Author

Marina Garcia

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Cottrell, Catherine

Keywords

United States, Philippines, Anxiety, Modesty, Culture

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Previous cultural research has shown that there lies a disparity in the way people of Western, individualistic cultures and the way those of Eastern, collectivistic cultures interpret socially anxious and self-effacing behaviors (e.g., being modesty or shy in a group, playing down achievements, attributing achievements to luck). The current study aims to investigate cross-cultural variations in self-reported social anxiety, as well as interpretations of self-effacing behaviors among nonclinical samples in the United States (an individualistic society) and the Philippines (a collectivistic society). Participants were recruited through the social media website of Facebook and completed an online survey via SurveyMonkey. The researcher predicted that Filipino participants’ interdependent self-construals will be positively associated with social anxiety, whereas American participants’ independent self-construals will be negatively associated with social anxiety. Moreover, Filipino participants will be more likely to interpret self-effacing behaviors as behaviors of modesty, while American participants will be more likely to interpret such as behaviors of social anxiety.

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