred and six (74 females, 32 males) students from UBC and 108 (81 females, 27 males) students from SFU declared themselves to be of European ancestry and were termed “European-Canadians.”  The remaining 27 students from UBC and 23 students from SFU were of varied ethnic descent and were not included in the analyses.
Materials
	Participants were first asked to evaluate characteristics of universities and students for both their and their rival university.  They were provided with 5 statements about the characteristics of the two universities and 10 statements about the characteristics of students from the two universities, and they were asked to indicate how accurate the statements were on a 1 (Not at all accurate) to 6 (Completely accurate) scale (see Appendix A).  We selected half of the characteristics of students to be typical of the independent view of self and half to be typical of the interdependent view of self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991b).  Two versions of the questionnaires were counter-balanced such that half of the participants evaluated their own university first and half evaluated their rival university first.  
	Participants then completed a modified version of Luhtanen and Crocker’s (1992) Collective Self-Esteem Scale.  All 16 items on the scale were altered by replacing the generic target “my social group” with the more specific target “my university.”  Hence, the scale measured what we term “university self-esteem” (USE).  As in the original measure, there were four subscales of membership, private, public, and identity USE.  Previous research (Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) has shown that such modifications do not compromise the psychometric properties of the scale.  
	Participants were then asked how well they knew students from their rival university.  This item was included as a control for differences in the familiarity of students with their rival universities.  Two items followed that served as additional measures of university-enhancing tendencies.  The first item was “Overall, I think that UBC/Doshisha is a better school to go to than SFU/Ritsumeikan,” and the second item was “I think that most UBC/Doshisha students are glad that they went to UBC/Doshisha instead of SFU/Ritsumeikan.”  These final 2 items were included to test for cultural differences in university-serving tendencies employing different kinds of measures.  Finally, participants completed some demographic items.  All materials were originally produced in English and then translated into Japanese using the same procedure as in Study 1.
Results and Discussion
Comparability of the Samples
	An ANOVA revealed significant age differences across the groups, F(5, 535) = 9.08, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons (Tukey’s HSD for unequal ns for all analyses in Study 2) revealed that the only difference was that the European-Canadian SFU sample (M = 23.0 years old) was significantly older than each of the other samples (Ms ranged from 20.3 to 20.9 years old).  However, correlations within cultures with age and all of the dependent variables revealed a significant correlation in only one isolated instance, which will be discussed later.
	The samples differed with respect to proportions of the sexes, 2[5, N = 546] = 31.1, p < .001.  Sex was included as a factor for all analyses.  No significant interactions with sex were observed, and only two isolated significant main effects for sex emerged.  For the sake of brevity, aside from these two exceptions, analyses with sex will not be discussed.
Comparisons of Evaluations of Universities and Students
	Reliability analyses revealed that the university evaluation scale (Cronbach’s alphas for the four target universities ranged from .68 to .82), the independent trait scale (alphas ranged from .67 to .82), and the interdependent trait scale (alphas ranged from .70 to .79) all formed reasonably cohesive measures (especially given that the scales consisted of only 5 items each) and indicated that participants tended to evaluate the universities and students from the universities in roughly the same way regardless of the characteristics under consideration.  The items from each of these 3 measures were therefore summed to form composite measures for analyses.
University Evaluations.  We first examined whether students would evaluate their own universities or students from their universities more positively than would students from their rival universities, and conversely, whether students would rate their rival universities or students from those universities more negatively than would students from those universities.  We term this tendency a university-serving bias (USB). A repeated-measures design was used to analyze participants’ evaluations of their own and their rival universities for all analyses.  In line with the “differences in process” view, we anticipated that USBs would be more pronounced for European-Canadians than for Japanese.
	A 3-way (Culture  School  Target) analysis was first conducted for the 5-item university-evaluation measure.  The predicted three-way interaction was significant, F(2, 537) = 15.04, p < .001, so follow-up analyses of School  Target interactions were conducted within each culture.  First, examining the Japanese sample, the 2-way interaction was significant, F(1, 224) = 13.74, p < .001.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this interaction is accounted for by the fact that, although students from both universities evaluated Ritsumeikan less positively than Doshisha, students from Ritsumeikan viewed the relative superiority of Doshisha to be greater than did students from Doshisha,2 F(1, 139) = 142.99, p < .001, and F(1, 85) = 17.62, p < .001, for students from Ritsumeikan and Doshisha, respectively.  That is, the university evaluations from both Ritsumeikan and Doshisha students reflect the common knowledge that Doshisha has higher academic standards than Ritsumeikan, yet the interaction is evidence for a university-effacing bias (see Table 3).  In stark contrast to what would be expected if Japanese were group-serving, Ritsumeikan students believed that Doshisha is more superior to Ritsumeikan than did Doshisha students.
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	The 2-way interaction was also significant for European-Canadians, F(1, 210) = 15.12, p < .001.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this interaction was accounted for by the fact that, although students from both universities evaluated UBC more positively than SFU, UBC students viewed the gap between UBC and SFU as larger than did SFU students, F(1, 104) = 73.85, p < .001 and F(1, 106) = 14.23, p < .001 for students from UBC and SFU, respectively.  In sum, the university evaluations made by the European-Canadian students from UBC and SFU both reflected the higher academic standards of UBC, but UBC students saw the relative superiority of UBC as greater than did SFU students.  This interaction is evidence of USBs for European-Canadians.
	The 2-way interaction was marginally significant for Asian-Canadians, F(1, 103) = 3.18, p < .08.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this marginal interaction was accounted for by the fact that, although students from both universities evaluated UBC more positively than SFU, UBC students viewed the gap between UBC and SFU as marginally larger than did SFU students, F(1, 57) = 17.14, p < .001 and F(1, 46) = 6.14, p < .02 for students from UBC and SFU, respectively.  The marginal USB exhibited by Asian-Canadians thus falls between the evaluations of the other two cultural groups.
Independent Trait Evaluations.  The same analyses were conducted for evaluations of the students for the independent traits.  Again, the predicted 3-way (Culture  School  Target) interaction was significant, F(2, 528) = 3.84, p < .03.  Follow-up analyses demonstrated that Japanese did not exhibit a significant School  Target interaction, F(1, 219) = 2.43, p > .10.  That is, they did not exhibit either significant university-serving or university-effacing biases for the independent traits.  Simple-effects analyses by school did reveal, however, that Doshisha students viewed Doshisha students more positively than Ritsumeikan students, F(1, 82) = 4.53, p < .05, whereas the Ritsumeikan students showed no difference, F < 1.  Hence, the Japanese showed a non-significant trend towards USBs for the independent traits.
	A highly significant School  Target interaction emerged for the European-Canadians for the independent traits, F(1, 208) = 23.69, p < .001.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this was due to UBC students rating UBC students more positively than they rated SFU students, F(1, 102) = 7.91, p < .01, and SFU students rating SFU students more positively than they rated UBC students, F(1, 106) = 16.84, p < .001.  That is, the European-Canadian samples exhibited strong USBs for the independent traits.
	The Asian-Canadians also exhibited a significant School  Target interaction, F(1, 101) = 15.90, p < .001.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that, similar to European-Canadians, this was due to UBC students rating UBC students more positively than they rated SFU students, F(1, 56) = 11.91, p < .01, and SFU students rating SFU students more positively than they rated UBC students, F(1 ,45) = 5.28, p < .05.  Asian-Canadians thus also clearly exhibited USBs for the independent traits.
Interdependent Trait Evaluations.  The identical analyses were conducted for the interdependent traits.  The 3-way (Culture  School  Target) interaction was again significant, F(2, 526) = 4.88, p < .01.  Follow-up analyses for the Japanese again revealed an absence of a significant School  Target interaction, F < 1.  Japanese did not exhibit either university-serving or university-effacing biases for the interdependent traits.  Simple-effects analyses by school revealed, interestingly, that students from both Doshisha, F(1, 82) = 17.46, p < .001, and Ritsumeikan, F(1, 137) = 30.80, p < .001, were in agreement in terms of rating Ritsumeikan students more positively than Doshisha students.  Despite the consensus that Doshisha is a better school than Ritsumeikan, students from both schools viewed Ritsumeikan students more positively than Doshisha students with respect to the interdependent traits.
	Unlike the analyses for the university evaluations and for the independent traits, the School  Target interaction was not significant for the European-Canadian sample for the interdependent traits, F(1, 208) = 1.76, n.s.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that neither school exhibited significant differences in the evaluations of students for the interdependent traits.  This anomalous finding was unexpected, standing as the only instance in either Study 1 or Study 2 where European-Canadians failed to demonstrate group-serving tendencies.
	In contrast to the European-Canadians, the Asian-Canadians did exhibit a significant School  Target interaction, F(1, 99) = 11.15, p < .01.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this was due to UBC students rating UBC students more positively than they rated SFU students, F(1, 54) = 9.58, p < .01, and SFU students rating SFU students marginally more positively than they rated UBC students, F(1, 45) = 3.13, p < .09.  Asian-Canadians therefore demonstrated USBs for the interdependent traits.
Summary.  In sum, aside from the one exception of European-Canadians evaluations of the interdependent traits, the above results indicate that both groups of Canadians exhibited USBs when they evaluated their universities and students from their universities.  The tendencies to enhance the groups to which they belong are thus evident for both Asian- and European-Canadians.  In contrast, Japanese students exhibited university-effacing biases when evaluating their universities and no significant biases when evaluating students from their universities for either independent or interdependent traits.  These data, then, provide no evidence that Japanese enhance the groups to which they belong.  This pattern of results goes directly against the “differences in content” view that Japanese enhance themselves via their groups.  Unlike Study 1, no clear pattern was observed across the samples with respect to participants' evaluations of the independent and interdependent traits.  Perhaps our earlier speculation that the less tangible interdependent traits lend themselves to greater self-enhancement occurs only when participants are evaluating the percentage of the population that is better than them.  When participants are specifically evaluating 2 targets, their own and their rival university, the magnitude of the bias may not hinge on the tangibility of the traits.
Between-Culture Comparisons of University Self-Esteem Subscales
	The four subscales of the modified version of the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) exhibited good reliability (Cronbach’s alphas ranged from .82 to .86), especially given that each subscale is composed of only four items.  The items on the university self-esteem (USE) subscales thus hung together well despite our alterations from the generic target of participants’ social groups to the specific target of participants’ universities.
	Between-culture comparisons revealed significant differences for three of the four subscales.  Replicating Study 1, a highly significant main effect for culture emerged for membership USE, F(2, 576) = 123.52, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons revealed that European-Canadians scored significantly higher than both Asian-Canadians and Japanese, and Asian-Canadians were significantly higher on this measure than Japanese (see Table 4).  That is, both Canadian samples viewed themselves to be more valuable members of their universities than Japanese, and Asian-Canadians fell between European-Canadians and Japanese.  Again, given the high correlation between membership CSE and global self-esteem (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), this effect likely reflects cultural differences in individual self-esteem (e.g., Bond & Cheung, 1983; Campbell et al., 1996).
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	Also replicating Study 1, a significant main effect for culture emerged with respect to public USE, F(2, 577) = 50.16, p < .001.  Post-hoc comparisons revealed that European-Canadians had significantly higher public USE scores than both Asian-Canadians and Japanese, and Asian-Canadians scored significantly higher than Japanese.  European-Canadians felt that others evaluated their university more positively than did Japanese, and Asian-Canadians fell in between.  This latter finding further supports the notion that Westerners have more positive views of their groups than do Japanese.3
	Again replicating Study 1, there was no cultural difference with respect to the identity USE subscale, F(2, 576) = 2.22, p > .10.  Canadians and Japanese did not differ with respect to the degree to which they reported that their universities influence their individual identities.4
	Finally, unlike in Study 1, a significant main effect for culture emerged for private USE, F(2, 579) = 19.79, p < .001.  Tukey’s comparisons revealed that European-Canadians felt more satisfied with belonging to their universities than did either Asian-Canadians or Japanese, and Asian-Canadians scored nominally higher than Japanese.  
Additional Items
	Analyses were conducted on the final three items of the questionnaire.  The first item (“I know students from [name of rival university] very well”) was included as a covariate for all analyses.  Perhaps the magnitude of USBs was affected by how well participants knew students from their rival schools.  ANCOVAs revealed, however, that this variable did not interact with any of the results.
	ANOVAs were conducted for the item, “Overall, I think that UBC/Doshisha is a better school to go to than SFU/Ritsumeikan.”  A significant Culture  School interaction emerged, F(2, 532) = 8.76, p < .001.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that this interaction was due to the fact that, although all three cultural groups exhibited some university-serving biases (i.e., students from UBC and Doshisha agreed with this item more than students from SFU and Ritsumeikan), the discrepancy between European-Canadians from UBC and SFU (Ms = 3.8 and 2.4, respectively, F[1, 212] = 98.92, p < .001) was larger than the discrepancy between Doshisha and Ritsumeikan (Ms = 3.5 and 3.0, respectively, F[1, 225] = 11.45, p < .001).  The discrepancy between Asian-Canadians from UBC and SFU (Ms = 3.6 and 2.6, respectively, F[1, 103] = 30.13, p < .001) fell between the other two cultural groups.
	The final item, “I think that most UBC/Doshisha students are glad that they went to UBC/Doshisha instead of SFU/Ritsumeikan,” also revealed a significant Culture  School interaction, F(2, 532) = 7.11, p < .001.  European-Canadians clearly showed evidence of a university-serving bias as students from UBC endorsed this item (M = 3.7) to a greater extent than did students from SFU (M =3.2; F[1, 212] = 13.06, p < .001).  In contrast, Japanese showed a slight university-effacing bias as students from Doshisha (M =3.1) endorsed this item marginally less than did students from Ritsumeikan (M = 3.4; F[1, 225] = 3.27, p < .08).  Asian-Canadians again fell between, displaying neither a university-serving nor a university-effacing bias, (Ms = 3.5 and 3.3 for UBC and SFU students, respectively, F[1, 103] < 1).  These final two items provide additional evidence that positively-biased views of one’s university are more pronounced among European-Canadians than Japanese, with Asian-Canadians falling in the middle.  That cultural differences in USBs were replicated employing measures distinct from the university and student evaluation measures increases our confidence that group-serving biases are not as common among Japanese as Canadians.
	Taken together, cross-cultural comparisons of the dependent measures in Study 2 demonstrate that aside from the one exception of European-Canadians’ evaluations for the interdependent traits, both groups of Canadians exhibited stronger university-serving tendencies than did Japanese.  In fact, in two instances Japanese demonstrated university-effacing responses.  Clearly this pattern of results is at odds with the notion that Japanese enhance themselves by evaluating their groups in unrealistically positive terms.  When evaluating their universities, Japanese demonstrated a similar lack of enhancement as when they evaluated themselves.  Cultural differences in self-enhancement appear to have little to do with whether the target is an individual or a group.
General Discussion
	The results of both studies support the “process” view of cultural differences in self-enhancement.  Japanese consistently exhibited weaker group-serving biases than did both groups of Canadians and occasionally Japanese were actually group-effacing.  No evidence suggested that Japanese compensate for a lack of individual self-enhancement by enhancing their groups more than (or even as much as) Canadians.  Aside from the exception that European-Canadians did not exhibit university-enhancement for interdependent traits, both groups of Canadians enhanced both their family-members and their universities more than Japanese, for both independent and interdependent traits.  Moreover, both groups of Canadians had higher public collective self-esteem scores than Japanese across both studies.  Cultural differences in self-enhancement found in previous research (e.g., Heine & Lehman, 1995a, 1996c; Markus & Kitayama, 1991a) do not appear simply to be a function of differences in the target of evaluation.  They appear to reflect general differences in tendencies to enhance aspects of the self.
	In short, we found that cultural differences in self-serving biases are paralleled by differences in group-serving biases.  This suggests the possibility that motivations for enhancing one’s individual self and for enhancing one’s group are similar  This possibility is in line with other research indicating how group-enhancement or other-group derogation serve to enhance the self (e.g., Brown et al., 1988; Lemyre & Smith, 1985; Tajfel & Turner, 1986).  It appears that self-enhancement, regardless of whether the characteristics that are enhanced relate to one’s groups or one’s internal attributes, is fostered more in North American culture than in Japanese culture.
	This link between self-enhancement and group-enhancement was also supported by the pattern of correlations between the FSBs and the other dependent variables in Study 1.  European-Canadians appear to enhance themselves indirectly when they enhance their evaluations of their family members.  Their FSBs were related to how close they felt to their family members, their self-esteem, and their tendencies towards self-enhancement.  It seems as though European-Canadians bask in the reflected glory of their family members (Cialdini et al., 1976).  Saying, for example, that their mom is better than most others on a variety of traits apparently makes European-Canadians feel better about themselves.  That Japanese did not demonstrate much evidence for this “reflected enhancement” suggests a relative absence in their motivations for self-enhancement.  Positive assessments of their family members had little relation to their own evaluations and thus do not seem to be grounded in motivations to indirectly enhance themselves.
	Moreover, the frequent findings that Asian-Canadians exhibited group-serving biases and collective public self-esteem scores intermediate to the European-Canadians and Japanese underscores the role of culture in evaluations of one’s group.  The present studies provide evidence that group-serving biases appear to become more pronounced alongside exposure to Western culture (see also Heine & Lehman, 1996b).  This finding suggests that Western culture may provide a relatively greater emphasis to view oneself and one’s groups positively (Heine & Lehman, 1995a, 1996c; Kitayama et al., 1995; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b).
The Cultural Construction of Self-Enhancement
	The present results add to the growing body of literature indicating that self-enhancing tendencies appear for the most part to be absent in the Japanese motivational repertoire.  We suggest that whereas North Americans are better able to achieve the cultural ideals associated with independence and individualism by viewing themselves positively, the culturally mandated task of achieving interdependence for Japanese is not aided by self-enhancing thoughts.  The Japanese cultural environment does not appear to nourish such unrealistic self-assessments.
	To the contrary, a burgeoning literature is suggesting that Japanese culture encourages individuals to maintain a self-critical view of themselves (e.g., Heine & Lehman, 1996c; Kitayama et al., in press; Takata, 1987).  Individuals in collectivistic societies are not in a strong position to determine for themselves whether they are succeeding or not—they must endeavor for others to be satisfied with their performances (e.g., Roland, 1988; Spence, 1985).  Succeeding in Japanese culture thus requires individuals to be aware of the consensually-defined standards of excellence within a given context.  Japanese must critically assess themselves to determine how they fall short of the consensual expectations and then seek to eliminate the perceived deficits.  It is crucial for Japanese to develop the skills to attend to, and elaborate on, their shortcomings with respect to the pertinent social standards.  Information indicating how one has fallen short of the consensual standards is used to improve one’s actions and behaviors, to affirm one’s sense of belongingness, and to promote harmony within the group (Heine & Lehman, 1996c; Kitayama et al., in press; Markus et al., in press).
	Reflecting this habitual self-critical orientation are the various interpersonal scripts that get played out in everyday life in Japan whereby people communicate their personal inadequacies and limitations (Marsella, Walker, & Johnson, 1973).  Examples of such processes are amae (i.e., the notion that one indulges one’s sense of dependency on others; Doi, 1973), an emphasis on shame (Benedict, 1946; Lebra, 1983), the widespread occurrence of apologies in Japan (Barnlund & Yoshioka, 1990), and the emphasis on self-criticism that is encouraged in the child-rearing process (White & Levine, 1986).  Clearly, such an outlook is at odds with the well-documented self-enhancing tendencies of North Americans.  The results of the present investigations suggest that this self-critical orientation may extend to encompass one’s groups as well (for a more detailed discussion of self-criticism and Japanese see Heine & Lehman, 1996c; Heine et al., 1996; Kitayama et al., in press; Markus et al., in press).
	We are not suggesting that Japanese are not proud of, or happy with, being associated with a positively viewed group.  This is a critical distinction to make.  We would not question that the typical Tokyo University student is very proud of being a member of the top-ranked school in Japan.  Similarly, the immense popularity among Japanese of Hideo Nomo, winner of the 1995 National League Rookie of the Year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, demonstrates clearly that Japanese enjoy it when a member of their group is looked upon favorably.  However, our data reveal that Japanese do not hold unrealistically positive appraisals of their groups.  They neither distort the positivity of their groups or their selves.  Although we have no objective benchmarks in the present studies to assess just how biased a given individual’s responses are, we speculate that Japanese responses are based more on how others view themselves and their groups than on how they ideally would like to be viewed.  Success in Japanese society requires individuals to gain an accurate understanding of how others view them (Heine et al., 1996; Spence, 1985).
Limitations and Future Directions
	Some readers may be concerned that because Japanese culture values modesty (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991b) the cultural differences found in the present studies might merely be due to Japanese exhibiting modest response styles in their questionnaire answers.  Indeed, one characteristic frequently attributed to Japanese is the great distinction they make between their public presentation (tatemae) and their private feelings (honne; Doi, 1986; Johnson, 1993; Lebra, 1976).  It is conceivable that this distinction is such an integral part of Japanese life that individuals are reluctant to express their true private thoughts, even anonymously in questionnaires.  That is, perhaps privately Japanese are as self-enhancing as North Americans, but are reluctant to express such thoughts in psychological studies because of concerns regarding impression management.  
	This alternative account hinges on the notion that Japanese disguise their responses in psychological studies in a modest direction to a greater extent than do people from Western cultures.  However, we know of no empirical evidence to support this account and, in fact, there is a growing body of evidence challenging it.  For example, Kitayama et al. (in press) found no differences in Japanese tendencies to interpret daily situations in terms of self-criticism when they were evaluating the typical undergraduate compared to when they were evaluating themselves.  That is, there was no evidence that self-evaluations were colored by impression management.  Comparisons of impression management response sets between Japanese (and Asians more generally) and European-Canadians have similarly revealed no cultural differences (Heine & Lehman, 1995b; Lai & Linden, 1993).  Moreover, other studies have revealed that the pattern of responses in cross-cultural studies of self-esteem and self-enhancement are not consistent with modest response set interpretations (Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, 1995; Heine & Lehman, 1995a).   Most compelling, however, are studies employing hidden behavioral or unobtrusive measures that have revealed, respectively, self-effacing tendencies (Heine, 1996; Takata, 1987) and an absence of dissonance-reducing self-affirmational tendencies (Heine & Lehman, in press) among Japanese in conditions in which they had no opportunity to “correct” their public presentation.  These studies are all consistent with the notion that Japanese do not just say that they (or their groups) are no better than average: they truly seem to believe it.
	Our investigations of group-serving biases were limited to only two categories: one’s closest family member and one’s university.  Although Canadians clearly were more group-serving than Japanese with respect to both of these categories, it is possible that a different pattern would emerge with different target groups.  Perhaps certain elements of groups that are absent in families and universities may elicit more pronounced group-serving biases in Japanese.  For example, groups that are based solely on voluntary memberships (such as groups of friends), groups that work towards a similar goal (such as companies or sports teams), or groups at a larger level (such as one’s country), might elicit stronger group-serving effects in Japanese, than families or universities.  However, we know of no research linking such elements of groups to stronger group pride among Japanese, and we can think of no reason to believe that this would affect Japanese more than Canadians.  Importantly, that European-Canadians had significantly higher public collective self-esteem scores than Japanese with the generic target “my social group” casts doubt on the notion that a different pattern of results would obtain had we selected different groups to investigate.
	A second, potential limitation is that asking Japanese to evaluate a family member and their university on the basis of internal attributes might itself be an imposed-etic.  The identity of the interdependent self is anchored more in its relationships with others than in its internal attributes (Hamaguchi, 1985; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b).  This suggests that, to the extent that enhancement biases are present in the Japanese motivational repertoire, Japanese would be most likely to enhance when evaluating the quality of their relationships relative to others (Endo, 1996).  In collaboration with Endo, we are currently investigating this possibility.
	Targeting groups for evaluation instead of individuals has been an important step towards realizing methodologies for understanding the nature of the interdependent view of self.  In many respects, though, we are still relying on Western methodologies and the risk for results obscured by imposed-etics are still present.  That the identity of the interdependent self is typically described as being defined by the situation and by the individual's relationships (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991b) suggests that the methodologies we employ should similarly be sensitive to these issues.  It remains a challenge for researchers to develop new, indigenous measures and methodologies to provide an understanding of the Eastern view of self that is not distorted by our Western lenses (cf. Chinese Culture Connection, 1987).  Future research, preferably conducted by (or in collaboration with) Asian investigators, holds the promise of developing and employing more interdependently oriented methodologies towards this end.

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Appendix A.  Characteristics of Universities and Students
University Characteristics
1)  	University X has an excellent reputation among Canadian/Japanese universities.
2)	University X graduates tend to enter the upper ranks of society.
3)	University X has top-notch facilities.				
4)	University X graduates tend to get good jobs.			
5)	University X provides a high quality education.

Student Characteristics
Independent Characteristics
1)	University X students are quite interesting people.
2)   University X students are very creative.		
3)	University X students are highly intelligent.
4)	University X students are quite physically attractive.	
5)	University X students are athletic.

Interdependent Characteristics
1)	University X students are very loyal to their school.	
2)	University X students are considerate.
3)	University X students are particularly hard-working.
4) 	University X students are very easy to get along with.				
5)	University X students are cooperative.

Author Notes
	This research was supported by a Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship to Steven J. Heine while on tenure at Ritsumeikan University and by grants 410-93-1295 and 410-96-1600  from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to Darrin R. Lehman.
	Both studies reported here were included in Heine’s Ph.D. dissertation, which was supervised by Lehman.  We thank the other members of the Ph.D. committee, Jennifer Campbell, John Pinel, and Jim Russell, for their valuable feedback, and Jonathon Brown, David Mandel, and Hisaya Matsumoto for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.  We are especially grateful to Lim Bon, Roger Buehler, Yumi Endo, Tsukasa Hashimoto, Cathy McFarland, and Katsuhiro Ohashi for their assistance in data collection.
	Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Steven J. Heine or Darrin R. Lehman, Department of Psychology, 2136 West Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z4.  E-mail may be sent to sheine@unixg.ubc.ca  or dlehman@cortex.psych.ubc.ca

Footnotes
1A significant main effect for sex emerged for public CSE, F(1, 193) = 5.14, p < .03, with  females (M = 15.2) scoring higher than males (M = 14.4).

2 A main effect for sex emerged here for the Doshisha sample, F(1, 82) = 7.64, p < .01.  Simple-effects analyses revealed that Doshisha females rated Ritsumeikan (M = 17.8) lower than they did Doshisha (M = 20.4; F[1, 56] = 28.61, p < .001, whereas males showed no difference, F(1, 26) < 1.  

3A main effect for sex emerged for public CSE, F(1, 577) = 10.09, p < .01, in which females (16.1) scored higher than males (15.4).

4A significant correlation emerged between age and identity USE both for the Japanese, r = -.15 and for the European Canadian sample, r = -.14, both ps < .05.  Controlling for age via an ANCOVA did not affect the magnitude of the cross-cultural difference.

Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations for the Main Dependent Measures in Study 1

	Japanese	Asian-
Canadians	European-
Canadians	
Self-serving biases
(Independent items)	47.3%a
(16.0)	36.3%b
(16.2)	27.5%c
(13.8)	
Self-serving biases
(Interdependent Items)	43.9%a
(13.8)	27.4%b
(13.5)	23.7%b
(12.0)	
Family-serving biases
(Independent items)	38.6%a
(14.3)	28.0%b
(16.2)	23.5%b
(12.6)	
Family-serving biases
(Interdependent items)	30.6%a
(13.9)	20.4%b
(16.2)	18.5%b
(13.3)	
Rosenberg Self-Esteem	34.0a
(6.77)	36.4ab
(5.85)	39.4b
(6.00)	
Membership C.S.E.	14.5a
(2.54)	15.3ab
(2.19)	16.1b
(2.00)	
Private C.S.E.	16.0a
(3.02)	15.5a
(2.32)	16.2a
(2.15)	
Public C.S.E.	14.1a
(2.40)	15.0ab
(1.80)	15.4b
(2.07)	
Identity C.S.E.	13.4a
(3.03)	13.7a
(2.90)	13.5a
(2.51)	
Note. 	Standard deviations are reported in parentheses.
	Rows with different letters are significant at p  .01.
Table 2
Correlations Between Family-Serving Biases and Other Dependent Measures

	Japanese	Asian-Canadians	European-Canadians	
	FSB
(Indep.)	FSB
(Inter.)		FSB
(Indep.)	FSB
(Inter.)		FSB
(Indep.)	FSB
(Inter.)	
FSB-Independent	---	.32**		---	.66**		---	.64**	
FSB-Interdependent	.32**	---		.66**	---		.64**	---	
SSB-Independent	.26*	.27*		.64**	.52**		.53**	.35**	
SSB-Interdependent	-.16	.20		.49**	.52**		.49**	.46**	
Closeness	-.09	-.12		-.21	-.12		-.36**	-.37**	
Rosenberg SE	-.03	-.13		-.11	.06		-.32**	-.26*	
Membership CSE	.05	-.12		.00	-.02		-.16	-.19	
Private CSE	-.07	-.09		-.02	.16		-.04	-.10	
Public CSE	.07	-.01		-.21	-.05		-.18	-.25*	
Identity CSE	.05	-.31**		-.05	.10		-.02	-.01	
Note: 	  *   r is significant at p < .05
	  ** r is significant at p < .01

Table 3 
Means and Standard Deviations for University and Student Evaluations in Study 2

		Japanese	Asian-Canadians	European-Canadians	
		Target	Target	Target	
		Dosh.	Ritsu.	UBC	SFU	UBC	SFU	
	Evaluator							

Evaluations of 	UBC/
Dosh.	3.90a
(.71)	3.54b
(.67)	4.16a
(.73)	3.62b
(.77)	4.46a
(.71)	3.82b
(.73)
	
Universities	SFU/
Ritsu.	4.14a
(.62)	3.38b
(.74)	4.24a
(.77)	4.00b
(.82)	4.40a
(.73)	4.14b
(.63)

Evaluations of Independent 	UBC/
Dosh.	3.72a
(.52)	3.55b
(.60)	3.73a
(.73)	3.37b
(.76)
	3.99a
(.72)	3.84b
(.67)	
Student Characteristics	SFU/
Ritsu.	3.54a
(.71)	3.53a
(.71)
	3.33a
(.87)	3.57b
(.88)	3.68a
(.75)	3.88b
(.72)	

Evaluations of Interdependent	UBC/
Dosh.	3.33a
(.66)	3.72b
(.56)	3.77a
(.68)	3.51b
(.66)
	3.83a
(.71)	3.79a
(.68)	
Student Characteristics	SFU/
Ritsu.	3.31a
(.62)	3.65b
(.77)	3.38a
(.75)	3.58a
(.95)	3.73a
(.71)	3.80a
(.67)	

Note.  	Standard deviations are reported in parentheses.	
	Rows with different letters are significantly different at p < .05 within each column.

Table 4 
Means and Standard Deviations for University Self-Esteem Subscale Scores in Study 2

	Japanese	Asian-Canadians	European-Canadians	
Membership	10.8a
(3.05)	13.6b
(3.05)	15.1c
(2.53)
	
Private	14.4a
(3.19)	15.2a
(2.93)	16.2b
(2.54)
	
Public	14.6a
(2.49)	15.9b
(2.00)	16.8c
(1.99)
	
Identity	12.0a
(3.53)	12.5
(3.34)	11.7a
(3.30)

Note. 	Standard deviations are reported in parentheses.
	Rows with different letters are significantly different at p < .001.