Henrik Singmann 1 , A. Timur Sevincer 1 , Hyekyung Park 2 , & Shinobu Kitayama 2

1. Voluntary Settlement Within Cultures: Independence and Interdependence in German Settlers vs. Native Residents Henrik Singmann1, A. Timur Sevincer1, Hyekyung Park2, & Shinobu Kitayama 2 1 University of Hamburg, 2 University of Michigan • Methods • Participants • Secondary analysis of 125 German participants from the University of Hamburg from Kitayama et al. (2009): • 53 settlers (moved to Hamburg, 47% female, Mage = 26.5, SDage = 6.3) • 54 natives (lived in greater Hamburg throughout their whole life, 64% female, Mage = 25.4, SDage = 6.0) • 18 excluded (did not provide enough information) • Materials • Focused vs. holistic attention. FLT: Participants were asked to draw a line based on the absolute (the absolute task) or relative length (the relative task) of a previously seen line. The absolute task requires attention focused on the target line. The relative task requires attention broadly allocated to the target line and the surrounding square. Errors (in mm) of six trials of each task were averaged to form one absolute (α = .64) and one relative (α = .68) error scale. Results Focused vs. Holistic Attention • Introduction • Voluntary Settlement Hypothesis • Voluntary settlement refers to actively and personally choosing to leave one’s hometown to move and settle in another place. Because voluntary settlement requires a strong orientation towards personal goal pursuit and personal choice, it has been hypothesized that voluntary settlement is closely linked to independent mentalities. Indeed, cultures that have undergone a recent history of voluntary settlement show a more independent orientation than cultures that have not undergone such a history (Kitayama et al., 2006; 2009). • The Present Research • Although voluntary settlement hypothesis has so far been used to account for some specific cross-cultural and regional variations, it may also account for some individual differences in independence. The aim of the present project is to investigate whether students who voluntarily changed their residence to attend a university (settlers) are more independent than native students at the university town (natives). • Measures of Independence and Interdependence: • Attention focus (Framed Line Task; FLT; Kitayama, et al., 2003) • Symbolic self-inflation (sociogram task) • Explicit self-beliefs measure (Self-Construal Scale; Singelis, 1994) • Attribution style (four vignettes; Kitayama, et al., 2006) Summary Settlers were more independent than natives on three of four measures. Specifically, settlers (a) exhibited more focused attention, (b) showed a relatively bigger symbolic self, and (c) harbored more independent explicit self-believes than natives. However no differences were found in participants’ style of attribution. Settlers exhibited more focused attention than natives (i.e., compared to natives settlers showed a reduced error rate in the absolute task, p < .05). There was no difference on the relative task . Conclusion The present research suggests that individuals who engage in voluntary settlement have a more independent mentality than individuals who do not engage in such settlement. Symbolic Self-Inflation Settlers exhibited a larger symbolic self-inflation than natives (i.e., settlers drew larger self-circles compared to mean of friends circles than natives, p < .05). Copy: either relative or absolute line size (Presentation for 5 sec) References Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look. Psychological Science, 14, 201-206. Kitayama, S., Ishi, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K., & Ramaswamy, J. (2006). Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan’s “northern frontier”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 369-384. Kitayama, Park, Sevincer, Karasawa, & Uskul (2009). A Cultural Task Analysis of Implicit Independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Manuscript submitted for publication. Singelis, T. M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 580-591. Symbolic self-inflation. Sociogram task: Participants drew their social network. The relative size of the self circle in comparison to the average size of the circles for the friends (horizontal diameter) is our measure of symbolic self-inflation. Greater symbolic self-inflation indicates a more independent orientation. • Example of sociogram Explicit Self-Beliefs Settlers scored higher than natives on the independence scale (p < .01) . There was no difference on the interdependence scale. • Explicit self-beliefs. Self-construal scale: • 12 items on self-beliefs about independence (e.g., “I am comfortable with being singled out for praise or rewards”), 1-5 scale, α = .64. • 12 items on self-beliefs about interdependence (e.g., “It is important for me to maintain harmony within my group”), 1-5 scale, α = .58. Poster presented at the Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Tampa, FL, February 2009